Windows 7: Can't get Windows 7 to find my 2nd hard drive

Again, as I said in the very first post of this thread: NO. Look at it! I even posted a picture of Disk Management which tells me that the people responding aren't even reading this!



*headdesk*

Like I was mentioning before you may have seen a bad install of 7 where something didn't go on fully as it should. The lack of seeing the drive in the bios however is a hardware or bios concern with a drive known to be working however.

As far as cables coming loose while not having moved the case or opened it? You have case fans blowing cooler air into the case I hope as well as good circulation. When finding the end of the drive cable here was lifted up in the port on the board that was a little bit surprizing as well since all cables are reinspected at times to insure they are all in properly. Somehow it still lifted itself causing the drive to vanish until finding it that way.

The next question of course would concern any trips made into the bios setup throughout the 7 installation for things like any settings changes made. If you post screen has a full screen logo disable that in the advanced in order to see the post tests list all drives detected at startup to see if it shows there.

Did you make any boot order change in the bios during the installation for booting off of the 7 dvd or bring up the boot device menu using the assigned F key at post time?

These are the things anyone would be asking. A cable can be plugged in firmly and still go bad on you being another possible cause to consider. This is why the idea of rechecking things over never hurts to insure some small item isn't the cause. You can think you can have everything ruled oot and still see a few surprizes at times.

that was 21 hours ago - I was only asking if it was still not showing in Disk Management..

have you tried repairing your Windows 7 installation.. (recently..!!)

OK, first, that is why I have been asking for help on how to go into the BIOS and fix it because I already know all of this, and it becomes clearer to me that people are not reading.

Second, since I had to yank the cables pretty hard when testing them to get them out, I doubt that my fans could effect them... I mean honestly... think about it.

Third, no trips were made to the BIOS when I installed Win 7.

Fourth, no boot changes were or have been made.

Fifth, I'm a pretty thorough girl when it comes to my hardware, when I say I checked things, it means multiple times because I'm also anal about it. Almost 90% of my work and at least 90% of my recreation is centered on my computers, so telling me to recheck things I have already triple checked is no less annoying than the tech support person telling me to unplug my modem, wait 30 seconds, restart the computer, and plug the modem back in again after I had already done it about 10 times before calling them. I realize there is no way you could have known this about me, but can we please get off the hardware?

How do can I fix this in the BIOS?

Yes... about 7 hours ago.

in that case - as far as Windows 7 is concerned - you have a duff drive - RMA it..

the only other thing I can suggest is that you replace the duffer with another drive and see if Windows 7 picks that up

if it doesn't the problem is either in the BIOS or the cabling..

As far as I know, a BIOS won't have controls to either recognize or not recognize a drive--it recognizes the drive or it doesn't. But you may have an odd BIOS with some type of setting like that.

If we stipulate that all hardware is OK (as you have said), the only thing I can think of is maybe the BIOS itself at least as far as Windows 7 is concerned.

All I can suggest there is to look at each and every setting in the BIOS, hoping to find a switch that might be relevant. I'd guess you have done this as best you can.

Have you reset your BIOS to defaults?

Have you considered flashing the BIOS to the newest available version for that motherboard?

Have you run the hard drive manufacturer's utilities on the drive?

Does the drive manufacturer's forum show anyone else having trouble with a Windows 7 install?

These are long shots, but otherwise I am stuck.

If it's not showing up in the bios, your computer does not know that it is there at all. Have you tried restarting the computer with the primary hard drive out and the second hard drive in? Do that and see if it's in the bios. Beyond doing that I can't think of anything you can do that has not been said. You might have to get used to the idea of 1 internal and 3 external HDDs.

Having installed external drives internally as well as seeing drives moved to new custom builds at times whenever a drive doesn't appear in the bios it boils down to a power connector, data cable, or failed drive unless there's some problem being seen with the board itself namely some corruption of the bios programming or make/model of drive involved.

One example of that was seen when moving a 500gb WD Green Power drive into the last build while the 7 betas and RCs were what everyone was running for the extra OS drive. 7 went right on while programs to follow on repeat installlations still saw problems. Good as a storage drive only is where that particular model series is best suited.

Likewise the sudden failure of detection with a known working drive would suggest one of above except for a failed drive. That tends leave the board having a problem if it won't see the drive when plugged in properly with a good power connector and data cable in use. There isn't too much else to consider besides what has already beeng suggested as likely causes.

Try resetting your BIOS settings to the Default values.
Normally there is a function key that you can select during boot that would allow you to change the boot order>Could you try that and see if the missing HDD is listed as one of the selectable items?

Regards