Peculiar windows 10 behaviour acting like "no drive recognized"

Jim74656 · 08 Jun 2017

Ok not really sure what to title this or how to explain this so knowing where to post for best reply is also limited...anyways here goes.

I have windows 10, and had it on the rig I am using at this time to make this post, and all has worked perfectly fine no issues at all, until reciently, not sure how long its been.

I have 3 SSD drives, as the following:

C: OS boot drive (Samsung EVO 480GB)
D: (currently for testing purposes) Game drive 120GB
D: (normal drive but out of rig to eliminate dead drive) Games 480GB Samsung drive
E: storage drive (Sandisk SSD now 480GB drive (this drive is CURRENTLY working as expected and plugged in)

now here is the problem, and please bear with me as I try to explain this as best as I can...

I have my OS drive and game drive BOTH on the SATA 3 headers for my Asus H81M main board, now the previous board (smaller version of the one I am using now) first exhibited this issue causeing me to think bad drive, tossed my storage drive into an external adapter and it worked so I moved on thinking "ok I have a dead SATA port on the board, get a replacement, which worked out as I needed to move the internals into a smaller case anyways

now move to my current (new as of today, day of post) board, and Windows 10 will detect the OS drive PLUS one other drive, NOT both, I have swapped cables (sata) to confirm both are working, and they are, I am about to test with a second SATA cable to make sure one isn't bad, however if that is NOT the case is there ANY software settings I could look at to see if something is messing up the drives and how they are detected?

Thanks for the help and I am sorry in advanced if my explanation confuses people, I have also searched on google and seen other reports of similar behavior in windows 10 from other people experiencing the similar situation where one drive just "drops out"

EDIT:

I have checked with another known good SATA cable and the same issue still persists, I have also checked in the bios and c onfirmed that all three drives are seen and are confirmed working, if needed when I get home from work tomorrow I can take a picture in the BIOS screen to post here.

sygnus21 · 09 Jun 2017

Your drive listing is a bit confusing as to what you are actually "currently" running??? Add that two drives show the same drive letter, which would be an issue, since two drives can't have the same drive letter.

Jim74656 said:

I have 3 SSD drives, as the following:

C: OS boot drive (Samsung EVO 480GB)
D: (currently for testing purposes) Game drive 120GB
D: (normal drive but out of rig to eliminate dead drive) Games 480GB Samsung drive
E: storage drive (Sandisk SSD now 480GB drive (this drive is CURRENTLY working as expected and plugged in)

As that said, and assuming the 480Gig Samsung Games drive is removed, than the would make only 3 drives installed, but as you say only two are showing?

If so, have you checked Disk Management if all 3 drives have a drive letter assigned? Sometimes, especially with removable drives, Windows will drop or not assign a drive letter.

The other thing is making sure the drive is formatted. An unformatted drive won't be seen in Windows. However, once the hard drive is formatted, a drive letter will be assigned, and the drive will now be seen in Windows. Be aware however, that even a formatted drive's letter can be dropped as explained above.

Regardless, double check Disk Management to insure the drive is formatted and has a letter assigned, if not assign one or format the disk.

See this YouTube clip on formatting and assigning drive letters.... How to Assign a Drive Letter in Windows. If you want to change a drive letter, see here - How to Change Drive Letter in Windows 10. If you already know how to do this, sorry, but I don't know your technical level.

Let us know if this helps.

Jim74656 · 09 Jun 2017

I have a total of 3 drives, all three are seen if I use one as an external drive (usb adapter)

when pluged into the main board the drive is not seen by the system (no drive letter, no drive, nothing)

TV2 · 09 Jun 2017

Always best to post a picture of your Disk Management with the 3 drives installed. Expand the window so we can see everything.

If you have a 3rd party disk management program (like Partition Wizard) you could also show a picture of what it sees.

Another problem I experience on an old board of mine was it had 6 SATA ports all in a row pointing out, and 2 extra SATA ports on the board pointing up. 6 ports are on the Intel controller and 2 are on a secondary controller (which I had disabled in BIOS to start faster). You would think the 2 ports on the board pointing up were the secondary ports, but no! Those are Intel ports.
So years later, after I forgot, when I tried connecting a 5th hard drive I plugged it into one of the open ports along with all the others and got nothing. After grumbling and finally RTFM I remembered and all was good.

Jim74656 · 09 Jun 2017

I'll check the BIOS and make sure I haven't accidentally disabled something when I get home, I will also take a pic of what windows and the bios see to show what I see

EDIT:

Ok here are three screen shots of what windows sees, verses the BIOS

BIOS:

Windows 10: (disk defragger and disk manager)

TV2 · 10 Jun 2017

So to be clear:
250GB Samsung, on SATA6-1, Disk 0 in DM - good
128GB Samsung, on SATA6-2, Disk 1 in DM - good.
480GB ADATA, on SATA3-1, does not show in DM

There are 2 other hard drives mentioned in first post,
A 480GB Samsung - unknown type
A 480GB Sandisk SSD
Sounds like 5 drives involved. Please confirm. (Forget drive letters, just refer to actual physical hard drives you can hold in your hand)

The ADATA drive is recognized in BIOS, so we can assume the ports are enabled.

Does any drive plugged into either of the SATA3 ports show up in Windows? Which ones?

sygnus21 · 10 Jun 2017

TV2 said:

So to be clear:

Sounds like 5 drives involved. Please confirm. (Forget drive letters, just refer to actual physical hard drives you can hold in your hand)

He did...

sygnus21 said:

Your drive listing is a bit confusing as to what you are actually "currently" running??? Add that two drives show the same drive letter, which would be an issue, since two drives can't have the same drive letter.

As that said, and assuming the 480Gig Samsung Games drive is removed, than the would make only 3 drives installed, but as you say only two are showing?

Jim74656 said:

I have a total of 3 drives, all three are seen if I use one as an external drive (usb adapter)

when pluged into the main board the drive is not seen by the system (no drive letter, no drive, nothing)

TV2 · 10 Jun 2017

I'm more curious about which 3rd hard drive we're looking at here. The BIOS shows an ADATA drive never mentioned. Then there is the Sandisk and maybe another? I'm just wondering if there is more to the story we don't know.

Regarding the ADATA shown in BIOS but not in windows: What do you think about it just being a bad drive?
Also have to consider an under-powered system too.

sygnus21 · 10 Jun 2017

Yeah there is a bit of confusion as to what's installed and what's not. And that Adata drive showing up certainly adds to the confusion. I don't know

Jim74656 · 15 Jun 2017

TV2 said:

I'm more curious about which 3rd hard drive we're looking at here. The BIOS shows an ADATA drive never mentioned. Then there is the Sandisk and maybe another? I'm just wondering if there is more to the story we don't know.

Regarding the ADATA shown in BIOS but not in windows: What do you think about it just being a bad drive?
Also have to consider an under-powered system too.

For the system, I reverted to how I wanted it to be (the Samsung 120 mentioned was ONLY for testing to verify drive functionality and port functionality (to see if it was a port that was dead or if it was a system software issue)

sygnus21 said:

Yeah there is a bit of confusion as to what's installed and what's not. And that Adata drive showing up certainly adds to the confusion. I don't know

the three showing in the BIOS are the three that will be used, as for being under powered I have a (IIRC) 850W bronze PSU in the rig which I would think should be more then enough to power three SSD, a GTX 1080 (Founders Edition) and the CPU, ram and board, I suppose I could go and find a 1000W but I really would rather reduce the power consumption and the 850W should be more then enough.