2nd hard drive shows in BIOS but not Disk Management
Hello Everyone,
Over the last couple days, I built a new PC and installed windows 8.1. Initially I had some issues installing windows, so I unplugged all my drives except the SSD and DVD. I installed windows to my SSD.
Everything works great!
Now I started adding my drives back in 1 at a time. When I plugged my 2nd SSD in, it showed up in BIOS, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. So I booted back into the install CD, it showed up in the disk manager there. Since this was also a blank SSD, I partitioned and formated the drive from the install CD, then exited the installer and booted back to my windows drive.
I have 2 SSD drives working great!
Now to add my 2TB HDD... Same issue, it shows up in BIOS and the install disc, but not in Disk Management or Device Manager. This drive does not have a boot partition on it, however, it does have two existing data partitions. They were made from my previous windows 7 system and the option to delete these partitions is grayed out in the install disc menu. I also have some data that I would like to keep on it. I have a USB dock that I can use to read the contents of the disk just fine. Everything is there and in working order.
Can anyone help me out here? What is different about Windows 8.1 that is preventing my hard drives from showing up in windows proper? I am reading things about UEFI online, but nothing seems to fit my exact scenario. I will try and post some screen shots when I get back at it.
A drive can be partitioned and formatted but if for some reason it doesn't have a drive letter it will not show up in explorer/My PC. It should however show up in Disk management and device manager. I'm not sure what's going on. Booting up from the install DVD loads Windows PE, Preinstallation Environment. It's similar to booting up from a Linux Live CD. It's Windows, its just running from the DVD not the hard drive. What were your issues that necessitated your unplugging drives? Also where did you obtain your install media? Did you do a clean install?
Computer Type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Asus OS Windows 8.1 Pro + MC 64 Bit CPU AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz Motherboard ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard Memory 8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory Graphics Card NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe Sound Card VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard Monitor(s) Displays 22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D Screen Resolution 1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
Keyboard Logitech Wireless K350 Wave Mouse Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad PSU Thermaltake TR 620 Case Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case Cooling Stock heatsink fan Hard Drives Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA Internet Speed 80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up Browser Internet Explorer 11 Antivirus Windows Defender Other Info HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
- I installed all the drivers first thing and made sure they were the latest off the website, not the CD.
- This was a clean install on an unpartitioned SSD drive.
I unplugged all my drives during install because I have 2 identical SSDs and I wanted to know which one physically contained my OS. I was also having issues with one of my 500GB drives on my old system and didn't want that to complicate anything. But, I haven't even gotten to that drive yet, I'm still trying to get my known good drives up and running in Windows.
OK, I'm with you now. I still don't know what's wrong but I understand why you unplugged the drives. Best guess is to check your BIOS and look for any RAID functions and turn them off.
Computer Type PC/Desktop System Manufacturer/Model Number Asus OS Windows 8.1 Pro + MC 64 Bit CPU AMD Phenom II X4 980 Black Edition Deneb 3.7GHz Motherboard ASUS M4N68T-M V2 µATX Motherboard Memory 8GB 4GBx2 Kingston PC10600 DDR3 1333 Memory Graphics Card NVIDIA Geforce GT640 2 Gig DDR3 PCIe Sound Card VIA VT1708s High Definition Audio 8-channel Onboard Monitor(s) Displays 22" LG E2242 1080p and 2 19" I-INC AG191D Screen Resolution 1280x1024 - 1920x1080 - 1280x1024
Keyboard Logitech Wireless K350 Wave Mouse Logitech M570 Trackball and T650 TouchPad PSU Thermaltake TR 620 Case Power Up Black ATX Mid-Tower Case Cooling Stock heatsink fan Hard Drives Crucial MX100 256 GB SSD and 500 GB WD Blue SATA Internet Speed 80 Mbps Down 30 Mbps Up Browser Internet Explorer 11 Antivirus Windows Defender Other Info HP DVD1040e Lightscribe - External USB2
- I installed all the drivers first thing and made sure they were the latest off the website, not the CD.
- This was a clean install on an unpartitioned SSD drive.
I unplugged all my drives during install because I have 2 identical SSDs and I wanted to know which one physically contained my OS. I was also having issues with one of my 500GB drives on my old system and didn't want that to complicate anything. But, I haven't even gotten to that drive yet, I'm still trying to get my known good drives up and running in Windows.
Thanks.
Have you tried Minitool Partition Wizard. You may just need to assign driver letters
Computer Type Laptop System Manufacturer/Model Number Asus G75VW OS Windows 8.1 Pro MC CPU Intel Core i7-3610QM Memory 16 GB Hyundai HTM315156CFR8C-PB PC3-12800 Graphics Card nVIDIA GeForce GTX 670M (GF114M) Sound Card VIA 6.0.10.1600 Screen Resolution 1080
Hard Drives Samsung 850 Pro 256, Seagate ST9750420AS Internet Speed 30 down 3 up Browser Explorer 11 Antivirus NIS and Malwarebytes
Well, I took some screenshots with minitool and diskpart with the drive plugged into the usb and then to the motherboard, from within windows and then from the install disk. After I got all my screenshots and booted back to windows the drive appeared.... so the problem is solved, but I don't know how.
My next headache is that I had a mirrored drive set up in my old install. This makes it a "dynamic drive", which isn't readable in windows!!! WTF good is that? And windows can't convert it back to a basic drive without wiping the data? I gotta get/pay for 3rd party tools.