Hard Drive "Vanishes"

Vern1961

Vern1961

Vern1961

Soldato
Joined
29 Mar 2007
Posts
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Location
Swindon UK
Here's a puzzler...

Took delivery of a new box on Friday (basic specs below, custom build, not an OCUK build :( ). Comes with a 1Tb drive fitted but decided in order to futureproof to transfer the second HD from my old PC, having formatted same, also being a 1Tb drive - Samsung HD103SJ.

Having fitted the drive in the new PC, first boot was fine, recognised in My Computer and was able to read/write data to it. (Listed as "E" as the DVD drive is D). However subsequent boots the drive was no longer recognised or accessible and on checking the BIOS not shown in there either. Undoing the box and connecting the SATA lead to a different socket on the Mobo led to the drive being recognised on the first boot, but subsequent boots once again not visible in either BIOS or the Win 7 Computer utilities.

I'm assuming the SATA drivers are installed or the PC wouldn't boot at all or read the C drive. If I'd bricked the second drive while handling it, then presumably it wouldn't initialise at all on that first boot after install.

I've emailed the vendor as, while it's not worth RMA'ing the box for, I would still like to know why it's happening. I can probably live with a single 1Tb drive for now, but I always prefer to install Steam, games etc. on other than the OS drive.
 
I was forgetting I do have the 500Gb C drive from the old PC, which is SATA. I'll buy a new lead and see what happens when I install that - if it works okay then it must have been either the 1Gb drive or lead, if not then it's the mobo or feed from the PSU.
 
Update - putting the 500Gb drive with a new SATA lead seems to have worked. Done several reboots and it is showing up. Only issue I have is that it was the original C drive it is showing as two separate drives E (100Mb) reserved and F (the rest). Any idea how I can departition and format into just one drive?
 
Vern1961 said:
Update - putting the 500Gb drive with a new SATA lead seems to have worked. Done several reboots and it is showing up. Only issue I have is that it was the original C drive it is showing as two separate drives E (100Mb) reserved and F (the rest). Any idea how I can departition and format into just one drive?
Click to expand...

The separate 100Mb partition happens every time I install Windows 7 from a DVD (both Home Premium and Professional) onto an unformatted drive. First few time I assumed it was to do with me installing it onto an SSD, but it's also happened when I've installed onto a mechanical drive in a different PC too. Put it down as "just one of those things Windows does that I don't understand but it doesn't really affect anything other than my OCD, so I'll leave it alone and not break it."
 
the 100mb system reserve is not always created but more often then not is... it contain all of the information for booting into Windows. You will have three if you are booting uEFI:

1. System Reserve
2. EFI Partition
3. OS Partition

Stelly
 
Just go into Disk Management and remove the drive letter assignment for the 100mb drive.

Don't bother trying to merge the partitions together.

Unless you're happy to wipe the drive clean, then leave it as it is.




Now cut up the old SATA lead and bin it before it makes it's way back into your spares box :)
 
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