[SOLVED] Use old Non-OS HDD with new OS SSD?

[mikeyg77156]

Hi all,

Sorry if this has been asked before but I had a brief look and couldn't find any directly applicable answers.

My Windows 10 PC set-up is the fairly standard storage set-up of using a SSD as my OS storage and then using additional HDD(s) for general storage.

Last week my SSD kicked the bucket without any prior indication so I had to buy a new SSD.

I have installed the drive and installed Windows 10 again without any issues however when I go to 'This PC' in Windows Explorer, I cannot see my other two HDDs that I was using for general storage.

The two HDDs are visible in the Bios but I can't seem to access them from the OS.

Anyone able to help with this issue?

Any help would be appreciated

 

[Lutfij]

Which version of Windows 10 are you on? Might want to see if the drives come up in Device Manager and Disk Manager.

 

[mikeyg77156]

Which version of Windows 10 are you on? Might want to see if the drives come up in Device Manager and Disk Manager.

Win 10 Pro - Version 1903 (although that's just from my Windows account so it may not be up to date with my re-install)

I can check when I get home. I'm posting this from work so I can get a list of solutions to try when I get home rather than waiting until I get home to ask the question.

 

[isamuelson]

You didn't enable encryption on those drives before the prior SSD kicked the bucket did you? Hopefully not. I believe if you did and didn't decrypt those drives, you might be out of luck. And by encryption, I mean did you enable Bitlocker? If so, and you didn't back up your drives, I don't believe you can get the files now on the drive. When you back up files to a different media (DVD, CD or another drive that isn't encrypted), it won't encrypt the files in the back up so you can restore back to the drives after you replace the main drive.

 

[mikeyg77156]

You didn't enable encryption on those drives before the prior SSD kicked the bucket did you? Hopefully not. I believe if you did and didn't decrypt those drives, you might be out of luck. And by encryption, I mean did you enable Bitlocker? If so, and you didn't back up your drives, I don't believe you can get the files now on the drive. When you back up files to a different media (DVD, CD or another drive that isn't encrypted), it won't encrypt the files in the back up so you can restore back to the drives after you replace the main drive.

No, thankfully I did not encrypt the drives!

 

[mikeyg77156]

Which version of Windows 10 are you on? Might want to see if the drives come up in Device Manager and Disk Manager.

As suggested I went into Disk Management and all of the Drives were visible but they weren't available to access. I had to right click the drive and assign it a Drive Letter/Path and it showed up instantly.

This might be obvious to others but I've not been involved in the nitty-gritty of PC building for a couple of years so thanks for the help!