Windows 7: 1TB Seagate Barracuda does not show up with a new mobo

Hello everyone

I have replaced my ASUS P8 Z68-V/GEN3 with an Intel Desktop Board DZ77SL-50K and at the same time the primary hard drive has changed from a 1TB Seagate Barracuda to a 3TB Seagate Barracuda. The new system is working fine apart from that the 1TB Seagate Barracuda does not show up in Computer, Disk Management, MiniTools partition management, DiskWizard or anywhere else no matter which SATA cable, SATA port or computer is used. Consequently, I am unable to retrieve any files from the old HDD which is disastrous for my business.

Please anyone give me any advice that you may have in order to retrieve any number of files from the unrecognised HDD.



Thank you,

Derek

One problem I can see you running into immediately is swapping the main OS drive(1tb) for a new 3tb model! The 3tb drive would best serve as a primary storage drive rather then splitting it up.

The first place to look to see if the 1tb drive is even being seen at all would be a look in the bios setup>Advanced or boot order to see if it is listed there. You won't be able to mount the existing partition on the drive(former C volume) if the bios on the new board isn't even seeing it!

One thing I have here besides any partition recovery program would be an external usb enclosure to place any drive in. Why the new board wouldn't see the 1tb drive if you knew was working good prior to swapping boards out may be bios related.

You could try the reset option to see the drive then appears if not found listed. An external enclosure of course would see an entirely different bus used for file recovery if not put on another machine in order to back things up from it.

If you do find it listed there in the bios but not in Windows then you might find it listed differently in the DM possibly under removable or offline. Then you would need to see it initialized. When going back into the Disk Management maximise the window to look at everything in the DM to if you notice it as something else.

Since you were in there changing parts. Go back in a make double sure both power and data cables are plugged into the drive and data cable also plugged to mb
As redundant as it sounds, it does happen to the best of us.

That too! Sometimes a cable can look like it's in all the way but isn't! That applies to the power connector as well as data cable.

You bump into the harness while moving around and the power connector eases out just a little bit and ... ??? drive suddenly doesn't work?! That's a idea as well to look into. I tend to doubt you would have 2 or 3 bad data cables in a row.

Of course one other thing would be a possible bad power connector on the harness or one with a loose wire in the connector itself that would go unnoticed. Try a different power connector.

Thank you two for the replies. I had tried using different SATA cables/connectors and different SATA power connectors (Yes, I heard the noise of the rotating disks inside the chassis) with no luck. But confirming that the drive could be seen in the BIOS menu, it now shows up in Computer!! I totally don't understand why the drive is there now because no change has been made to the cabling!!

Derek

retarded bios?
One of my biggest reasons for my most recent upgrade was getting UEFI.
BIOS can get really stupid sometimes.

My suspicion also goes to the mobo/its BIOS, but the BIOS of the brand new mobo has been upgraded recently, so it's hard to believe BIOS was the culprit.... becoming ever more mystifying..

Well I would reboot a few times, just to make sure it holds before actually messing with the drive at all.

Now you see it, now you don't! At least you know the drive, cables, and connectors are all good!

Apparently the bios never detected it properly and with the fast visit you now suddenly see it appear? Is this a new model board that just came out or one that's been out for any period of time? If it's been out for good while they may have an updated bios version with a fix in it for this type of problem.