Internal hard drives not showing up on reinstallation of windows 10

Toby43 said:

I have a 7 year old PC-------

Hi, Wow! I read your post, just the entertainment value of hitting the inside of a PC with a garden blower and seeing it go nuke like would be worth any hassle and you did it twice!

If you haven't, have you thought of installing some vent/grill filters to the case. I know cases do collect dust, some more then others but that much gunk.

On a more serious note.

I'm assuming "C" drive, is the SSD and has your OS on it, so I doubt you have done much damage there, but the HDDs versus a blower, might have caused an issue but the fact you can't see the optical drive.

Can you see the HDDs under device manager?

To check for damage, disconnect the HDDs install in an external closure, can you see them now? if so recheck all molex connectors.

Installing Win 10 using the creation tool shouldn't be much of an issue but create a system image of your existing OS just in case.

I am wondering if all that dust has gotten in and upset things but to lose 2 drives and an optical is a harsh thing.

Right.
First things first. Yes the blowjob (to coin a phrase) was quite spectacular but when you think of it, the poonds per square feet would be about the same as from a hand held pressurised air tin (with plastic tube atatched). More, much, much more volume, but not necessarily pressure.
I'm in Australia. Forget the public image. Air pollution levels per capita are pretty bad. Toss in the smoke from bush fires, noew an annual event, and dust storms and house that are glorified tents (air con filters need cleaning monthly), there is a huge amount of dust aboutwhich can and does get into living areas.
The desktop is inside a huge Coolermaster case and the cooler is the size of a brick, 3 fans and fin assemblies. First time around this was so choked up it was closing auto switch off. The case has several fans and is OK re air throughput.
The problem is that dust sticks and fans are like magnets for the stuff- why an anti-static dust repellant solution hasn't been devised beggars belief.
If memory serves I disconnected ALL the HDs when I did this sort of clean years ago and perhaps had a less poweful cleaner then.
But as to the present situation:
Today, both optical drives appear in disk management (yesterday only 1appeared).
C is the SSD and there are no problems there.
Each of the 4 2tb internal hard drives show up BUT only singly. That is to say, only one will appear in disk management at a time. D must be disconnected and E plugged in before it will show. A couple of SATA III cables are suspect - a swap around at each end will be done - to see if this is to blame - but a dodgy cable would NOT account for the drives only showing up singly.
I'm tempted to do another reinstall of Windows 10 and sit glued to the screen this time in case a missed message appears. Windows 10 has changed in many ways from the version installed when the first clean took place. I know I had a couple fewer drives then. Could it be that windows struggles recognising 4 requiring installing simultaneously?
Thanks for ideas so far. Any others will be more than welcomed!

Toby43 said:

---I'm in Australia. Forget the public image. Air pollution levels per capita are pretty bad. Toss in the smoke from bush fires, now an annual event, and dust storms and house that are glorified tents (air con filters need cleaning monthly), there is a huge amount of dust about which can and does get into living areas.

Hi,

Yes, pollution, your side is very bad for the reasons given.

I was going to write breathing in case dust is not a good thing either but I think a mute observation to make.

Ok so all drives are working allbeit not together.

I don't know enough about Win OS to suggest what might cause these symptoms or several drives not being recognized simultaneously but as an alternative, is it possible in your endeavors you have blown away a board jumper or two or the PSU is struggling--I don't know.

There are some real smart people on these forums hopefully, you and they will come up with a solution.

Have you seen if BIOS recognizes the missing drives?
It also can be that the SATA port is disabled.

I've got time issues over the next few weeks - finding a couple of uninteruppted hours will be difficult.
On seperate days I discovered.
Day A The daisy chain linked power plugs were OK as were the SATA plugs.
Day B No boot - black sceen - message - insert media
Day C Boots normally. Copy Drive D contents to external hard drive. Connect same power and sata to E - Drive corrupted.
Have removed all internal drives D - G from case (Coolermaster rubber grommets on trays perished and crumbling - great. Old fashioned screws still the best (just like wired beats wi-fi)
Intentions (probaly over weekend)
1. Clear BIOS - replace battery with new.
2. Remove graphics card to gain easier access to SATA cables and clean and reseat them.
3. Boot up to C and check BIOS settings
4. Progressively add other hard drives, checking BIOS settings each time. Would like to copy contents of each to external drive each time and edit contents before copying them back to the internal HD, having first reformatted the latter.
Does this make sense? Anyone have any tips, advice on better approach?
The tech specs on this rig are
case Coolermaster CM 692 with (never functioned) hot swappable HDD bay
chip intel i 7 3770K
mb Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H - the worst motherboard ever.
This thing is HUGE but absolutely nothing is easily accessible and the BIOS is difficult to negotiate and make changes to settings.

The Gigabyte GA-Z77X-D3H is the same board I had till 2 years ago from 2012, run like a dream, never had a problem, sold it and i5-3550 on gumtree.

Dwarfer. I don't think you've ever used it with multiple hard drives which are a pain to swap out. Google some of the reviews. The acclaimed Dual Bios was a flop. Setting boot priority near impossible - even a pro geek had a hassle with that. Support is none existent. The Gigabyte facility is the size of a small industrial estate but they emply not one native English speaker. So when you complain about incompetent advice, you receive a reply "We sorry for our incontinence." Yip, it's true.

Toby43, did you find a solution?