Internal hard drives showing as removable in Windows 10

My internal drives are showing for some reason as removable in windows (one is SSD and the other is an HDD) in Windows 10 Pro.

I read somewhere this can affect performance.

Why is this? Is this defined in the BIOS or in Windows?

Is it possible to fix this?

This is NOT the same as How can I remove the option to eject SATA drives from the Windows 7 tray icon? since that question is for Windows 7 and the solution provided works does NOT work for Windows 10.

traveh

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 554

Possible duplicate of How can I remove the option to eject SATA drives from the Windows 7 tray icon?. As far as I know, all SATA drives are, technically hot-swappable given the right conditions. I am skeptical about performance degredation

– Yorik – 2015-12-08T21:19:16.680

@Yorik that question was asked regarding Windows 7, but I will try the same solution for Windows 10 and see if it works. I'm not sure what I should do if it works for Windows 10 as well though... delete the question? – traveh – 2015-12-09T03:03:51.930

I'd recommend you to re-install the SATA controller drivers for your computer from the motherboard manufacturer's website, @traveh! It's possible that Windows Updates could have messed things up for you and that's why the HDDs are recognized as removable media. I'd also check if you've got Write caching enabled in Device Manager's properties. I'd also go to BIOS and make sure you have 'Hot Plug' disabled. Some mobos that allow such modifications could cause the SATA drives to show in the 'Safely Remove' if 'Hot Plug' is enabled. Hope this helps. Keep us posted. :) – SuperSoph_WD – 2015-12-10T11:06:50.730

+1 for the 'Hot Plug' theory. I just tested that in my UEFI setting. Enabling it makes my drive removable and disabling makes it non-removable. I am using the 'Standard SATA AHCI Controller' driver (storahci.sys) from Microsoft in Windows 10. SATA controller mode in UEFI setting is 'AHCI'. – Tom Yan – 2016-02-13T12:12:22.630

I had the same problem and this one worked for me https://superuser.com/a/961242/523387

– Mя. AMiNE – 2017-06-25T23:15:56.063

Answers

The issue lies in your BIOS, and has little to nothing to do with Windows. Check if you can manage your SATA devices, and Disable the Hot Plug function.

Pascal

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 41

Well, Windows is just faithfully following what the hardware is reporting. But the issue can be fixed at either point (override in BIOS, or in Windows). – Xan – 2019-04-18T08:58:54.310

As long as you use the microsoft AHCI driver: Check the properies of the drive in the device manager, note the "bus number". If it is Bus 0 it is this registry key for Win8/Win10:

reg.exe add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters\Device" /f /v TreatAsInternalPort /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d 0

If it is Bus 0,1,2,3,4 and 5 use this:

reg.exe add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters\Device" /f /v TreatAsInternalPort /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d 0\01\02\03\04\05

Reboot.

Source: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/3083627/internal-sata-drives-show-up-as-removeable-media

Joachim Otahal

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 31

This does work for multiple drives too, but it wasn't initially clear to me. To clarify, the registry entry value should end up a multi-line string with each Bus number in a column. For more info see: https://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/103068-sata-hdd-ssd-shown-removable.html#post1277271

– Chris – 2018-09-10T09:43:02.487

I had the same problem with a Gigabyte P55-UD5 mainboard. With the default MS driver some internal drives showed as removable.

Because the drivers on Gigabyte's site were very old I used this post to find the newest one (in my case: 64bit Intel RST(e) AHCI/RAID Drivers v12.9.4.1000) and installed it via Device Manager, update driver.

Peter Meinl

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 141

In my case I downloaded and installed the Intel SATA/RAID driver (aka Intel Rapid Storage Technology) from Gigabyte (yes, the ancient drivers) and it worked well. – Sam Sirry – 2019-08-10T02:57:32.380

Check Control Panel --> Device Manager --> Disks --> double click on the disk drives and make sure that under Policies tab drive 'write cache' is enabled and there is no 'optimize for quick removal' enabled. This is directly related with how windows considered or not a drive being removable.

Also, update to the latest chipset and AHCI/RAID driver.

Overmind

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 8 562

2This was copy/pasted from an Ease-US article and is not helpful. – Alain – 2018-10-14T18:20:25.037

No, it's SOP in such a case. – Overmind – 2018-10-15T07:21:37.360

Tip for Windows 10 users: create a 'Storage Pool' through 'Storage Spaces'. A Pool can exist of just 1 storage medium. That will integrate the removable storage to be seen as an internal drive.

It's not a solution for your system drive. For that the best bet is to find the most recent driver.If that does not work for you might want to change your 3rd party AHCI/RAID controller driver to the 'Generic SATA AHCI controller' that was shipped with Windows.

In my case I had disks attached to a Marvell adapter show up like that. After changing them to create an MS storage space instead of a Marvell mirrored drive they appeared in the normal spot thus making them available to disk optimization too.

SKDJ

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 1

I landed here precisely because a Storage Spaces pool I'd constructed from two 2TB HDDs is being reported as removable. I'm trying to enable the Windows 10 image backup in Control Panel, and it refuses to use my pool. – Larry Silverman – 2019-06-13T21:12:06.137

I did all the above and my system still thought my two hard drives were removable drives but I did the following and It fixed the problem. Check Control Panel --> Device Manager --> Disks -->right click on the drive in question and select properties --> then select Volumes --> populate... this will identify the drive as a hard drive. Once done, reboot . All fixed.

Excob

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 1

2This didn't work for me. – Sam Sirry – 2019-08-10T02:53:55.017

-4

This is generic problem of windows 64 bit versions. Microsoft has yet to find and fix the issue. It is related to performance. 64 bit operations cannot cope up so 64bit os is patched to treat internal drive as portable removable drive. Install 32bit version of windows, this issue is not there.

parag

Posted 2015-12-08T21:13:48.683

Reputation: 1