INTERNAL HDD doesnt show anywhere

[Andorel]

I have an ASUS s550c series ultrabook intel core i5-3317u. Lately it had some kinda system failure and ended up turning on only to show the BIOS menu. I somehow managed to do a format with usb boot windows 10 on the ssd 24 gb partition in the OEM RESERVED Drive , creating an efi partition. The laptop now turns on but it has only 24 gb of memory and the 500gb HDD doesnt show anywhere . not even in CMD diskpart , or disk management. KINGSTON SMSM150S324G ata IS the onliest drive that is shown on the computer device manager. also before formating the system kept telling me that the disk drive is locked... is there a way i can make the hdd visible and not lose data? Or at least make it functional again with data loss ofcourse? thank you

 

[Boogieman_WD]

Hey there, Andorel.

First, I'd suggest that you make sure that you won't affect the warranty in any way if you decide to take out the drive (if the laptop is still under warranty). If this is the case and you can do that without voiding it, I'd suggest that you take the drive out of the laptop and try it with a different computer, either externally (via a SATA to USB adapter, external enclosure, or a docking station), or internally via a standard SATA connection, to see if the same thing happens.
Having in mind that the priority is to keep your data, I'd suggest that you try to access the drive via Ubuntu Live USB, to see if it's properly recognized and if you can get to your files. Another option would be to try out some data recovery programs: http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/id-1644496/lost-data-recovery.html and http://pcsupport.about.com/od/filerecovery/tp/free-file-recovery-programs.htm.
If you decide that you want to give up on the idea of data recovery, you could try scanning the drive with an HDD diagnostic tool, to see if there are any error or bad sectors.

On the other hand, if the laptop is still under warranty and if opening it will void it, I'd suggest that you get in touch with the reseller you got it from or the manufacturer and ask for further assistance and if you need to send it back for repairs.

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