Hard drive recognized in BIOS, but not device/disk management

I installed windows 7 x64 a day or two ago, after install I could use the HDD fine. Today I noticed it wasn't showing up in my computer, so I restarted my computer, but it still was not showing, I checked disk management, only my main OS drive there, checked Device manager, only my main drive is shown, but when I checked by BIOS both were shown.

I scanned for hardware changes, it showed up but as I tried to access it, it would "load" for a few minutes then I would get an error

"J:\ is not accessible. The specified network resource or device is no longer available."

I tried running a CHKDSK, but it just returned an error saying

"Cannot open volume for direct access."

I've tried Googling, but haven't found anyone with the same problem. Please, does anyone know how I can fix this?

P.S It worked fine in Vista x64

EDIT: I went back into the BIOS and the BIOS only recognizes it when i set SATA 1-4 to ACPI, but when I do these I can't boot into windows because I get an error "NTLDR is missing." I can only boot when all SATA ports are set to IDE.

Archey

Posted 2012-08-23T23:04:04.487

Reputation: 153

The drive is most probably dead, even though it's being picked up by the BIOS. Consider restoring from backups and replacing the drive. – None – 2012-08-23T23:05:30.597

What makes you say that? – Archey – 2012-08-23T23:58:34.327

2So were you able to get it to show up in the Disk Manager? What showed up? – David Schwartz – 2012-08-24T00:28:03.320

Is it still works in Vista? Have you tried it out with other computers? – avirk – 2012-08-24T00:39:24.020

It doesn't show in disk manager, I have not tried on any other computers. – Archey – 2012-08-24T01:33:32.103

@avirk no idea if it works in Vista anymore, I don't have it installed. – Archey – 2012-08-24T02:42:01.290

Answers

If it reports in the BIOS, but not in the OS, it's likely that the driver being used by the OS is not compatible with the drive. It's possible that one drive is compatible with AHCI and the other with legacy IDE. When you enalbe AHCI, windows ignores the IDE drive (prob your boot drive), you are essentially trying to boot form your '2nd' drive (no os/boot loader). When you enable IDE, you can boot from the IDE drive, but Windows will ignore the AHCI drive.

Go to the m-board or PC manufacturer and see if there is an updated chipset or hard drive controller driver specifically for Win7x64. Also install firmware updates for the board.

Lastly, if you want to quickly see if you can mount the drive, bypassing the mboard controller, get a usb connector (external drive enclosure) for your 2nd drive. Boot to win7, attach your the drive via usb, and if the drive is good, the virtual usb drive controller should recognize it.

user11627

Posted 2012-08-23T23:04:04.487

Reputation: 41

I totally forgot about my external enclosure. I was recognized in there(through the USB controller) but I still could not access it. I installed ASUS' AHCI controller, I could boot with all ports set to AHCI, but the drive was still not recognized. – Archey – 2012-08-24T04:34:00.080

I booted into Windows this morning and windows was trying to install driver software for the drive, the drive shows in device manager and my computer but instead of ST31000---- it shows as just "Disk Drive". I tried running a CHKDSK /F on it but it's saying the file system is RAW. Is there anyway i could possibly recover data from the drive now, or has it died? – Archey – 2012-08-24T18:16:27.857

Download and burn a copy of gnome partition editor. Boot off of it and see if it recognizes your drive. I fairly certain it doesnt have any tools that will fix the drive, but if you dont care about the data, you can try erasing the drive and putting down a new partition.

Keltari

Posted 2012-08-23T23:04:04.487

Reputation: 57 019

ockquote>

.> I do care about the data.

– Archey – 2012-08-24T01:43:36.673

i would still download and burn it. It will at least let you know if the drive is recognizable at all. And its just a great utility to have. – Keltari – 2012-08-24T01:50:10.457

This has to be the strangest fix I've ever applied, but it worked.

I had 3 additional drives that did not show, one SSD and two conventional HDD's. They were in BIOS, but not Disk Management. Choosing to rescan for drives did nothing.

So... went into the BIOS, changed to IDE, tried to boot up, and it failed as expected.

Back to BIOS, changed to ACHI, saved, booted up... and all the drives were how showing and working fine.

Odd. Very odd. But it worked.

Mark

Posted 2012-08-23T23:04:04.487

Reputation: 21

I had this same issue (hard drive seen by BIOS, but not anywhere in Windows, including Device Manager and Disk Management). It was a drive removed from another computer. I can't be sure but probably the old computer's BIOS was set to use IDE and I know the new computer is using AHCI. I went into the new computer's BIOS and set it to use IDE. I then could not boot into Windows; so, I changed the BIOS setting back to AHCI. Now, magically, the hard drive giving me the issue shows up in Windows and works fine!

Andrew Swihart

Posted 2012-08-23T23:04:04.487

Reputation: 101