[SOLVED] Missing Hard Drive

[xenginex]

Hello,
I had an issue with the Windows OS by which I had 2 OS's installed on my machine (it's a long story). I ended up deleting one of them. On that OS that I deleted, when I navigate to "This PC", I can clearly see that I have an SSD(480gb), an HDD(2TB), and my Local C Drive. Now on the remaining OS that I have, in This PC, only the HDD and the SSD are present. There's no third drive.
Any help would be much appreciated.

 

[rgd1101]

go to disk management and see if there is free space

 

[xenginex]

go to disk management and see if there is free space

Hi. Okay, but what does free space have to do with my missing drive? My SSD is empty, and I only have the OS on the HDD (which is the new Local C), but the third drive isn't there.

 

[USAFRet]

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

 

[xenginex]

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

Here you go:
https://imageshack.com/i/pndUCWdOp

I was thinking. The third drive that's missing contained the version of Windows that I deleted. The second version of windows is on my HDD. The missing drive can't have possibly been deleted, it's a physical hard drive.

 

[USAFRet]

The 'third drive', which we can't see in that screencap...
The scroll bar on the right implies that there is something below, that we cannot see.

 

[xenginex]

The 'third drive', which we can't see in that screencap...
The scroll bar on the right implies that there is something below, that we cannot see.

Yes the third item in the list, if scrolled down, will show the optical disk drive.

 

[USAFRet]

Yes the third item in the list, if scrolled down, will show the optical disk drive.

Then that might imply that it is physically disconnected.
Check all the cables.

 

[USAFRet]

Why so many OS's?
Which ones?
What is supposed to be on each drive?

 

[xenginex]

Then that might imply that it is physically disconnected.
Check all the cables.

I will check all cabling, hopefully it's a cable issue.
Thanks for the help!

 

[xenginex]

Why so many OS's?
Which ones?
What is supposed to be on each drive?

The 2 OS's is a long story, but I'll make it brief.
At first I had a single version of Windows (10 Home), but it need activation. I wanted to upgrade so I bought a windows 10 pro license and idiotically installed it on my HDD, yielding 2 OS's. I deleted the Home version, and formatted my PC. Now I have a single version (pro). The new local C is now my HDD. And the SSD is present. Shouldn't there be a third drive? (hard drive). Prior to deletion and format, on the Home, I could vividly see that there are 3 drives in This PC; The Local C hard drive, HDD and SSD. So I'm pretty sceptic about any cabling issues.

 

[hotaru251]

if it isnt a connection issue i'd check BIOS and see if it detects it there or not.

also some drives need more work than just plug and play.
some drives will need initiated (which wipes data and gets it ready for use)

 

[xenginex]

if it isnt a connection issue i'd check BIOS and see if it detects it there or not.

also some drives need more work than just plug and play.
some drives will need initiated (which wipes data and gets it ready for use)

The first thing I did was check the BIOS. In the "Storage" section, only the HDD and SSD are listed, in addition to the optical disk drive.

 

[USAFRet]

If it is not visible in the BIOS, either disconnected, or a dead drive, or a port disabled.

 

[xenginex]

If it is not visible in the BIOS, either disconnected, or a dead drive, or a port disabled.

I'll check all the above and update this post upon a breakthrough.
Thanks a bunch for the help guys!

 

[popatim]

Open your PC and verify that you have 3 actual drives installed into your system.

Drive letters get assigned to partitions so I suspect that when you installed Pro that it assigned a Drive letter to the System or recovery partition on the other drive.

 

[xenginex]

Open your PC and verify that you have 3 actual drives installed into your system.

Drive letters get assigned to partitions so I suspect that when you installed Pro that it assigned a Drive letter to the System or recovery partition on the other drive.

On the current OS, all options and settings suggest that I only have 2 drives, my HDD and SSD. It's very weird, on the Home, I had the system hard drive, the HDD and SSD. I just checked the cabling, everything seems to be in order, and I doubt that I have a corrupt drive, because I had a lot of files and programs installed there (the missing drive), and nothing seemed to be out of balance. You have a good point about the drive letter, but the actual drive isn't there to begin with. Neither in the disk management, nor in the BIOS

 

[USAFRet]

Open the case and eyeball the physical drives.
What is in there?

If you discover there are actually 3 physical drives, this is when you also check the actual cable connections.

 

[xenginex]

Open the case and eyeball the physical drives.
What is in there?

If you discover there are actually 3 physical drives, this is when you also check the actual cable connections.

Last time I checked, I saw the HDD and SSD, with the correct cable connections to the motherboard and psu. I will give it another look when I can, I'm at work, so that will have to wait.
Thanks.

 

[USAFRet]

Last time I checked, I saw the HDD and SSD, with the correct cable connections to the motherboard and psu. I will give it another look when I can, I'm at work, so that will have to wait.
Thanks.

So, two physical drives.
One of them had more than one partition, and somehow the drive letter disappeared. Correct?

Not a missing drive, but rather a missing partition.

 

[xenginex]

So, two physical drives.
One of them had more than one partition, and somehow the drive letter disappeared. Correct?

Not a missing drive, but rather a missing partition.

A missing partition yes. But this missing partition can't be from one of those two physical drives, because the current space on both of them is correct. The HDD is 2TB, and the SSD is 480gb. I forgot the capacity of this missing partition when it was visible on Windows Home.

 

[USAFRet]

And I was going down the road of a missing 3rd physical drive.

All this back and forth with multiple OS installs could easily have wiped out whatever was there before.
Resulting in the 2TB HDD being the C and the SSD being the D.

 

[xenginex]

And I was going down the road of a missing 3rd physical drive.

All this back and forth with multiple OS installs could easily have wiped out whatever was there before.
Resulting in the 2TB HDD being the C and the SSD being the D.

Okay, but whatever was there was a partition. And I can remember it being over 200gb in size. I'm not sure if it was partitioned from the SSD. Either my memory is failing me, or something's wrong with the drives.