[SOLVED] HDD/SSD Not Detected by BIOS, Unknown and Unitiliazable in Disk Management

[jjniev01]

Problem started in this thread without resolution, but has since morphed into a larger more confusing situation that is going on a week now. I bought a brand new MOBO (MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk) thinking it was the SATA bus that had shorted or something, but the issue persists. All BIOS and chipset drivers are up to date and the problem existed before those were updated.

My HDD/SSDs are not showing up in BIOS when connected via SATA, but the OS will boot via the m.2_2 SSD (uses PCI lanes, not SATA lanes so sharing isn't an issue). This happens across all four of the storage media I am trying to use and persists regardless of power cables used, peripheral plugs on the PSU used, SATA cables used, and SATA ports used. I've tried connecting one drive, all drives at the same time, and everything in between. I've even removed the m.2 card and booted straight to BIOS and it still doesn't recognize any disk as being connected. I'm not feeling the HDDs spin, but I've confirmed they are getting power. My guess is they aren't getting a spin command because the BIOS isn't recognizing that they're there.

I've tried connecting the HDD/SSDs via a SATA/USB enclosure and the drives will show up in Disk Management as "Unknown," "Uninitialized," with no volumes or storage showing up to the right of it in the GUI. However, when I try to initialize the disk, it says "The device is not ready". Odder still, when I try to access it via CMD > diskpart, the disk in question shows up (with 0 storage and 0 free storage), but I cannot convert to GPT/MBR or change any attributes, however the disk lists that it is not read only and the "clean" command runs successfully on any of the HDD/SSDs. This Unknown/Uninitialized problem happens within the computer in question and when connected to two other computers.

Tell me where I need to make the blood sacrifice to make this drives work. I'm fresh out of hair to pull. Thanks for your all's time.

Storage Media in Question:

• WD Blue 500GB 3D NAND SSD 2.5" (Worked pre-move)
• ACME (can't remember brand) 2 TB HDD 2.5" (Worked pre-move)
• OCZ Vertex 3 250GB SSD 2.5" (Known to work)
• WD Blue 4TB 5400 HDD 3.5" (New)

Specs:
OS: Windows 10 (up to date)
MOBO: MSI MAG X570 Tomahawk (latest BIOS and drivers installed)
CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600
RAM 32 GB DDR4 3000
PSU: 650W Thermaltake Toughpower Grand RGB Gold 80+
GPU: AMD Radeon 590 XFX Fatboy
SoundCard: SoundBlaster Audigy FX

 

[RamboRyza]

Might be a stupid question mate, but are the drives set up as IDE or AHCI.

I believe if the drives are setup one way (e.g. AHCI) but your BIOS has defaulted to IDE, they wont be recognized or initialized.

I think I've come across that before but i'm unsure...might be worth a check?

Hope this helps.

 

[jjniev01]

Might be a stupid question mate, but are the drives set up as IDE or AHCI.

I believe if the drives are setup one way (e.g. AHCI) but your BIOS has defaulted to IDE, they wont be recognized or initialized.

I think I've come across that before but i'm unsure...might be worth a check?

Hope this helps.

Not stupid at all and thanks for the reply. It has the options of ACHI or RAID. I have them configured in the BIOS as ACHI as I don't have a RAID setup on any drives.

I should also note that I Enabled all the SATA ports for Hotplugging.

 

[RamboRyza]

Hmm okay, so your drives are configured as AHCI in the OS yeah?

Device Manager shows ATAPI controllers as AHCI?

 

[jjniev01]

Hmm okay, so your drives are configured as AHCI in the OS yeah?

Device Manager shows ATAPI controllers as AHCI?

Yes, in Device Manager under "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" there are two listing of "Standard SATA ACHI Controller" drivers and I've made sure they are up to date.

 

[RamboRyza]

BIOS didn't disable the SATA ports just to drive you nuts did it?

Again pretty obvious thing but I'm stumped with this one.

 

[jjniev01]

BIOS didn't disable the SATA ports just to drive you nuts did it?

Again pretty obvious thing but I'm stumped with this one.

Nah, they're all enabled for hot plugging. I've not seen an option for outright disabling them in this BIOS.

Welcome to the stumped club. Going to try a fresh OS install on the m.2, but that shouldn't be necessary.

 

[RamboRyza]

Yeah agreed, probably not necessary. I still think your BIOS is playing tricks on you, have you cleared CMOS? Sorry if you've said that already.

Try that, clear CMOS, reset BIOS and go again.

Another thought, have you had these drives running hotplugged before? I know some drives just won't do it. Could it be that the drives are just being stubborn and won't hotplug? And can you turn off hotplugging, does that change things?

Cheers mate

 

[jjniev01]

Yeah agreed, probably not necessary. I still think your BIOS is playing tricks on you, have you cleared CMOS? Sorry if you've said that already.

Try that, clear CMOS, reset BIOS and go again.

Another thought, have you had these drives running hotplugged before? I know some drives just won't do it. Could it be that the drives are just being stubborn and won't hotplug? And can you turn off hotplugging, does that change things?

Cheers mate

Yeah, I just reset the CMOS for fun and games with no results.

I don't believe they were hotplugged before, but this problem originated when the hotplugging was turned off and persisted when it was turned on.

Thanks for the suggestions.

 

[RamboRyza]

Ok now that's strange...they were hotplugged fine, turned off and then hotplug re-initiated and now this?

One more thing...some BIOS have eSATA listed, is this set to AHCI? I figure maybe when hotplug was turned off, a setting has changed somewhere. And when turned back on, that setting hasn't changed back.

I believe eSATA is either hotplug or comparable to hotplug, so any incorrect eSATA setting may also affect hotplug.

Otherwise I'm out for now mate, but keep me posted.

 

[jjniev01]

So, I'll go ahead and mark this as solved. The short answer is I'm unlucky as hell. The long answer is that somehow I managed to get 4 bricked hard drives.

Somehow an HDD and an SSD that were anti-static-bagged and bubble wrapped and hand carried through an airport ended up as non-functional by the time I landed back in the USA. A supposedly good SSD that I was using as a control was also bad. And a brand new HDD was bad and not spinning up (since returned for replacement). In between all this I tested voltage coming out of the PSU and all cables and changed all sorts of settings, ports, and cables.

What finally clued me in to the fact that all four drives were bad was:

• their failure to mount when using 2 different SATA/USB enclosures on three different computers
• Digging up a fifth hard drive "known" to be good, which was recognized and mounted fine
• Purchasing a sixth, new, hard drive from the corner store which was also recognized and mounted fine

So, lesson here is that if your m.2 is mounting and being recognized, your SATA cables are correctly placed and known to be good, and all your SATA settings in the BIOS are logically set, it's almost a guarantee its a physical issue with the drives.