HDD not recognized in Device manager or Disk Management

[darthveder]

Hello all,

I'm doing some work on a friends computer and he asked me to backup all of his files before I do any work on the OS that might cause some trouble. Neither of us have an external drive large enough to hold everything he wants backup up and his computer wont boot unless its in safe mode. Initially I tried putting his two 500GB HDD's into my computer and just backing up into my internal backup drive, but the two drives are connected in his system to make one 1TB drive in his Device and Disk manager and my computer cant figure out the connection, so they were rendered useless on my computer. So I turned to another alternative that I was familiar with, adding an empty internal hard drive to his system and backing up to that.

I had a couple that we were going to backup to in parts (all but users file to one and users file to another) we got an old IDE HDD and backed up all but his users file without any issues. Next, I plugged in the SATA HDD backup drive from my computer and nothing. I checked the BIOS and the drive is recognized there, but when it comes to windows it doesn't even show up in the device manager (nor in disk management). I need help figuring out why it wont show in windows at all.

if it makes a difference, the system that wont recognize it is a Dell XPS360i and if I'm correct has the two 500GB HDDs connected through a RAID software through NVIDIA.

thanks in advance to any and all help offered!

-Demi

 

[Cokacola14]

Are the two hard drives (both the primary and the secondary) hooked up to the one computer? if so how long does it take to boot up, also if your in bios, can you booot from your primary and also see the backup HDD? more specifics on the setup of what hard drive to what please

happy to reply.

 

[Saga Lout]

happy to reply.

And only six weeks late. 😀 Shame no-one picked this one up sooner - hopefully it's fixed by now.

 

[Cokacola14]

happy to reply.

And only six weeks late. 😀 Shame no-one picked this one up sooner - hopefully it's fixed by now.

whoops. haha well i guess its never to late to try. haha, i didnt even see the date.

 

[darthveder]

Are the two hard drives (both the primary and the secondary) hooked up to the one computer? if so how long does it take to boot up, also if your in bios, can you booot from your primary and also see the backup HDD? more specifics on the setup of what hard drive to what please

happy to reply.

Hey, Thanks for your interest in helping me solve my problem, I had practically given up on this computer. I actually just left town and the system with the issue, but I'll be back in town around the 11th of this month, and be able to give you more specifics on the drives themselves, but for now I believe I can adequately answer your questions.

The two drives in the trouble computer are both connected to the computer, and visible in the bios, but when windows boots up (which takes 20+ min unless you boot in safe mode) there is only one drive visible. when you try to boot from each drive, the computer does the exact same thing regardless of which drive you choose to boot from. Once in windows (safe mode) extra IDE HDDs that I add are recognized, and useable without any problems, but when I try to plug in another SATA HDD, windows will not recognize it. The bios will recognize the two native SATA HDDs that came with the system as well as any other SATA or IDE HDDs added, but windows will only recognize the two native HDDs and any extra IDE HDDS, NOT any extra SATA drives. I hope that answers your questions, and if there's anything else I can tell you that would help you help me I will not hesitate to answer them to the best of my ability until I get back to the system. Thank you again for your interest in helping me with my problem system. I was literally about to just give up all hope.

 

[Cokacola14]

Are the two hard drives (both the primary and the secondary) hooked up to the one computer? if so how long does it take to boot up, also if your in bios, can you booot from your primary and also see the backup HDD? more specifics on the setup of what hard drive to what please

happy to reply.

Hey, Thanks for your interest in helping me solve my problem, I had practically given up on this computer. I actually just left town and the system with the issue, but I'll be back in town around the 11th of this month, and be able to give you more specifics on the drives themselves, but for now I believe I can adequately answer your questions.

The two drives in the trouble computer are both connected to the computer, and visible in the bios, but when windows boots up (which takes 20+ min unless you boot in safe mode) there is only one drive visible. when you try to boot from each drive, the computer does the exact same thing regardless of which drive you choose to boot from. Once in windows (safe mode) extra IDE HDDs that I add are recognized, and useable without any problems, but when I try to plug in another SATA HDD, windows will not recognize it. The bios will recognize the two native SATA HDDs that came with the system as well as any other SATA or IDE HDDs added, but windows will only recognize the two native HDDs and any extra IDE HDDS, NOT any extra SATA drives. I hope that answers your questions, and if there's anything else I can tell you that would help you help me I will not hesitate to answer them to the best of my ability until I get back to the system. Thank you again for your interest in helping me with my problem system. I was literally about to just give up all hope.

Thats definetely better information that we can start to work off of. well once in windows, navigate to Computer Management, then click the Disk management tab. there you should see DISK 0, DISK 1, and after that DISK 2, where disk 2 should be the third drive you connected, if you dont see it, then power down windows. boot up and go into your bios, from there you should go to the BOOT tab, now navigate to boot priority order.

In boot priority order, you should place your first and primary HDD in position 1 or the top of the list. the trouble one as 2, and the Regular 2nd HDD into 3, now try booting up, and repeat the process into disk management.

After you complete these steps, update me on whats happened or if i resolved the issue in general. im happy to help.

Cheers*

 

[momorgan]

I got the same SATA 2nd HDD problem and Disk Management can't see my 2nd HDD.
Both Seagates show up just fine in Device Manager and the BIOS so all connections are working.
Disk Management obviously isn't the solution, even when running as Administrator.

 

[Saga Lout]

Do you have a setting in BIOS marked AHCI? If you have and it's set to IDE, change it back and see if that makes the SATA drive show up.