Bios see's sata drive but windows doesn't?

0Gravity · 18 Oct 2013

Hi All,
I have searched and tried several different things that are suggested to fix this problem, but can't figure it out..... I'm simply trying to add a extra storage drive to my HTPC and when I install the drive it's recognized in the bios, but when I start up windows 7 it says it's installing new hardware then comes up with the error "Hardware drivers could not be installed for your device" or something along that line..... and the drive shows up in device managers unknown devices with a yellow mark. I have tried two sperate drives a 1TB WD Blue and a 2TB Seagate both are Sata3 6g drives and my Motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H that has 6 sata3 ports.
Here's what I've tried
As I said 2 seperate drives, both reacted this same.
Tried different sata cables.
Tried going into disk management to make the disk usable BUT it is not listed there.
I used a Linux based "recovery tools" cd to boot the system (which BTW sees the drive just fine) to use the Seagate drive utility to partition the drive and format it NTFS.
I also read here to try uninstalling the drive controllers in the device manager and reboot and let windows set them back up.
Obviously.... None of this has worked, and I'm at the end of my wits here... lol
Any suggestions that you all can give me would be VERY appreciated!
Thanks!

0Gravity · 19 Oct 2013

Hmmm..... no suggestions?

essenbe · 19 Oct 2013

I would use Seatools for DOS, burn it to CD and boot from the CD and run both the short and long test to see if there are problems with the drive.

0Gravity · 19 Oct 2013

Thanks for the reply essenbe, I will give that a try, but I gotta wonder what the chances are that two separate brand new drives from different manufactures would have the exact same problem.... Also I did use a couple disk tools from within that Linux recovery tool CD to check the drives and they found no errors or problems, but I will try the seatool to check it again.
The again

essenbe · 19 Oct 2013

A surprising number of new drives arrive damaged. I think thanks to UPS or the Postal Service, but it does happen. I believe you said you changed cables, you may also consider changing sata ports on the board and check both ends of the data and power cables to make sure they are properly seated. I always prefer to use the manufacturer's drive diagnostic tool, although I do use others too. The manufacturer made the drive, so should know the specifics of exactly what to look for, but I also use other diagnostic tools too.

0Gravity · 19 Oct 2013

I agree with all you've said, and will give it a shot, but I am really leaning towards it being a problem within windows 7 or my build... Mainly because the drive is accessible from within every other environment I've tried it in.... I actually transferred files to and from it within a "mini xp" program on my recovery tools CD.
Also when I was swapping different cables I also tried different ports and they all see the drive the same way, just listed under the different port.
I really do appreciate and will try anything at this point to figure this out!

essenbe · 19 Oct 2013

Click the start button, type cmd in the search box, when the cmd entry appears, right click it and select run as administrator. In the box that appears type diskpart and press enter, it will take a few seconds, but the window will return and say diskpart. Type list disk and press enter. See if it sees your drive.

Also, do you have 2 sata controllers on that board listed in BIOS?

0Gravity · 19 Oct 2013

OK, in my quest to find an answer to this problem I have found a possible cause, but have no idea what to do about it... So here goes...
My original setup consisted of only two drives (one 1TB hard drive and a CD/DVD drive) connected to the data ports, but I now believe they were installed incorrectly, but still worked.
First, in the bios it was installed in ide mode instead of AHCI mode, also they were installed in ports so that the CD drive is listed in the bios as the "Master" and the Primary hard drive is listed as "Slave" my ports are marked on the board as Sata3_0 thru Sata3_5, The CD drive was installed in the Sata3_0 port and the Hard drive in the Sata3_2 port, I've read that the primary HDD should be in the very first data port which would be sata3_0....if I try to move the HDD to that port now it is then listed in the bios as the "master" but my system won't boot into windows!
Could this be what is causing my problems with installing the new drive and if so how do I fix it?
Thanks,
Mike

essenbe · 19 Oct 2013

You are usually better off with the OS drive in port 0, but it is not absolutely necessary. You usually get better performance on sata port 0 or 1. When you say IDE mode, is that the sata mode or are you using IDE connections? If they are both sata drives, (your CD and hard drive) I don't know why they are listed as Master/slave. If you installed in IDE sata mode, you cannot just change bios to AHCI or the computer will not boot. Are they connected with an IDE cable ot 2 sata cables? If sata you should have 2 cables, a data cable connected to the drive and motherboard and a sata power cable connected to the PSU. Which type drive and CD Drive do you have?

Bios see's sata drive but windows doesn't?-sata-ide-laptop-hard-drive-1.jpg

0Gravity · 19 Oct 2013

Diskpart only sees my original HD, not the one I am trying to install.

In not sure where to look for two controllers in bios, although nothing is jumping out at me BUT my Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H does actually have 8 sata ports 2 of which are marked GSata2_6 and _7 that I believe do use another controller of some kind, but I am not using those ports.