Internal hard drive detected in Disk Management with a blue bar, but not on Computer.

[bennolp]

Hello, I recently built a new PC with a fresh install of Windows 7 on a new SSD. I carried over 2 of my old hard drives from my old PC build, neither of which had Windows installed on them, one was a 500GB and the other a 1TB.

The 500GB hard drive is working fine and has all the original files that were stored on it but the 1TB drive is not. The drive is detected under Disk Management and the BIOS, what is strange is that the hard drive is listed on Disk Management as working with a blue bar. It is missing an allocated letter and 'File System' though.

(Pic of disk management)

(and the file explorer)

The PC build I carried the hard drive over from had Windows 10 installed FYI.

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, bennolp.

It really does sound pretty strange. Have you tried assigning the drive a new letter (even though it doesn't detect its file system)? I'd suggest that you check if the cables are properly connected to the drive and mobo as well, in case there's a loose connection. You could also try it with a different SATA port, to see if the same thing happens. Do you need the HDD's data? If not, I'd suggest that you download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics tool and run the tests, to see if any errors or bad sectors pop-up. If everything seems fine (if you don't need your data) you could try to reformat it and see if that fixes the issue.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

 

[bennolp]

Hey there, bennolp.

It really does sound pretty strange. Have you tried assigning the drive a new letter (even though it doesn't detect its file system)? I'd suggest that you check if the cables are properly connected to the drive and mobo as well, in case there's a loose connection. You could also try it with a different SATA port, to see if the same thing happens. Do you need the HDD's data? If not, I'd suggest that you download the HDD manufacturer's diagnostics tool and run the tests, to see if any errors or bad sectors pop-up. If everything seems fine (if you don't need your data) you could try to reformat it and see if that fixes the issue.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD

I tried as you suggested and checked the cables, everything is properly connected to the mobo and the drives. I also tried using a different SATA port but the same thing happens. You suggested changing the assigned letter but I can't find any option to do so, when I right click the drive in Disk Management all the options are greyed out except 'Delete Volume.'

 

[Boogieman_WD]

So you still have the option to reformat the HDD, unless you want to get your data back. If you want to try and recover it, I'd recommend that you try some of the data recovery software options from this thread: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html, or try to access the drive via Ubuntu Live USB/DVD, to see if it's properly recognized and if you can get to your files. If worse comes to worst and none of that works, you could always try a data recovery company.