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Hard Drive not recognized

Dave112
Level 7
I built this system a few years ago with A Samsung EVO 850 SSD and a Seagate Constellation Hard drive. *No problems until now.

My system crashed. On re-boot Windows Startup Repair came up, but it couldn't repair automatically. *I decide to re-install Windows 7, but it wouldn't install becasue it couldn't find a file. *I attempted to install Win 7 on the Seagate, but it wasn't formatted for an OS. *I have replaced the Seagate with a new WD Hard Drive, but it was not recognized. *When I put the Seagate back it, it was recognized. *I used exactly the same connectors. *I did this with 3 new WD hard drives. *I was given another WD hard drive, with Windows 8.1 already installed, but it isn't recognized either. *Now my CD/DVD drive isn't recognized, and it wasn't touched. *I tried clearing the CMOS. and changing settings in the UEFI (ver 2.16.1240) with no Luck. *The Motherboard is a Maximus VII Hero.

I really need some suggestions.*
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14 REPLIES 14

Nate152
Moderator

Korth
Level 14
One Samsung 850 EVO SSD and one Seagate Constellation HDD and one (or three?) new WD HDD and a DVD drive ... ?
I'm a little confused ... can you list exactly which drives (hardware) you have?

I'm assuming you want to have it setup as a bootable Windows system drive (Samsung SSD), one or more non-bootable drives (storage HDDs), and one CD/DVD drive?

When you say the drives are "not recognized", do you mean by the (Windows) OS or by the BIOS? Are connected drives listed in the BIOS or shown during the bootup messages? Are you BIOS drive settings all set to "AUTO" or "Automatically Detect", etc?

Do you have a bootable Windows install (DVD) disc? Do you have your Windows Product Key?
Do you have a (4GB or larger) USB flash drive you can turn into a bootable Windows install drive?

Do you need to recover any data from any of your drives or do you just want a fresh clean Windows install? Are you using any multi-drive things like RAID, JBOD, or Windows Storage Space?
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

davemon50
Level 11
Hmm I also found your post quite confusing. Regarding recognition of drives, make sure you have the correct AHCI driver installed and your SATA ports are all working.
Davemon50

Korth
Level 14
And what sort of PSU? Is it sufficiently powerful to run your drive-heavy system under peak loads?
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

I had a 1 TB Seagate. *3 1 TB WD HDDs tried and failed. *I'm trying to get an emergency 500GB WD hard drive so that I can attempt to get the SSD working. *As stated the connections and port are fine as evidenced by the fact that I can put the 1 TB Seagate in and it will be recognized, using the same connections and port. * Can I update the Bios if I can't get the computer to boot? *My PSU is corsair AX1200i.

Nate152
Moderator
Yes, you can update the bios with the bios flashback feature and you'll need a usb flash drive formatted to .FAT32. Once you have the bios file on the flash drive rename it to M7H.CAP

Then insert it into the bios flashback port and press the bios flashback button until it starts to flash, it should get faster then stop. The update process should take about 90 seconds.

I wonder if you might have some faulty drives since the ports are working.

Korth
Level 14
Your PSU is more-than-sufficiently rated, lol.

You don't need any drives attached to update Maximus VII Hero BIOS with the USB Flashback method, step-by-step video here. The locations of the BIOS Flashback button and reserved USB port are shown on page 2-11 of the MAXIMUS VII HERO User Manual. In fact, it's probably best to remove all nonworking hardware during firmware flash, although it's not strictly necessary.

I'm just stating the obvious here to cover all bases (nothing personal because I don't even know you personally, lol, but flawed assumptions would be just as bad as insults) -
- each drive should be connected to the motherboard with a SATA signal cable and connected to the PSU with a SATA power cable (illustrated on page 2-8 of the User Manual)
- the Intel Z97 PCH provides six 6Gbps SATA ports (the "upper" three pairs of red ports, labelled SATA6G_1 through _6, illustrated page 1-39 of the User Manual)
- the ASUS-added ASMedia controller provides two 6Gbps SATA ports (the "bottom" pair of red ports, labelled SATA6G_E1 and _E2, illustrated page 1-40 of the User Manual)
- the ASMedia SATA ports do not support bootable drives, ATAPI/ODD drives (your CD/DVD drive), or hardware RAID
- do not change any BIOS settings or overclock anything at all (don't even run memory at its "rated" non-JEDEC settings) until ALL of your hardware works properly
- in UEFI/BIOS (under "PCH Storage Configuration", page 3-31 of the User Manual), you need to confirm your SATA Mode Selection is AHCI (not IDE, not RAID), Aggressive LPM Support is Disabled, SMART Status Check is ON, SATA6G ports are each Enabled (and Hot Plug is Disabled) - these are actually the default/factory BIOS settings - you also have the option of renaming the SATA ports but it's better to just leave them as-is until all your drives work

I think it's best to disconnect all physical drives except the SATA6G_1 boot/system drive (and maybe the CD/DVD drive, if needed to boot a disc) while troubleshooting this issue.
I think the best "final" setup would be your Samsung SSD in SATA6G_1, your HDDs in SATA6G_3 through _5, and your CD/DVD in SATA_6G_6, leaving SATA6G_2/_E1/_E2 unused, this way you won't even have to install ASMedia drivers (and never worry about OS/driver version conflicts, etc).

Swapping one not-working drive for another not-working drive over and over again will not accomplish anything. You should start with one drive known to be working - test and confirm it in another computer if possible - and methodically rule out failures in SATA ports or SATA cables (check for things like bent/broken pins, frayed wiring, etc).

Cover all the common faults: confirm that all your motherboard power inputs (24-pin EATX and 8-pin EATX12V) are properly connected, confirm system memory is properly installed and properly seated (DDR3 DIMMs, as described on pages 1-10 to 1-26 of the User Manual). Your chipset PCH (DH82Z97 chip) or VRMs might be overheating and require a repaste (which would void your already-expired ASUS warranty, lol) but only as a last resort after ruling everything else out - best to monitor motherboard/chipset temps for a while to see if they appear to be running hot enough to cause faults.

If you're not worried about recovering any data then you can just nuke-and-pave your system drive with a clean Windows install. The bootable Windows CD (or USB) can even completely wipe/repartition/reformat your hard drive, if desired. Moving a Windows install to another computer is more complicated, partly because of hardware/driver issues and partly because of Microsoft licensing issues, but it is possible. You'll want a 64-bit OS, of course, since 32-bit won't be able to address all your memory and has increasingly limited hardware/driver support these days.

If your mission is just to get your machine working then you can circumvent all of Microsoft's annoyingly troublesome Windows licensing issues and product keys entirely and just install a linux. Mint is a good choice for beginners and "normal" nontechnical people, and it can run as a "Live CD" or "Live USB" so you don't even have to perform a fixed install on a hard drive, excellent for troubleshooting hardware or getting the computer to work well enough to fix WinOS issues.

Recovering your personal data (photos, music, movies, documents, files, web history, whatever) from your nonworking drives is a complicated topic, if you need that data and don't know how to get it back then it's probably best to take your machinery into a computer shop.
"All opinions are not equal. Some are a very great deal more robust, sophisticated and well supported in logic and argument than others." - Douglas Adams

[/Korth]

davemon50
Level 11
Still not sure exactly what is NOT recognizing the drive? Don't think you answered the question above about whether or not the drives show up on the BIOS info screen when you first turn on the computer, and if you've booted into BIOS and checked the boot orders and enabled/disabled devices to ensure it's all correct. Make sure you don't have the Windows Boot Manager as the bootup device for the HDD.


EDIT: Simultaneous post. Follow all that great advice on Korth's message there.
Davemon50

Dave112
Level 7
Drives aren't recognized in UEFI or my legal Win 7 when I attempted to format them from the install disk, at least when it recognized ny CD/DVD drive. *I will reformat the SSD and re-nstall Win 7 there as a last resort. *Now I need to get these drive recognized.

I'll have to wait until tomorrow to update the UEFI.*