Windows 7 doesn't recognize new Toshiba 5 TB hard drive

[rogerbacon]

My old data drive (D was going bad so I bought a 5 TB Toshiba drive to replace it. I plugged it into an external caddy and formatted it to a single GPT partition. I copied over the data I needed and then powered down removed the bad drive and installed the new drive.
When I rebooted the BIOS sees the enw drive but Windows, Disk Management, and Device Manager do not. It is Windows 7 system.
I switched the SATA cables between my boot (C drive and the new drive to see if it was a bad cable or onboard controller. In each case, Windows sees the C drive so its not a cable issue. If I take the drive out and plug it into the USB-3 external caddy (EZ-Dock 2) it reads it fine. However, plugged in as an internal drive the system can't see it.

 

[popatim]

Which motherbd do you have?

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome, rogerbacon!

I'd suggest you to try resolving the issue by updating your SATA drivers. Check your motherboard manufacturer's website for those.
You mentioned that you've switched the cables, but I'd also recommend plugging the 5 TB HDD in a different SATA port and see if that would help getting it properly detected.

Keep us posted!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[rogerbacon]

Which motherbd do you have?

My motherboard is Intel DZ68DB.
I went to https://downloadcenter.intel.com/product/55744/Intel-Desktop-Board-DZ68DB and I have the latest drivers.
When I say I switched the SATA cables, I mean I unplugged the edn that goes into the drive of C drive and D drive and switched them. So I was also switching the SATA port at the same time. It's not the port or the cables.
The guy at Micro center said the problem was because I formatted the drvie through USB externally. He told me to buy a new drive and format it from inside the computer. I just did that this morning and it made no difference.

Something else I noticed. I removed the drive and put it in the external caddy again (because I need to access some files I copied over from the bad drive). As usual, I can access it fine from the usb caddy.

 

[urbanrider]

The guy at Micro center said the problem was because I formatted the drive through USB externally. He told me to buy a new drive and format it from inside the computer.

This is correct. I've bumped into this problem a few times.

The easiest and fastest way to move files from an old drive to a new drive is to plug the new drive into the motherboard with a SATA cable (and leave it there). You might need to buy another SATA cable if you don't have one. Format the new drive and copy over the old files. No external enclosure should be used in this process.

I just did that this morning and it made no difference.

Assuming the HDD is OK and your divers are up to date, this should work. What specifically didn't work? Take a quick look online at some formatting tutorials and make sure your doing it correctly. After formatting you should see your old C drive and D drive in addition to the new drive (say you called it E).


The second, slower way of doing it is using the external enclosure, but reversing the positions of the drives.

1)Take out your D drive and replace it with your new drive
2)Format your new drive
3)Plug your old D drive into your external enclosure and transfer your data back to the new drive.

Transfer speeds over USB aren't nearly as good so this would take longer.

 

[rogerbacon]

The second, slower way of doing it is using the external enclosure, but reversing the positions of the drives.

1)Take out your D drive and replace it with your new drive
2)Format your new drive
3)Plug your old D drive into your external enclosure and transfer your data back to the new drive.

Step 1 done.
Step two is where the problem lies. How do I format the new (blank) drive when it does not show up in Disk Management or Device Manager? If I can see it I will format it and then copy everything over to it.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Step 1 done.
Step two is where the problem lies. How do I format the new (blank) drive when it does not show up in Disk Management or Device Manager? If I can see it I will format it and then copy everything over to it.

Hi again, rogerbacon!

You mentioned that you've managed to get the HDD detected through an external USB 3.0 caddy, right?
So I'd suggest you to partition and format the drive while in the dock station and then try to plug it internally after you've successfully formatted it.

Let us know if that worked!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[rogerbacon]

Hi again, rogerbacon!

You mentioned that you've managed to get the HDD detected through an external USB 3.0 caddy, right?
So I'd suggest you to partition and format the drive while in the dock station and then try to plug it internally after you've successfully formatted it.

Let us know if that worked!
SuperSoph_WD

Hi. That's what I did with the first hard drive I bought. I formatted it through the USB and copied all of my data from the drive that was going bad. Then I put it in my computer and Windows does not recognize it. I've pulled it out and put it back in the caddy to get to some files I need and its working fine from there but that's not really a solution because I need it internally since all my programFiles applications are on that drive and I need them to load on boot up.
I bought a second drive and plugged it in with the plan to format it internally since I was told that that is what I have to do to get Windows to see it but it can't see it in Disk Management in order for me to format it.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi. That's what I did with the first hard drive I bought. I formatted it through the USB and copied all of my data from the drive that was going bad. Then I put it in my computer and Windows does not recognize it. I've pulled it out and put it back in the caddy to get to some files I need and its working fine from there but that's not really a solution because I need it internally since all my programFiles applications are on that drive and I need them to load on boot up.
I bought a second drive and plugged it in with the plan to format it internally since I was told that that is what I have to do to get Windows to see it but it can't see it in Disk Management in order for me to format it.

In this case, rogerbacon, I strongly recommend contacting your HDD manufacturer's tech support and let them know about the issues you are encountering. If the drive is still covered by the warranty, you should be able to send an RMA request and get a replacement. I guess this will put an end to your struggles.

However, testing it internally on another system might be truly helpful to determine whether or not this is caused by the motherboard or the HDD!

SuperSoph_WD

 

[popatim]

Are your sata ports in ahci mode in the bios?

I cant find a bios guide for your motherbd...but it appears to be a hybrid bios/uefi motherbd. To work with drives larger than 2tb you would need the motherbd in uefi mode. I suspect its in legacy bios mode which would not work with a 5tb drive. Please be aware that changing this mode would require a windows reinstallation so plan ahead with things like having drivers available, how to install windows in uefi mode (if your version supports it that is); things like that.

 

[rogerbacon]

Are your sata ports in ahci mode in the bios?

I cant find a bios guide for your motherbd...but it appears to be a hybrid bios/uefi motherbd. To work with drives larger than 2tb you would need the motherbd in uefi mode. I suspect its in legacy bios mode which would not work with a 5tb drive. Please be aware that changing this mode would require a windows reinstallation so plan ahead with things like having drivers available, how to install windows in uefi mode (if your version supports it that is); things like that.

Hi,

I found the motherboard manual online here: http://downloadmirror.intel.com/19926/eng/DZ68DB_ProductGuide01_English.pdf
I checked and my SATA ports are in "RAID" mode but it says that that includes ACHI support. The only reference in the BIOS I found to UEFI was a setting to allow booting from UEFI drive. I set that to enabled but it did not make a difference.
This weekend I think I will try to format the new drive to 2 TB partition using the USB caddy which can see it and then put it in the computer and see if it can recognize it. If it can, I will try to resize the partition to the full 5 TB. Does that sound like a plan with some chance of success?

 

[popatim]

If your ports are in raid mode then you have two options
1 -enter the raid bios during POST (press ctrl+i when prompted too) and either add the drive as a single drive (sometimes call pass-thru) or as a single drive raid1 or 0 (varies with motherbd).

or 2 - with the drive installed boot into windows normally and enter the intel raid manager (Intel RST (formerly known as Matrix storage manager)) and tell it to pass the drive thru there

 

[bettylevine]

how much capacity of the 5TB drive your computer can recognize? or the drive can't be detected by computer?

 

[rogerbacon]

If your ports are in raid mode then you have two options
1 -enter the raid bios during POST (press ctrl+i when prompted too) and either add the drive as a single drive (sometimes call pass-thru) or as a single drive raid1 or 0 (varies with motherbd).
...

OK, I went into the BIOS and tried to set it up as you said. I probably screwed something up though. I set the RAID for data backup and selected the C drive as source and D drive as backup. It said it needed to wipe the drive to set it up and I thought "OK, it's blank anyway" so I said yes. Well, I think it wiped the C drive because after that it wouldn't boot up. I even tried booting from a USB drive and it wouldn't do that either. I get a message saying "Intel Boot Agent FXE-E61 Media test failure. FXE-M0F Exiting Intel Boot Agent"
At that point I gave up and took it to a repair center. I hate doing that but if I can't boot there's not much I can do at this point. I hope they can fix the C drive and I hope I didn't wipe it completely. Then I can get back to the original D drive problem.

 

[rogerbacon]

So to wrap things up...

The people at Micro Center couldn't do anything useful. I got my computer back, used some utilities to recover my C drive and fix the partition. Then determined that my motherboard just can't handle hard drives over 2 TB. I sold the drive to a friend and I'm going to go out and buy a 2 TB drive. It's not what I wanted but I think that's the best thing I can do at this point. Oh, and I broke one of my 6gb/s sata ports in the computer while I was doing all of this. 🙁 So the new drive will have to use a 3 gb/s port. I hope I won't notice any speed difference in real usage.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hi again, rogerbacon!

I'm sorry to hear about your incompatibility with the drive and the broken SATA port. However, I don't think your new 2 TB HDD will suffer any bottlenecking in the 3 Gb/s SATA port. I'll try to soothe you by saying that the port's transfer speeds are capable of around 300MB/s, and even a 10 000 RPM drive cannot reach this rate. The only drives that can be affected by the SATA II (3 Gb/s) ports are SSDs because their transfer speed can reach up to 500 GB/s. For them it's essential to be plugged in a SATA III (6Gb/s) port, otherwise their speed performance is limited to the capabilities of the SATA port itself.

Good luck! Hope we were helpful though!
SuperSoph_WD