Old HDD not detected following new OS SSD installation

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vladiator

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Jun 10, 2013
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Hi all

I have searched answers to this issue on the forum and was not able to find a solution to the particular program.

In summary, yesterday my Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD, which I used for Windows 8 Pro and drivers installation, stopped being recognised by the PC. As such the PC would not boot, as only my data WD HDD and CD RAM were detected. The shop replaced the SSD with a new one which I installed today. I also reinstalled Windows 8 and all drivers for the motherboard (GA-H87M-D3H) and GPU.

However, now I cannot see my old data WD HDD in Windows 8 under Computer! I see it in BIOS and it is detected by Windows' Device Drivers manager (it tell me that the drivers are up to date), but I cannot access it as I do see it under Computer in the Explorer.

To add some confusion, the BIOS detects SSD, HDD and my DVDRAM in SATA Configurations (SATA Mode is set as ACHI), but only detects my 1. DVDRAM and 2. HDD in BIOS Boot Priorities (which was also the case when my SSD broke yesterday). Nevertheless, Windows 8 boots from SSD without problems.

Any advice as to how to resolve this would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks
 
Solution
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I'm guessing your hdd needs to be reformatted?
Go to 'My Computer' > then right click Manage >Disk Management tab> see if you can see your hdd and format it if you need too.
I have windows 7 so the directory may be different, but it should be similar.

Other thoughts are your hard drive or SSD may need firmware updates, check your manufacturer websites for the firmware.

To see if you can see your hard drive with a different program I would highly suggest making yourself an Ultimate Boot Disc and launch the application called Parted Magic and see if you can see your drives.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

and to make the disc you need an ISO burner.
http://www.freeisoburner.com/

I hope you find the Ultimate Boot Disc handy...
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fixer762

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Jan 31, 2013
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I'm guessing your hdd needs to be reformatted?
Go to 'My Computer' > then right click Manage >Disk Management tab> see if you can see your hdd and format it if you need too.
I have windows 7 so the directory may be different, but it should be similar.

Other thoughts are your hard drive or SSD may need firmware updates, check your manufacturer websites for the firmware.

To see if you can see your hard drive with a different program I would highly suggest making yourself an Ultimate Boot Disc and launch the application called Parted Magic and see if you can see your drives.

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/index.html

and to make the disc you need an ISO burner.
http://www.freeisoburner.com/

I hope you find the Ultimate Boot Disc handy for other stuff, I sure have.

O and don't worry Parted Magic only installs Linux based diagnostic software into the memory/ram, next reset it is gone.
 
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Solution
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fixer762

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Also I would like to more about your setup to better help you. What motherboard are you running? Temperatures? Is everything plugged in? Use CPU-Z and HW Monitor to get that information.
http://www.cpuid.com/
 
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vladiator

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Jun 10, 2013
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Thanks fixer

Used the first suggestion and the Disk Management shows the WD HDD under the name of Disk ! Basic 931GB Online, and then comments in a larger box - More Space 931GB NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition).

I am not an expert, so what does this mean? Obviously the disk is there, so how to I bring it to under My Computer? If I reformat it, I will lose all the data, won't I?

Also, any teories as to why my Boot Options do not show my SSD with OS?

Thanks
 
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vladiator

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I have i5-4677k, GA-H87M-D3H mobo, 8 GB of RAM, AMD HD7870 GPU, and two disks - Sandisk Ultra Plus SSD (with OS) and WD 10EALX (which does not show up now).

My core temperatures are about 30C according tio HW Monitor. Both disks are 22C.

Two days ago, before my old SSD broke down, everything worked together fine.
 
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vladiator

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OK, the first problem, i.e. missing HDD drive, has been resolved - it was as easy as assigning a drive letter and path to it in Disk Management...

The other problem is still there, however - i.e. why my new SSD which has my Windows 8 does not appear in Boot Priorities Option in BIOS? Yet, the Windows still loads...

 
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fixer762

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Yes, if you reformat the drive, what is on it is gone. Maybe its a good time to buy a 500GB back up drive or 16GB thumb drive if you don't have one? I saw some good deals in the Sunday paper.

Look at the bottom of Disk Management, there should be some color coding. At least there is in win7. Blue is Primary partition. Black is unallocated, which means it needs formatted.
In my experience, if you can't see the drive in windows xp or win7 it needs to be formatted.

Hmmm really you don't see the SSD in the BIOS? Maybe its just in another tab further? Something like boot options or something to do with hard drives? I remember Paul of Newegg or Linus on NCIX.com on youtube saying something similar to that... can't find the video though.

Lastly if you must have files off of that drive, make your self an ultimate boot disc (you need a blank CD) like I described in my previous post. Put the ultimate boot disc you just made in your cd drive and reboot the system. Launch Parted Magic... the option is near the bottom of the front screen of the boot disc. Once inside parted magic you should be able to see what is on the hdd and copy to another drive or thumb drive.

To give you an idea of how good Parted Magic is: I had a computer with a really bad virus and it knocked out my backup drive too!! which I stupidly had connected at the time. By knocked out drive I mean you could plug it into any windows machine and it would register as full as I left it, but I couldn't see what was on it, like the table of contents was knocked out. Parted Magic let me see what was on the drive despite the fact it didn't have a table of contents that a windows machine could see. I copied my files in Parted Magic to another device and was good to go.
 
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vladiator

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Thanks for the response fixer - sorry you got to write a long response to the first issue - I guess my message just above was sent when you were typing and you can see that it was resolved.

I checked my BIOS again and I have:

Under Boot Option Priorities I have only two options to choose from DVDRAM (which is currently option 1) and HDD (option 2). No SSD.

Then, a bit down the page I found a category that says something like Hard Disk BBS. There I can also assign the order of disks - and HDD currently appears first and SSD is the second.

I guess, the PC still looks for other options after it fails to boot from DVDRAM and HDD, and does find SSD. I guess my confusion arises from the fact that when I had my old SSD, I had many more boot options under Boot Option Priorities, including something called UEFI SSD, etc.

I will give Parted Magic a try, cheers.
 
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fixer762

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Ok cool, glad to to see disk management got your hdd viewable. Just needed a letter assigned. The thing is seeing your SSD fine, it is just buried in the options. The reason it picks your SSD over anything else to boot off of is that it has Windows on it and the rest don't.

Have fun with Parted Magic and all the other utilities on the Ultimate Boot Disc, they sure can be useful software.

A word of Warning though, don't use the disc wiping software other than the one in Parted Magic if you ever have to. Why? Because then you can do silly things like lock your hard drive and have to waste 3 hours figuring out how to unlock it.
 
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