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Internal hard drives not showing up on reinstallation of windows 10
I have a 7 year old PC. I've added a few 2 tb internal hard drives to it over the years - because back then, Intel, Gigabyte and the rest said it could be done - and they were right! I ended up with Drives C, and D, E, F and G.
I know, I know. Just call it a personal quirk.
The point is, they all worked perfectly. In fact about 3 years ago dust build up required a thorough blow through because the multi fan cooler on the core 7 was choked. I used a garden blower. You wouldn't believe the cloud of dust etc that came out - think small nuclear tests. But on the first boot up, everything was there - C, D, E, F, G and the 2 optical drives.. There was (and is) nothing vital on any of the drives D - G -all data and all important stuff backed up to external HDs).
Recently I decided to completely clean C (a 1tb SSD). It has been in for 2 years - and there were no issues with Drives D - G being recognised when this new ssd was installed. This time I again used the MS Creation Tool) and did a completely fresh instalation of Win 10 (Home) - original was Windows 7 retail (just too many weird snags on C had gradually appeared - no system restore, no extenal hard drive connections except for USB3 mem sticks, some apps sticking; no detectable viruses.
A quick look inside showed, as previously noticed, vast quantities of dust build up - unshiftable with the canned air tins - so out came the trusty garden blower with the resultant HUGE cloud of gunk drifting away into the neighbourhood.
The reinstall went OK - BUT, only 2 of the drives are showing up and only 1 of the 2 optical drives.
I've pulled off all the connections off and 'replugged' them, - it hasn't solved the problem.
I'm about to swap - physically - the drives around (bad for good) but thought I'd pose 2 questions first -
is there anything inherent in the latest iteration of Windows 10 that could be causing this 'non-appearance of 2 Hd drives and 1 optical drive?
should another re-install of Windows be undertaken in case the first wasn't 100% successful ( I didn't stay glued to the screen once I'd clicked on the creation tool and confirmed the basics)?
Strange thing - Speccy reports OS is Windows 8; winver the latest Windows 10. what's going on there?
Last edited by Toby43; 13 May 2021 at 04:17.