Only three hard drives show up at a time, when there are four in total?

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
P

Paul_162

Commendable
Jul 27, 2016
3
0
1,510
Hello, I usually find all my answers in various Tom's Hardware forum posts but I can't seem to find any that help my particular issue.

I have four SATA ports on my motherboard. I plugged three of them with two HDD's and one SSD for my OS. The fourth was being used as my CD/DVD drive, but since I never use CD's anymore - I've taken it out of my PC. Now, I've attempted to use this fourth SATA port for the second SSD that I have bought, but I have failed numerous times in doing so.

I plugged it in and realized it wasn't showing up in the BIOS, Computer Management, or Disk Manager, so I thought it was a connectivity issue and kept re-plugging and trying again. Giving up, I just unplugged one of the SATA cable's attached to the HDD itself and retttached it to my SSD. It worked - it showed up, and I formatted it and created a new volume/partition on it.

So, being happy, I plugged my remaining HDD that I had sacrified for this SSD and booted the computer up - now, my SSD disappeared once more and I am left with the HDD. Is there some obvious answer that I am missing to fix this problem?

I've mixed up the order of SATA ports (2, 3, 4) and left 1 alone (using it for my OS), and nothing seems to really fix it. My SSD just keeps getting bounced out of my computer. Thanks a lot, everyone.
 
Sort by date Sort by votes
Boogieman_WD

Boogieman_WD

Judicious
Jul 31, 2014
6,050
2
35,960
Hey there, Paul.

My first assumption was that there might not be sufficient power, but that shouldn't be it if you were able to use the OD (optical drive) without an issue. On the other hand if you haven't used the OD for quite some time, you might not have noticed if the cables and/or the SATA port might have become faulty. So give it a go with a different SET of cables and that particular SATA port, to see what happens.
You could also try resetting/updating your BIOS/UEFI to see if that has anything to do with it. You could also try the SSD with a different computer if possible. Check if it has a firmware update available for that drive model.

Hope that helps. Please let me know how everything goes.
Boogieman_WD
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
P

Paul_162

Commendable
Jul 27, 2016
3
0
1,510


I bought new cables and reset my BIOS (no update is found for my particular Lenovo mobo). The weirdest thing happens. I've tried using the new SATA cables with my SSD and it didn't work. I was about to send my SSD back for a new one and then realized that one thing ALWAYS works.. If I shut down my computer, take out the SATA cable attached to one of my HDD's, and attach it to my SSD, it pops up. It never fails.. but I have no clue why. That's the only way it shows up. If I try to unplug the HDD completely from the mobo, attach it to my SSD, and then put the attached able into the mobo, it won't show up.

So now, I'm really confused as to why it only works if the cable that I leave in with the HDD makes my SSD show up if I immediately move it to my SSD post shutdown. Hah. I feel like there's something dumb I'm missing here but I don't know what it is.

If I pray to the gods above and plug in the HDD to whichever open SATA port I have left in the hopes that all four show up at once in my PC, my SSD dissappears.. again. I don't think it's my PSU either because I calculated how much I need from various websites and they all say that I only need about 500; but I have an 850W Corsair PSU.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
You must log in or register to reply here.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom