When I made my Computer Build I run now, I gave it this Solid State Drive and this Hard Disk Drive. I was able to hook up my SSD but turned out to have the wrong parts to get the HDD hooked up... fortunately the SSD was the important one anyway cause it was gonna be for the OS & Apps/Games. I put my OS on the SSD & have been running with it. Recently I FINALLY managed to get the parts needed to get the HDD hooked up. I have the SSD on my Motherboard's SATA 1 Port, my ROM on SATA 2, & got the HDD finally hooked up to the SATA 3 Port. My Computer refuses to see the HDD... (Yes the HDD got its Power hooked up to it as well, & my PSU is a 650W dude.) This Build is the first time i've ever had 2 Drives in it at once instead of using just one Drive, in addition to it being the first time i'd ever got to have a SSD. I dunno how to diagnose why my HDD isn't getting seen by my Computer & humbly beg for assistance. Many thanks for your time.
In that order: - Do you hear (or feel) it spin up on boot? - Does it show up in BIOS? or UEFI, as it is called nowadays. - Is it listed in Windows' 'Device Manager'? - Is it beeing recognized in Windows' 'Disc Management'? /jmc
To support what @jmcburn said: - Does it show up in BIOS, or do you have to "turn on" that SATA controller before it will? - Does your BIOS have RAID mode turned on, or is it off? - Have you tried temporarily using the port that your ROM is currently on? (assuming that works already) You could also post the exact motherboard model you're using, so we could poke around it's online manual.
The 2nd Drive does not show up in Device Manager or My Computer, if 'My Computer' is what ya meant by 'Disc Management'. BIOS checking I completely forgot to think of trying... i'll give that a go next chance I get. Also my Motherboard = this dude. Many thanks for the Brainstorming aid thus far!
Here's the manual for the motherboard you're using: http://www.biostar.com.tw/upload/Manual/AA88B-A2T_130827_B.zip Page 9 has information on how to enable/disable specific SATA channels - you'd want to check that first to ensure that all of them are enabled (won't hurt), and that the one connected to your HDD is indicating the presence of the drive. OnChip SATA Type should either be AHCI or RAID for any connected drives. Native IDE doesn't hurt, but isn't as advantageous as AHCI. If it's Legacy IDE, change to AHCI, otherwise leave as-is for now while you troubleshoot.
Right-click on My Computer, select "Manage", then "Disk Management". You probably just need to enable it, it's a fairly common Windows issue, assuming the drive is good and showing in BIOS
I can't really add much more to this (so consider this moral support lol) as I'm only really familiar with Intel builds for the past ...well, since I got my Q6600 when it came out! If this were an Intel board, I'd be suggesting ensuring the SSD was on SATA0 (Intel boards start at zero) with the Spinner on SATA1 (the second port) then I'd pop the Optical Drive on the last port. This is in part due to habit, where the first two SATA Ports on the older Intel Chipsets were the only ones that were the faster SATA Revision 3 (aka SATA 6gbps) whereas the other SATA ports were the slower Revision 2 (AKA SATA 3gbps) - things should work regardless, but it was an optimisation things. Plus, I've heard how certain drives can throw a wobbly / not work if on a port they think is beneath them, i.e. SATA3 Drive on SATA2 Port. As Jaga has provided you with the manual (assuming you didn't have one already?) it's certainly worth a good read to see if it mentions any such quirks. Also, getting the Drive to show in the BIOS is the first step - if it's not showing there, it's somewhat pointless tinkering with Windows settings or drivers. So, get into that BIOS and check. FYI: IDE / AHCI modes don't usually stop things from working, but a modern drive set to IDE will not be performing at its best. That said, I remind you of the potential quirks I mentioned earlier. I'll try to monitor this thread now, in case I can be any actual help as the discussion progresses. Good luck Scoob.
That's the problem then. Try using the 2nd SATA connector that currently works for your ROM, see if the drive is recognized then. Is the SATA controller in either AHCI or RAID mode, or is it in Native IDE? If the drive doesn't come up when using the 2nd SATA connector, change to AHCI and reboot to check again.
I agree with @Jᴧgᴧ , but if that also doesn't work: Did you check if the drive even spins up on turning on power. Maybe it's damaged. Also make sure when you try to connect the HD instead to your ROM drive's port to also use the cables that you used for your ROM drive to also rule out wrong or broken cables. I'd be careful though changing the SATA mode as Windows might refuse to boot then (-> different device drivers). /jmc
This....rule out all other problems before changing modes...but do make a mental note to redo your OS drive one day to enable AHCI as it makes your drives run better
I haven't yet gotten a chance to try plugging the HDD into SATA 2 cause too late in the night tonight, then Dad'll be here for the weekend most likely... :/ Plus SATA 3 plug on Motherboard sits right under my huge Gigas badass Graphics Card I have to be EXTREMELY careful with to unplug from its PCI Slot, especially when it's the Heart of my Build. I did outta curiosity try changing the SATA Ports to RAID & noted that it made my SATA 1 & 2 Ports info disappear completely & SATA 3 still report nothing in it, so I strongly suspect the possibility that my SSD & ROM are not RAID compatible & have made a mental note to avoid RAID. I then tried changing it to AHCI & my SATA 1 & 2 info returned so I figured they must be compatible. I Saved & exited & it tried to finish booting up, then vomited up a BSOD with a "Inaccessible Boot Device" error. It auto-Restarted & I let it try again... did the same thing & auto-restarted again & I went ahead & hit Delete to enter the BIOS & changed it back to what it had defaulted to before, something like "New IDE", Saved & Exited & let it boot back up again... this time it was in mid-boot up & gave some kinda "Diagnosing Computer" message as it did so, then eventually gave me a blue window asking if I wanted to Restart Computer or go to some Advanced Options... I told it to Restart... that time it booted up normally. Apparently something about AHCI made my Computer puke & vomit up a storm... >_<
That's what i meant. Most of the time it's a PITA to change SATA modes (RAID to AHCI or to IDE or whatever) when windows is already installed. Glad to hear you could at least revert the changes again without destroying the Windows installation. /jmc
If you change the SATA mode to RAID, the ports are then controlled by a separate setup following the normal BIOS post. It shows up a short time on top of the screen, before Windows starts booting. Usually you have to press some key combo to access it, e.g. 'Ctrl+I', but it would say what to press to enter it, when this info appears. But as i said in my earlier post, it's best not to fiddle with that, unless absolutely necessary. As your SDD works fine in your current configuration, it has nothing to do with it. If it's easier to unplug the SSD than the ROM, you could also try to connect it to the SSD port to simply see, if it's then found in the BIOS. Of course you can't boot Windows then, but you would be one step ahead, if it was found then in the BIOS. If still not found, check if it's spinning, as suggested above. If not even that, something's wrong with the cables or the drive itself. /jmc
go back to the roots....unplug all drives. plug only HDD into port 1 - see if bios picks it up then go onto port 2 and see if bios picks it up then go onto port 3 and see if bios picks it up if it picks it up in all 3 its a setting. if in 1 and 2 and not 3 - could be a cable or faulty port if in none at all could be the HDD or power source - try different SATA and power cables for all 3 slots
Normally to diagnose drives and see if they are in good condition I connect an external SATA connector (USB style), see if it shows up in BIOS / Windows. If you don't have that option, try what @SilvRav suggests just to test the drive stand-alone with the BIOS. If you're grabbing a new SATA cable to test or use, you could always pick up a USB SATA connector on the cheap just for testing with. AHCI is a more advanced form of drive communication and management, and in almost *all* cases will run faster. However as you found out Tyrax, if the OS wasn't installed with it that way originally, it can cause some hardware puking. Windows picks up on that easy enough and fixes itself, so no harm done. Onward and upward! Let us know what BIOS sees with just the regular HDD on each port. Edit: One additional thought - your OS may not be using the TRIM command successfully if you're using standard IDE interface with your SSD, which means greatly reduced lifetime and lower-than-optimal performance. It's an AHCI built-in command that the OS is aware of, but only when using that mode. IF you have the opportunity to rebuild/reinstall Windows fresh with AHCI turned on, I'd highly recommend doing so.
FYI there are plenty of software tools that will force TRIM. I had one of the earlier SSD's sat in an even older PC (SATA Rev 1) for many years configured as plain old IDE - all the motherboard supported - yet it ran without fault. It's still working 100% fine now and by 100% I mean showing 100% life left. I have plenty of other older systems - we're talking Core2Quads here, that were upgraded with SSD's years ago yet at best they support SATA 2 and several have no AHCI support. I have yet other SSD's that have been hammered hard for years in RAID0 (so no native TRIM support) that I've TRIM'd manually from time to time. These drives have 70,000 hours between them, and years of up-time yet have only quite recently dropped to 99% lifetime remaining. So, yeah, while it is of course ideal to run a modern SSD on a SATA Revision 3 port in AHCI mode with full native TRIM support, if you don't - or can't - for whatever reason TRIM can be triggered via software just fine. As an aside every single SSD I've ever owned - as well as several I've been given second hand - is still working fine to this day...I have lots of PC's and laptops. I even run speed tests on them from time to time and I see no degradation in performance either - which further proves how software-triggered TRIM works. Scoob.
Very true @Scoob - you can do TRIMs without AHCI. It's just so much nicer to not have to run it every few weeks. And it's not mandatory, but I've heard some rather unsavory tales about SSDs without TRIM, so I'd rather Tyrax not have to risk it at all. Depending on how many writes/rewrites he has on his OS drive, it could eventually impact it. But that's the lesser problem, we won't know about the HDD until next week at the earliest I think.
Ugh, took a stupidly long time, but FINALLY got to get to take a few damn minutes to carefully stick my ear up real close to the HDD & have noted it sounding dead silent. Both Cables plugged in, no response from it at all, & cause it doesn't show up in my Computer anywhere I can't try to do anything with it to provoke it into some kinda action. Does this mean it's terminally dead & it won't matter what SATA Port it's in?
You've switched the data cables, have you tried switching power cable? All the other advice is meaningless if it's just not getting any juice..
