Missing HDD in BIOS and Disk Manager

I recently started having issues with Windows 7 and decided to upgrade the system in stages.

I was running the following:
C: Main WD 1TB Caviar Black (Windows 7 and most software)
D: Photos (WD 500MB Caviar Blue)
E: DVD
G: Simulator software (WD 1TB WD Caviar Black)

and all was well with the world (apart from the aforementioned Windows 7 issues).

I then installed an M.2 Samsung 500GB SSD on my Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H motherboard, and immediately installed Windows 10 on it. So I effectively had a dual boot system so I could work as normal for now on the Windows 7 drive and when time allowed, boot to the M.2 and start installing my required software.

The problem is that is as soon as I rebooted after the Windows 10 installation, I found that the D: drive (Photos) was not appearing in My Computer or the Device Manager etc. I booted it to the Windows 7 drive, and again, the D: drive was now not visible. i.e. I seem to have lost contact with the D: HDD following the M.2/Windows 10 installation.

I entered BIOS and even there I cannot see the old D: photo drive (and checked the SATA ports were enabled).

I’ve changed the HDD positions and cables and all the other drives work fine, but no sign of the old D: drive no matter which cable or slot I use. I took the D: drive out and checked it on another computer using a SATA to USB tray - and it works fine with all the data intact. (I do have other external backups as well, just in case.)

Any ideas why I can’t get my D: drive to be seen again?!

Thanks
Peter

If all else fails, read the manual

"M.2, SATA Express, and SATA3 4/5 connectors can only be used one at a time. The SATA3 4/5
connectors will become unavailable when an M.2 SSD is installed."

Aahh - there's a manual is there?!

That's a nuisance. I guess I don't use that extra drive often and will just put in my USB/SATA cradle.

Do you know if this is a peculiarity of the Z97X-UD5H, or do other MoBo's behave the same way?

Peter

This is expected behavior for Intel chipsets. Some SATA ports, PCIe lanes, and USB3 ports share PCH resources so you can only use one at a time.

For 9-series chipsets like yours:

PolarNettles: Thanks for the clarification.