Solved SSD not recognised

[Davy]

I just bought two Crucial MX500 500GB 2.5 inch SSD's seeing that they were recommended for my Gigabyte GA-F2A88X-D3H mobo..... they are not recognised in bios yet they are seen in Boot selector (pressing F12).


I run Crucial BX200 and they give excellent service... so what am I missing? I clonned the MX500 and show up as drive G and H (one for the reserved partition) when connected externally to a Sata/USB adapter.


I use the same bios settings for the BX200 drives so nothing was changed here. Could anyone help throw some light on this.



Thank's, Dave.

 

[Megahertz07]

A drive can be recognized on BIOS SATA devices but not on Boot menu. Not the opposite.

You cloned the BX200 into the MX500? How did you cloned? What program you used?

This is what I would do.
- Attach the MX500 to a SATA port. Make sure the SATA port is enabled under BIOS peripherals - SATA devices.
- Boot from the BX200 and launch the cloning program (recommend Macrium Reflect)
- Shut down and replace the BX200 with the MX500.
See if it boots normally.

 

[Davy]

Thanks for the reply.

Thats exactly how I did it but I used Acronis. I did have trouble formatting it in the machine I started to format and then I got 'Format incomplete' message or something of that nature.

As said, the drive wasn't listed in the bios but it was listed in the boot select window when pressing F12. It did do a dissippearing act in Disk management.

I never had such problems when I installed the BX200's, the reason for getting the drive was they're bigger capacity.... not that I need a larger drive.

I got them from Crucial just yesterday, being Easter there's nothing much I can do until next week when I will try and get in touch with them. There have been some issue with the Firmware of the MX range I believe, firmware version is M3CR023.

I used NTFS and MBR format.


Dave

 

[Megahertz07]

Try diskpart on a CMD window as administrator.

diskpart
list disk (it will list all drives. Identify the MX drive number)
select disk n (replace n by the MX drive number obtained with list disk)
clean
convert mbr
create part primary
select part 1
format fs=NTFS quick
assign
active
exit (to exit diskpart)

Now it should show on Explorer

 

[Davy]

I forgot about trying that CMD operation had escaped me, thank you for the suggestion, I'll leave it until tomorrow now..... something I don't use everyday. I'll report back, thanks. Dave

 

[Davy]

Sorry for the delay..... here we go-: I can format and see the drive when connected via Sata to USB adaptor... indeed I cloned it from there and the files shows up BUT..... when plugging into internal Sata drive it disappears. Now then to CMD admin. prompt and Disk management, no sign of the drive so I then got the 'new' blank drive in to my Sata to USB adaptor, Initialised it then did as requested with the drive connected to the internal Sata port the drive showed up, so I then preceeded with the instructions in CMD prompt starting from 'Clean', I got a defrag error 'Disk part has encountered an error: The parameter is incorrect, see the system event log for information'.... not sure what I'm looking for here. I didn't have this trouble when I installed the BX200 drives.... they installed themselve's. Dave

 

[Davy]

-bump-

 

[Megahertz07]

Sorry for the delay..... here we go-: I can format and see the drive when connected via Sata to USB adaptor... indeed I cloned it from there and the files shows up BUT..... when plugging into internal Sata drive it disappears. Now then to CMD admin. prompt and Disk management, no sign of the drive so I then got the 'new' blank drive in to my Sata to USB adaptor, Initialised it then did as requested with the drive connected to the internal Sata port the drive showed up, so I then preceeded with the instructions in CMD prompt starting from 'Clean', I got a defrag error 'Disk part has encountered an error: The parameter is incorrect, see the system event log for information'.... not sure what I'm looking for here. I didn't have this trouble when I installed the BX200 drives.... they installed themselve's. Dave

Can you be more clear?
Defrag error?

Does the drive show up on disk manager?

 

[Davy]

The drive only shows up in disk manager when I connect the drive via USB socket using my Sata adapter, this is how I 'had' to initialise it and format it and cloned one of them because I couldn't get it to show up when using internal SATA sockets I then connected it to the internal SATA drive, it showed up and then dissappeared, I had no such problems when I installed the Crucial BX200 drives, Crucial website states they are compatible with my mobo. Both Crucial MX500 drives behave exactly the same, their firmware is M3CR023, I hope that clarifies my situation. Thank's, Dave

 

[Megahertz07]

First step is to make sure It is recognized by BIOS.
You must check the SATA and power cable.
Check the SATA port to see if it's enabled.
Try to replace the BX200 (use the BX200 port and cables) with the MX500 and see if it is recognized by BIOS

 

[Davy]

I've tried all the sata ports, I replaced the main BX200 drive with a cloned copy on the MX500 and no joy, I used the same cable I used on the BX200, as far as I understand this rules the cable and sata port out. The same thing happens if I use it has a spare storage drive..... it'll pop up in the disk drive window and then disappear, the first time I noted this oddity was in disk management the drive showed up and then disapeared.... are all sata cables are the same regarding data handling? When I get chance I'll disconnect all drive's and concentrate getting bios to see the drive, all my data is there on the cloned drive, as you say I need to sort this out. Dave

 

[Megahertz07]

Dave, is your BIOS up to date?
Did you ask Crucial help?

 

[Davy]

Yes I'm flashed and using latest bios, yes I did contact Crucial but they haven't replied as yet so I will try again. I've just ordered some Sata III leads so they will be a day or so, I'll leave it until they arrive so we can be sure, I don't know what the present leads are or if they are 'bottle necking', they'er not marked so may well be 'cheapos'. Dave

 

[Davy]

-Sorted-

Sorry for long delay...... I sorted the problem BUT can someone explain the problem, it's jiggering me up good style-:

What I was doing I was using a Molex to 2 Sata splitter leads, one to main drive and one to a spare SSD, be it for cloning or for storage that didn't matter.... I was getting 'No Hard drive found. Please insert operating disk (or something like that) or sometimes the spare drive did a disappearing trick.

No it wasn't the leads, nor could I detect any voltage drop. When I used one of the DVD drives for the SSD's power lo and behold it worked, the feed for the DVD's came from a separate branch wiring loom - but they all come from the same point inside the psu as far as I know, it was the same with 'spinner' drives.

I can only think ripple or data interference is the cause... the more I think about it the more loonier I become! It's a Cosair 500 Watt psu, not a cheap or dear one, middle of the road I'd say.

SO anyone that has similar problems - reading this *might* help, this Gigaybyte mobo just didn't like sharing the power feed for the main drive.... may be this is a common thing, sure is the first time I've come across it!

Thank you to all who replied. Dave

 

[Megahertz07]

The Molex connector has
Pin # Color Function
1 Yellow +12 V
2 Black Ground
3 Black Ground
4 Red +5 V
Molex connector - Wikipedia

The SATA connector also has a 3.3V (orange). Some SATA devices don't need the 3.3V but others do.
Serial ATA - Wikipedia
That is why it didn't work with the Molex to 2 Sata splitter.

 

[Davy]

Yes I am aware of the voltages and the colour coding.... I have to repeat myself here-: One power feed from the psu to a Molex to TWO sata plugs- both drives will work in ANY plug, please note: ANY plug but will not work when the TWO ARE connected - I'm sorry I can't make this any clear, the two drives have their power feed in parallel because I'm using a splitter connector. I will add, it is exactly the same with ANY drive, lets try again.... we have one Sata power lead connected to another Sata power lead...... FIW, both drives are exactly the same make, brand model - the lot and its exactly the same with ALL the drives that I have tried of various manufacture. If the leads are wrong in any shape or form the drives would not work. According to Crucial MX500 the only indication on the back of them is 5V at 1.7 Amps.... there's no servo requriing a 12V supply like HDD's for sure, lets stick to HDD and ssd here because NVMe drive's ARE different, I suspect all three voltages *could* 12, 5 & 3.3V come into play here and they all come from their respective rectifiers, filter capacitors and chokes. Dave

 

[Megahertz07]

Calm down Dave, you're loosing your temper for very little.
Now you made it clear but it wasn't on your previous post.

BTW, the fact they are feed in parallel shouldn't make any difference. The PS is able to feed many drives.
As I wrote, the only explanation is the absence of 3.3V on the Molex connector.

 

[Davy]

Sorry if I gave the impression I was on a short fuse. What would be interesting would be to try the power leads from the DVD's.... but that would be a struggle because they are short and not that flexible and hardly any room to move. Something strange was happening because at first when I formatted and initialised the new drive it'd disappeared shortly after boot up.... but not when connected elsewhere - what fun that was. Sorry too I missed that 'little green thanks' at the bottom. The matter is solved and that was the reason, something I'd never seen before, I posted as it might just help someone else. Thanks again, Dave Edit: I still haven't heard from Crucial as yet.