Internal SATA drives show as removable

Galane · 23 Dec 2016

My motherboard has two SATA controllers. C: and D: are connected to a separate controller from the other two hard drives and one DVD burner.

C: and D: show on the remove/eject menu. How do I get them off that?

The last, and only other, time I encountered such a problem was with XP, when SATA was the newest thing. Then I just lived with it, wasn't a fix for that particular board because nobody saw fit to fix the driver or whatever caused it. Now? There's no excuse for this error with a mature technology.

CountMike · 23 Dec 2016

Are they by any chance connected to eSATA controller ? Also check "Policy" tab for them in device manager, "Enable write caching" should be enabled otherwise system will threat them as external.

Galane · 23 Dec 2016

Write caching is enabled and they're set for better performance, not quick removal. The board has one eSata port but I don't know which of the two controllers it is connected to. It's an Asrock 770 Extreme3.

Edit: I'm going to try this https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/3083627

CountMike · 23 Dec 2016

Galane said:

Write caching is enabled and they're set for better performance, not quick removal. The board has one eSata port but I don't know which of the two controllers it is connected to. It's an Asrock 770 Extreme3.

Look at the manual. First BOOT drive is recommended to be on SATA0 to make sure it's on main controller. One of those two white plugs.
http://asrock.pc.cdn.bitgravity.com/...20Extreme3.pdf

Galane · 23 Dec 2016

They are on those connectors. The info on that link fixed bus 1 but not 0. Trying it for 0 again and rebooting again.

Edit: I entered that command with a 0 then rebooted. The Bus 0 drive is no longer on the remove menu, but the Bus 1 drive is back on it. 10 points to House Microsoft, minus five for an incomplete fix.

TV2 · 23 Dec 2016

This behavior is common on systems where the installed SATA AHCI driver is not playing nice with the motherboard and/or BIOS.
Windows installs a generic SATA AHCI driver by default when you install the OS. This is a driver designed to give basic functionality across many different products.

It is always best to install the most current drivers offered from the OEM for your new system. In your case, any and all SATA related drivers. For Intel systems it is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver that handles the AHCI chores. AMD will have it's own AHCI driver, but I can't recall which one they use.

Cliff S · 23 Dec 2016

Check in your BIOS and see if the drive is set to hot swap, if it is, turn it off.
It happened to me too: Internal drive wrongly shown as removable

Galane · 23 Dec 2016

TV2 said:

This behavior is common on systems where the installed SATA AHCI driver is not playing nice with the motherboard and/or BIOS.
Windows installs a generic SATA AHCI driver by default when you install the OS. This is a driver designed to give basic functionality across many different products.

It is always best to install the most current drivers offered from the OEM for your new system. In your case, any and all SATA related drivers. For Intel systems it is the Intel Rapid Storage Technology driver that handles the AHCI chores. AMD will have it's own AHCI driver, but I can't recall which one they use.

I installed the AMD chipset drivers. There's a VIA VT6421, but VIA does not provide drivers. That's up to Microsoft, so bugs are their fault. :P

Galane · 23 Dec 2016

Cliff S said:

Check in your BIOS and see if the drive is set to hot swap, if it is, turn it off.
It happened to me too: Internal drive wrongly shown as removable

The VIA SATA3 controller does not have a hot plug option. The other one (which is not the one with this problem) does have it and it was disabled on all four internal ports and the one eSATA port. I turned it on for the eSATA.

essenbe · 23 Dec 2016

Galene, Microsoft provides the drivers that the hardware and software manufacturers provide to them. Microsoft writes the operating system. It would be totally unrealistic to expect Microsoft to write drivers for every piece of hardware and software that exists. It is the responsibility of the Hardware Manufacturers and software developers to write their own drivers. If they write them and provide them to Microsoft, Microsoft will update them through Windows update. If there are no drivers, the issue is with the manufacturer.