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I've been troubleshooting some issues with my desktop recently. I have Windows 7 installed but saw some strange behavior. I thought maybe it was because I had my 2 SATA harddrives plugged into the SATA 3 (6 Gbit/s) ports using SATA 3 cables, but I believe they are SATA 2 drives (3 Gbit/s). After POST, it would always claim the data speed was SATA 2, so I'm assuming they are actually SATA 2 drives. So, I powered down and swapped the cables for SATA 2 and plugged them into the SATA 2 ports on the mobo. Now, after POST, it claims it can't find any harddrives. If I go into BIOS, both harddrives are listed. Also, the OS will still load properly, so the machine obviously can find the harddrives. But why don't they show up after POST? What can I do to get them to show up properly?
Chaulky
Posted 2010-11-16T15:27:21.680
Reputation: 727
Do they appear in Disk Management? They may be listed as Offline and you will need to put them Online. – paradroid – 2010-11-16T15:55:18.953
Could you clarify what you mean by Disk Management? Are you referring to the Disk Management tool available after Windows 7 has finished starting and I'm signed in? – Chaulky – 2010-11-16T16:01:10.353
@Chaulky: Right-click Computer on the Start Menu > Manage > Storage > Disk Management. – paradroid – 2010-11-16T17:04:18.420
@jason404 - In Windows 7, you might prefer to just type 'Disk Management' into the Start Menu. ;) – Shinrai – 2010-11-16T17:33:40.717
@Shinrai: Yeah, I actually considered saying that instead, but as it does not appear with that name in the search results, I thought it may cause some confusion. Also, it would be helpful for Chaulky to know where all those MMC snap-ins are, as he appears to not know about them. – paradroid – 2010-11-16T18:18:10.493
@Shinrai - I do love that new "GUI CLI" stuff in Windows 7. Replaces a lot of what i used [Windows] + R for in the past. – Chaulky – 2010-11-16T18:20:22.723
@jason404 - No, agreed, the more info the better - perhaps I could have worded it a little less snarkily. I was really just expounding for the benefit of the large chunk of readers who still haven't figured out the Vista/7 Start Menu search bar actually works pretty damned well for stuff like this. – Shinrai – 2010-11-16T18:21:07.260
@jason404 - I consider myself pretty computer literate so am familiar with most of those tools, though I agree it's useful info for others viewing the question. Just wasn't sure if you meant some sort of boot utility (which is actually going to be my next step most likely) – Chaulky – 2010-11-16T18:21:57.073
@Shinrai - "Snarkily"... awesome vocab! – Chaulky – 2010-11-16T18:23:39.663
@Chaulky: So, do the drives appear in Disk Management? – paradroid – 2010-11-16T18:29:07.927
@jason404 - Haven't had a chance to check yet (stupid job getting in the way of everything :) ). I'm assuming they'll be there and be "online" though at which point a boot utility will be the next step – Chaulky – 2010-11-16T18:52:47.450
@jason404 - Disk Management won't load on my current installation... fresh install it is, then back to troubleshooting this – Chaulky – 2010-11-17T02:40:48.203
@jason404 - Disk Management says both drives are online, but they still don't show up after POST – Chaulky – 2010-11-17T03:09:13.837
@Chaulky: Don't worry about them not showing after POST, if everything else is alright, as Windows is recognising them. What I think is happening is that the drives are connected to another controller to the one that is part of the motherboard chipset. My workstation computer has three different SATA controllers, and only one of those is part of the Intel chipset. As far as I can see, there is no problem. – paradroid – 2010-11-17T04:58:43.503