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2nd SATA drive detected in BIOS but NOT in Windows Disk Management

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - 2nd SATA drive detected in BIOS but NOT in Windows Disk Management

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damaster   12-20-2007 at 12:23:15 AM

I have an Intel D915GEV motherboard with the latest bios. My primary hard drive is a Seagate 200GB SATA (ST3200822AS) and I have Windows XP MCE 2005 SP2 running off of it. I just added a second SATA hard drive, a 500GB Seagate (ST3500631NS). This second hard drive gets detected in the bios and even gets detected by SpinRite 6.0 when I boot up. However, it's not showing up anywhere in Windows. It's unformatted, unactivated, so I don't expect it to show up in Windows Explorer, but it's not even in Device Manager or Disk Management. I tried changing to a different SATA port, even used three different SATA cables, but to no avail. I've also done all Windows Updates and tried to update my IDE/SATA drivers from Device Manager.

Any ideas please?


Message edited by damaster on 12-20-2007 at 12:23:43 AM
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g-paw   12-20-2007 at 12:47:24 AM
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Try running the install/diagnostic/repair software from Seagate

Reply to g-paw
damaster   12-20-2007 at 01:45:14 AM
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do you mean run that on Windows? What will that solve if Windows doesn't even detect the drive? HDTune doesn't see the drive either...

Reply to damaster
g-paw   12-20-2007 at 02:01:14 AM
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The software is designed specifically to identify and address hdd problems. All hdd mfg have this software, which is why you need to get it from the hdd mfg website. Most have one you can run off Windows and a 2nd version to run off a floppy. If you have a floppy, I'd use that. If the software doesn't find the hdd, then either there is a lose cable or the drive is toast.

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joses   05-24-2009 at 09:15:50 PM
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I am also facing the same problem, Detecting in BIOS but not detecting in Windows or disk management .The OS is Windows Xp with SP 3.My secondary SATA HD is Maxtor 250 GB. Any reason why not detecting it.

Jose

Reply to joses
Bronze Storage badge Paperdoc   05-25-2009 at 11:11:25 PM
- 4 +

The problem may be you're not looking in just the right spot . Click Start, RIGHT-click My Computer in the window, then click on Manage from the menu. In the new Computer Management window expand "Storage" if necessary and click on Disk Management. I expect OP (damaster) and joses both have got this far. Now, examine the TWO right-hand panes. The upper one shows you only the devices Windows already knows how to use. The lower one, which SCROLLS, also shows you other devices Windows does not yet understand. Your new disk should be here with no letter name and no info. RIGHT-click on it and, from the menu, choose to Partition the drive. You'll have a choice of how big it should be and most likely want to use all the drive in one volume. (You can use only part of the space. If you do, when you are finished come back here and find the remainder shown as "Unallocated Space". You can create a second Partition or more in it if you want.) For this first Partition, make it the Primary or Active Partition, and NOT bootable because this drive is for data only - you already have a boot drive. When all the choices are made, go ahead with the Partition operation.

When that is done, come back to this new Partition and RIGHT-click again and choose to Format it. Choose the NTFS File System option. A Quick Format will do the job in 5 to 15 minutes. A Full Format will do a Quick Format, then go though every sector of the drive and test it, marking off any faulty ones (very rare) so they won't be used. Full Format takes many hours!

When you are done, reboot and your newly prepared hard drive should show up in My Computer as an empty unit ready for use.

Reply to Paperdoc
PuppetSoul   08-25-2009 at 08:24:00 AM
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I have this issue as well. Drive is recognized correctly in bios, is listed correctly as a HDD in device manager, but is not found in disk management. Western Digital's data recovery tool cannot detect the drive either. Windows update says that the installed drivers for it are current. No raid controller for the mobo, although sata, chipset and other assorted mobo drivers are current.

OS: XP SP2
Mobo: Gigabyte P35 DS3L (F9)
HDD: WD10000LSRTL (WD Caviar Black 1TB Sata)

Reply to PuppetSoul
jtauxe   09-04-2009 at 06:21:55 PM
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Any follow-up on this? I have the same issue. I have three SATA drives installed just fine -- two Seagates and a Maxtor. I added a fourth SATA drive (also Seagate), and it does post to the SAS utility during boot, so the BIOS sees it.

And yet, Win XP does not see it. It's not listed in the Disk Management tool, nor in Device Manager or the system info -- even Seagate's SeaTools does not see the drive.

I have switched cables with one of the other working drives, effectively switching their positions in the list, but to no avail.

One last desperate attempt was to try the install CD for Windows 7 RC, which is the main reason I installed this drive n the first place - for the alternate OS. It did not see it, either. Foo!

Ideas?

- John

Reply to jtauxe
rand_79   09-04-2009 at 07:03:34 PM
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try the drive in another computer.

also try disconnecting all the drives (note which was plugged in where)

and just try the new drive.. and try installing windows on it

from there... not sure where to go.. list your full system specs.

Reply to rand_79
aberchonbie   09-06-2009 at 11:11:31 AM
- 1 +

you gotta go into windows and format the hard drive to use it!

im using vista right now.. so intructions are: control panel > administrative tools > computer management > Storage (tab) > Disk Management (sub-tab)

from there, you should see the new hard drive.. you have to partition it (if you want) and format it to use it! you can also specify the drive label..

in xp, it should be pretty similar..

------------------------------ http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/713456.png
 Reply to aberchonbie
Anonymous   09-07-2009 at 09:31:14 AM
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I am user, not an expert, but i decided to install my own second drive (Hitachi 500 gb) in my Dell Dimension 9200 running Vista Home Premium by myself.

I guess this is easy stuff for you experts, but us normal people need to have all the instructions. The dell manual made it appear that all I needed to do was plug and play (after I turned the drive on in BIOS - f2 at startup, go to drives, turn the No. 2 on. After all, I did see the driver load during startup, but could not find the drive in my computer.
Drive was detected by BIOS but not by windows, That led me to this helpful forum.

aberchonbies instructions led me to the solution.

Once you get as far as he takes you, you need to click on your new drive and activate it. Then you click on more actions in the side Actions panel and run a wizard that lets you assign a drive letter and format the drive (which takes a long time).

Reply to Anonymous
ArmyRNVet   10-25-2009 at 07:06:33 PM
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I just had a devil of a time trying to install a Western Digital 500 GB SATA Hard drive for similar reasons--the drive was recognized in BIOS but not by Windows. I finally found the solution at this link: http://social.technet.microsoft.co [...] f3291e50f. It involves using Windows XP to format the drive! Once that's done, Windows 7 will detect the drive.

Reply to ArmyRNVet
STHellRaiser   10-25-2009 at 07:43:49 PM
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if u have a problem with a drive requiring formatting, format it in xp :) deos any still have this problem? if u do try win7 and vista disc and see if it show the hdd at the install process part

Message quoted 1 times
Reply to STHellRaiser
kevin85219   11-02-2009 at 01:30:20 AM
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I have a Hitachi Deskstar 500GB (just purchased this morning), installed and see it in bios but do NOT see it in disk management. So I can NOT format or partition. Any clue? Is this an indication of a bad hard drive

Reply to kevin85219
kevin85219   11-02-2009 at 01:32:35 AM
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STHellRaiser wrote :

if u have a problem with a drive requiring formatting, format it in xp :) deos any still have this problem? if u do try win7 and vista disc and see if it show the hdd at the install process part



How do you format through XP other than disk management which does not recognize my new hard drive?

Reply to kevin85219
ScottDaMan   11-06-2009 at 06:53:05 AM
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Hey guys. I've got a possible solution to this.

I had this same issue. The SATA drive in BIOS appeared fine, heck, I even booted into Windows 7 setup CD and PARTITIONED and FORMATTED the drive then exited the Windows 7 setup. Guess what, it still wouldn't appear in Windows 7!

This is a bug. I wrote up a blog post about this here:
http://www.scottbuehler.com/comput [...] howing/233

The short of it, you'll need to go into device manager and uninstall the SATA drive and then reinstall it using "Scan For Hardware Changes"

For the step by step, just visit the URL where I provided the click by click.

Reply to ScottDaMan
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