Some users sometimes find that the system does not see the hard drive, not only plugged in as an additional device, but also the already installed hard drive, on which the operating system intended for boot is located. What can this be connected with and how to fix such a problem? The following are some basic solutions that should help in most cases. True, you will first have to find out the true cause of the failure.
Why does the system not see the hard drive?
As the most common cause of such failures, most experts tend to call the incorrect connection of the hard disk drive cables to the motherboard. However, even with the correct connection, a situation may arise when, for example, the system does not see the new hard disk, although it is working, the operating system is fully operational, the drivers are installed, etc.
This problem most often refers to incorrect BIOS settings (more on this later). The same situation can be observed in the presence of software failures, when the connected device is assigned a letter already used by the system. Finally, the disk may contain errors, and if it is the hard drive from which the OS is started, boot records and sectors that need to be restored may be damaged.
Physical causes and solutions
The solution to the question of why the system does not see the SATA hard drive (we take this device standard as an example only), we will begin by considering physical problems.
As already clear, you should first check the correct connection and the density of the loops in the corresponding connectors. In addition, the overheating of the south bridge, which is more typical for laptops, is called a very common cause of HDD malfunction. In this case, first you need to turn off the device and let it cool.
For stationary units, a possible solution to the problem may be the option of resetting the settings by removing the CMOS battery from the slot for a couple of minutes (full zeroing of the parameters).
Along the way, you should find on the motherboard a special Clear CMOS jumper, which, as a rule, is located near the battery. First, the jumper must be switched to position 2-3 for 15 seconds, then return to the initial connection 1-2.
Immediately pay attention to the correct Master / Slave connections (jumper position). A hard drive with an IDE interface must have a Master connection, all other devices, including external hard drives or optical drives, are Slave. This, incidentally, applies to situations where the system does not see the second hard drive. But this is far from all the problems.
The system does not see the hard drive: BIOS settings
Another reason that the hard drive is not recognized is because of incorrect settings on the primary BIOS I / O system. If at boot the system reports that the system disk was not found and asks to insert it, it is possible that another device is installed in the boot priority.
In the corresponding section, the priority (first) device to boot should be selected exactly HDD. If, after this, the system does not see the hard drive, you should go to the settings section of the hard drive and turn off AHCI mode in the SATA configuration settings line, setting RAID or Standard IDE as the parameter used.
Disk Management Section
But suppose that the main hard drive is recognized and the OS boots without problems. The user connected a second hard drive, but no effect. So why does the system not see the external hard drive? There are many reasons for this, one of which is that the wrong letter is assigned to the disk.
This situation is simply eliminated: we go into the computer control, where we use a similar partition for disks. Here, absolutely all devices will be displayed, even if they are not recognized at the initial stage of loading or do not work correctly. We select the necessary disk, right-click on the submenu and turn to the line changing the letters or path to the disk. After that, enter the unused value and save the set parameters. You may have to reboot.
Driver issues
Another problem for many users is missing or incorrectly installed drivers, which are responsible for the work of both the installed on the motherboard and the external hard drive.
If the user has a driver disk, which must be included in the package upon purchase, there are no problems. Just install (or reinstall) drivers. If there is no such disk, you can use the freely distributed Driver Pack Solution catalog or install a program like Driver Booster, which will scan for missing, damaged or updated drivers and automatically integrate them into the system.
Check hard drive and boot record
Finally, the most unpleasant situation is when the operating system does not boot from the hard drive due to software errors or surface damage.
In the first case, you will need any bootable disk (for example, a LiveCD or a system distribution), after which you will need to call the recovery console by pressing the "R" key and go to the command line, where first check the disk for errors with the chkdsk c: / f / r command, and then write the lines Bootrec.exe / FixMbr and Bootrec.exe / FixBoot (this will fix the boot entries). If this does not work, you need to overwrite the boot sector using the Bootrec.exe / RebuildBcd command. If the problem was really connected with such a situation, after restarting, the download will go in normal mode without failures.
In case of mechanical damage, the hard drive will have to be replaced. Although it is claimed that it is possible to recover damaged sectors using the HDD Regenerator program by magnetizing the disk, this is hard to believe.
Conclusion
In conclusion, it remains to say that for cases when the system does not see the hard drive, these are far from all solutions, since it is simply impossible to foresee all situations. However, all of the above occurs most often, therefore, depending on the situation, you can apply one or another technique that will fix the problem.
Here, problems were deliberately not considered when the hard drive is not detected by the system due to virus exposure (this also occurs), because protecting your own computer should be a priority for any user. Also, issues related to incorrect partitioning of the disk or its formatting were not raised. Well, when the Winchester, as they say, began to "crumble", there is simply no other solution than a replacement.