New SSD not showing up as an option

[Geosurface]

Got a 180gb SSD tonight, trying to transfer my Windows C: drive to it from an 80gb SSD which is currently serving that role.

Both are Intel SSD drives.

I'm having issues with the new drive showing up as an option to install Windows onto.

Can anyone tell me what steps I must take to get it to be seen as a viable installation destination for Windows 7 64bit Home Premium installer?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Did you go into disk management and format to add a drive letter.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

http://pcsupport.about.com/od/windows7/ht/disk-management-windows-7.htm

 

[Geosurface]

Did you go into disk management and format to add a drive letter.

I set it up as GBT or GPT or whatever, I was hesitant about giving it a drive letter because I want it to eventually be designated as C: and I thought it'd give me issues for it to have a different letter first

I take it I was wrong on that?

If I want to just clone the 80gb C: drive to this new one, what's the best procedure for that? Is that an idiotic move?

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Intialize it as MBR.

 

[Dark Lord of Tech]

Then format.

 

[Geosurface]

Thanks Blackbird I appreciate your help here.

I think MBR is actually what I did... maybe. I can't check at the moment.

So giving it some other drive letter won't cause problems for it eventually becoming the C:?

Any advice on cloning the current SSD to the new one?

 

[HoboCannibaL]

cloning looks like a hassle, have u thought about just doing a clean install?

 

[Geosurface]

cloning looks like a hassle, have u thought about just doing a clean install?

Yea that's what I ended up doing, I was able to get the system to see the new SSD.

At some point I need to get access to the old SSD for extracting some info from it, but I'm having issues getting the bios to acknowledge that drive. Any thoughts?

 

[HoboCannibaL]

are you talking about your old ssd? or your new one? if its the new one, try changing it to ahci in the bios

 

[Geosurface]

are you talking about your old ssd? or your new one? if its the new one, try changing it to ahci in the bios

It's the old SSD that is currently giving me headaches showing up, but then again it's been a while since I've tried rehooking it up.

Is there any significance to what order the power cord connects to drives, or only the SATA cables? The new SSD came with a black SATA cable with a different sort of lock on it, should I try to make sure to use that for it or is it no better than the red one that came with the 80gb SSD?

Any suggestions on what to do with the 80gb SSD now? I thought about throwing it in my laptop but I'd lose a ton of space on that laptop if I did.

 

[HoboCannibaL]

either one of those cables will work with the new ssd, i like to use the cables that come with the drives, just a habit...

have you tried using the red cable with the one that's not showing up?

and explain to me exactly how you're hooking them up to where you cannot see your old ssd drive

 

[HoboCannibaL]

make sure your sata controller isn't set to ide...it needs to be set to ahci otherwise it will not read it

 

[Geosurface]

Thanks for the replies, HoboCannibaL.

The thing about the original SSD 80gb is that it started giving me headaches showing up (as in, claims there's no valid boot device at system boot up, and then showing up in bios at least most of the time, but just giving me that same message when I try to directly say to boot from it)

... it started doing that before I'd even done anything with the new one other than hook it up to an entirely different cable, which I freed up by removing a very old HDD further down the case.

And this isn't the first time, when the system was stable it was stable but when I was first setting it up? and I believe maybe a time or two since just randomly... yea, this same crap happened.

This ASUS UEFI bios thing seems to like to just suddenly decide there's an issue when nothing's really changed.

I've found people discussing it online, some were saying you had to reinstall windows on the drive, others said (and this was my experience) that just unhooking it and replugging it in could fix it (that's fixed it for me before, but not always)

I haven't tried much with it lately because I'm still sort of sitting on top of a Recova scan that took me like 12 hours to get... and I'm hesitant to reboot, I need to soon but... I'm also hesitant to create for myself a bunch of headaches with the drives showing up and not showing up again, particularly before I fully understand what to expect.

What I really need to know is how both of these SSDs should be hooked up and set up in the bios in order for me to see both, have access to both at the same time, but have the new one be the C: drive as it is currently. I don't want the old one to try to reassert it's C: drive status and screw everything up. I need a basic understanding of what behavior to expect... so I can extract data from that old drive safely.

I'd ask about trying to set up a dual boot with both of them but I feel like that would just be headache city and I wouldn't need it for long anyway.

 

[HoboCannibaL]

i would put the new ssd as the primary and install windows on it, i would setup the other ssd as the secondary.

make sure the new one is plugged into a sata 3 port, the old one may be sata 2, so plug that in where you had it before (preferably a sata 2 port)

in the bios, you need to set the drives for ahci BEFORE you install windows on the new ssd.

 

[HoboCannibaL]

if it wasn't reading your drive before, and then reading it, and then not again....did you check the connection? kinda sounds like a loose connection, did you try plugging it into a different sata port?

 

[Geosurface]

Yea I did some connection checking etc, I just finally rebooted for the first time in a while. I was worried about what you said when you said "in the bios, you need to set the drives for ahci BEFORE you install windows on the new ssd"

Because I'd already installed Windows on the new SSD - but in bios the generalized setting for how SATA is handled is in fact already AHCI - I did that before I installed the first drive. So, I'm good on that right?

Currently, 4 drives are hooked up. That's the maximum I have enough power cable for. The 180gb SSD which is the C: drive with a fresh Windows 7 install on it, a 3tb HDD, and a 2TB HDD. Finally, the 80gb SSD is hooked up. It's not showing up in bios or anywhere else. I'll fiddle with it again soon.

What color are SATA 3 ports and what color are SATA 2? I have blue ports and I think white ones?

If I manage to get the system to acknowledge both SSDs at once am I going to regret it when they both try to be the C: drive? Or is that all taken care of by which one is hooked to the primary cable? That's the only way these sorts of drives are designated right? I remember the old pins for master and slave and what not but none of that applies anymore right?

Something I did with that old SSD was I went through a whole litany of "SSD optimizations" linked somewhere, maybe on this site... not on forums but on an article... and I still need to do that again with this drive. If you have a link to a list like that which you recommend, that'd be awesome. I am sorry to take so much of your time and be so dense about this stuff. I've been burned by these bios lately and before and I'm a bit gunshy, I am trying to make sure I understand everything before I mess with it more.

 

[HoboCannibaL]

yeah master/slave is kinda obsolete now its more primary/secondary, if all of your other drives are reading, i'd start unplugging the other hdd's and just deal with two drives, i believe its the blue ports are sata 3 but i would refer to your mobo manual to be sure.

 

[Geosurface]

I was able to get the other drive visible at the same time, it was assigned E: so no conflict... thanks a ton for all your help

 

[Geosurface]

Best answer selected by Geosurface.

 

[HoboCannibaL]

no problem, glad i could help {=^.^=}