Question New SSD shows up in disk management but can't format it

[Chris Martel]

I just installed a new 500gb ssd and when going to disk management to format it and right-clicking the only option is "help." It seems to be grouped up with my boot disk for some reason and also labeled as "recovery partition."

https://imgur.com/a/qKau5zW

View: https://imgur.com/a/qKau5zW


I would just like to use this new ssd to store certain games on but for the life of me I can't find an option to format it or change what it's role is.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[AllanGH]

Near as I can tell, it's already formatted to NTFS.

Can you not access it through whatever file browser you use, as the 'E:' drive?

 

[Chris Martel]

Near as I can tell, it's already formatted to NTFS.

Can you not access it through whatever file browser you use, as the 'E:' drive?

Correct. I can't see it when looking for drives in the normal view. I have c and e (which is a 1tb hdd already installed) and wanted to add this one to have some more storage.

Also, when I use cmd and check for disk partitions it doesn't show up there. Do I have to go into the bios and activate the port I am trying to use manually?

 

[RayOfDark]

The partition labelled as Recovery is under 500 MB and is part of your 120 GB drive, not the seemingly missing 500 GB drive if that's what you're thinking.

 

[AllanGH]

Sorry....I read that incorrectly as your 1TB being the new drive.

It's just not showing up at all, as far as I can tell, on second look.

Try switching SATA ports on the MB.

 

[Chris Martel]

Sorry....I read that incorrectly as your 1TB being the new drive.

It's just not showing up at all, as far as I can tell, on second look.

Try switching SATA ports on the MB.

Ah, you're correct that it's 500mb. I guess it's not being detected. I have switched ports and nothing. I have another sata 3 cable I can try, and would I have to manually enable the ports through the bios? I hadn't had to do that yet.

 

[Chris Martel]

Since I'm an idiot, I forgot to connect it to one of the power cables. It now shows up. Gah lol. Thank you for your help Allan!

 

[jsmithepa]

Duh! so the SSD NEVER showed up on your management screen. What should had tip you off is, none of those partitions show anything near 500 GB.

 

[AllanGH]

I should have thought of that....on one of my "shop" computers, I have a SATA switch that switches power on and off to 6 connected devices, and the symptom of an unpowered device is exactly what you encountered.

Glad you found the issue.