How do I get my harddrives to show up?

[F1REM0UTH]

hi ho, I need to get this annoying problem fixed!, I have just built a new PC with Vista Ultimate and have 4 x 500Gb hard drives, one is my C/ O/S Vista Drive, the other has Programs, the third has Games and the Fourth has some Films on, now the problem is Vista only shows my C drive and my Programs drive but the other 2 drives do not show up. I have had them show up but they always disappear, at one time I gave them there letters and names in the Disk Manager. I have tried what most people say, which is try the Device Manager or Disc Management, I could at one point get the harddrives to show up but then when I turned my PC off/on they would disappear again, now I can only sometimes get one of the missing harddrives to show up and the same happens again- it always disappears. I have tried putting the harddrives in different places in my Computer but the same. It is like they are being turned off somewhere I think, perhaps to save power/energy?. The 2 harddrives I'm having trouble with are Samsung HD502HJ, my other 2 hardrives are WD, not sure what it is here. Is it the harddrives or Vista, I'm certain it is not my connections as the harddrives have worked, it seems like to me something in Vista is turning them off or not recognising them. I can see them in the Bios but they still disappear after switching off on on again. Please help, thank you.

[Patriot_Ben]

You might be right with the power saving theory. In some cases if you are using and underpowered psu, it might not show up right away.

Do you have your sata and chipset drivers installed? Try updating this if it is not.

Otherwise you may need to manually initialize them:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/...-drive-for-use

[F1REM0UTH]

well I'm actually using a Corsair HX620watt PSU, I would say that this surly is not underpowered, although I do have 2x 3850x2 Graphic Cards, a low power AMD Phenom 550 BE CPU, and the 4 hard drives. When I go into Disk Management the harddrives I'm missing simply aren't there, same as they are not in Device Manager or Computer, I scan for new hardware but no luck. The only way I have been able to get one of the missing harddrives to show up is by unplugging and plugging back in the harddrive and then scanning for hardware changes in Device Manager and I get the harddrive show up, but as soon as I turn off my PC and back on again the harddrive has gone again. Sometimes I will get the searching for Drivers message on Start up and Vista finds one of my missing Samsung harddrives, but always ends up the same up on next Start up with the harddrives not showing. I have played around with the harddrives but nothing seems to solve it. So something is not right, the problem is when the harddrives are found and Vista sets up the Drivers the harddrives always disappear on next Start up and are not always installed again. I'm not sure if I should change a setting in the Bios, but surly it is not the Bios settings as sometimes the hardrives can be found. OK, I'll keep on and see if I can solve this mystery. Thanks for you reply/help.

[Patriot_Ben]

No problem. You may want to contact the mobo manufacturer as well to see if they have any ideas.

For the most part, most/all SATA protocol is hot-swappable and should not be giving you any issues.

[F1REM0UTH]

ok, what I did was to get the Device Manager to recognise the harddrives, one was found by pushing the harddrive in/out the hot swap bay and the other I moved from my internal drive bay also to the hot swap bay, both harddrives showed up then. I then went into the Disc Management, I partitioned the 2 hard drives as I had not done so to these 2 harddrives, and gave the new partitions new drive letters. I then re-booted the Computer and bingo- the hardrives all showed up in my Computer, I then rebooted again to double check and they were still there. So it seems that not having the partitions on the harddrives was stopping them from appearing or was making them disappear. You may know if this would be correct and why so, but was not the sort of thing I would have known about, I guess I was lucky I worked it out. I just hope that that was the actual cause, I guess I'll find out in the next few days if the problem is solved for sure, but it seems to be sorted now. Thanks for your support.

[F1REM0UTH]

ok, what I did was to get the Device Manager to recognise the harddrives, one was found by pushing the harddrive in/out the hot swap bay and the other I moved from my internal drive bay also to the hot swap bay, both harddrives showed up then. I then went into the Disc Management, I partitioned the 2 hard drives as I had not done so to these 2 harddrives, and gave the new partitions new drive letters. I then re-booted the Computer and bingo- the hardrives all showed up in my Computer, I then rebooted again to double check and they were still there. So it seems that not having the partitions on the harddrives was stopping them from appearing or was making them disappear. You may know if this would be correct and why so, but was not the sort of thing I would have known about, I guess I was lucky I worked it out. I just hope that that was the actual cause, I guess I'll find out in the next few days if the problem is solved for sure, but it seems to be sorted now. Thanks for your support.

ok, got up this morning and put on my PC and checked for the 2 harddrives in my Computer that keep disappearing and after I thought I had solved the issue- I haven't, the 2 hardrives are gone again, not showing up anywhere, surly their is reason for this?, surly I don't have to keep slotting or plugging my harddrives out and in again to get them to work, this would not be good for the SATA connections anyway. I don't think it is a fault with any hardware, it seems like a case of the harddrives are just being turned off or not recognised by Vista. Wish I could sort this out, this should not be happening should it?.

[F1REM0UTH]

You might be right with the power saving theory. In some cases if you are using and underpowered psu, it might not show up right away.

Do you have your sata and chipset drivers installed? Try updating this if it is not.

Otherwise you may need to manually initialize them:
http://www.patriotmemory.com/forums/...-drive-for-use

The Drivers for the Samsung HD502HJ harddrives can not be downloaded for these in Vista 64bit, they are automatically configured, as far as I know their is nothing I can do regarding the harddrive Drivers. I have tried to Google search for the Drivers a few times but their simply is none to download, not for this model harddrive in Vista 64bit. When I sometimes get the harddrives to install and run the Drivers are installed automatically by Vista and if I try to update them it says they are up to date. Maybe I have a bug or something that is causing this, I don't even know what a bug is(antennas and legs=bug to me), I remember reading once about a bug with these Samsung harddrives that stopped them showing up in the O/S but I wouldn't have a clue about this or if that was the case with me. Maybe I shall look into this again. I personally think it is a simple fix but I don't know what it is!, I'm starting to think at this moment it is because of my BIOS settings, I'm not BIOS fan yet to be honest, I have played around with it a few times when trying to set up my harddrives before and usually had to re-set to optimized defaults , at one point I even set up RAID 5 by mistake and lost my O/S completely! and had to do clean install, but luckily I was planning on doing that anyway so it did me a favour really, and I learnt a lesson about playing around with RAID 5 settings. If anyone thinks it is due to my BIOS settings please can you advise me if you think this could be the case, don't worry I won't ask how to do al the settings, if I find out it is the BIOS I should be able to work it myself, I just don't want to play around with th BIOS unless I have too. Thanks for any replies.

[Patriot_Ben]

The Drivers for the Samsung HD502HJ harddrives can not be downloaded for these in Vista 64bit, they are automatically configured, as far as I know their is nothing I can do regarding the harddrive Drivers. I have tried to Google search for the Drivers a few times but their simply is none to download, not for this model harddrive in Vista 64bit. When I sometimes get the harddrives to install and run the Drivers are installed automatically by Vista and if I try to update them it says they are up to date. Maybe I have a bug or something that is causing this, I don't even know what a bug is(antennas and legs=bug to me), I remember reading once about a bug with these Samsung harddrives that stopped them showing up in the O/S but I wouldn't have a clue about this or if that was the case with me. Maybe I shall look into this again. I personally think it is a simple fix but I don't know what it is!, I'm starting to think at this moment it is because of my BIOS settings, I'm not BIOS fan yet to be honest, I have played around with it a few times when trying to set up my harddrives before and usually had to re-set to optimized defaults , at one point I even set up RAID 5 by mistake and lost my O/S completely! and had to do clean install, but luckily I was planning on doing that anyway so it did me a favour really, and I learnt a lesson about playing around with RAID 5 settings. If anyone thinks it is due to my BIOS settings please can you advise me if you think this could be the case, don't worry I won't ask how to do al the settings, if I find out it is the BIOS I should be able to work it myself, I just don't want to play around with th BIOS unless I have too. Thanks for any replies.

Hey,

I was replying to the native SATA drivers for the motherboard.
Give this a try.

[F1REM0UTH]

Surly the Motherboards SATA controllers would not be faulty as the harddrives do work, it is just when I turn on my PC in the morning the 2 Samsung Drives are not showing up so I have to go to Device Manager after I slot the harddrives out/in and then Scan for hardware changes and usually this works. I just want the 2 harddrives set up so I don't have to install them everytime my PC is switched off and on again, am I missing a setting or something, how do I enable or disable a harddrive so it shows up and works and the other way around so I can set them to sleep, can I do this?. Are you suggesting my Motherboard is faulty, also I forgot to mention that the when the harddrives are not showing up they are missing in the BIOS, can I set the harddrives from the BIOS to show up in my Computer or Device Manager, I have tried but can't change nothing, I have read my Motherboard manual inside out and still nothing to help. If the harddrive itself was faulty surly I wouldn't be able to copy my Games to it, one of the harddrives does show up now, so I was thinking maybe it is a faulty harddrive but I can copy and play stuff on it fine when I get it to show up, so I'm unsure.

[F1REM0UTH]

ok, I was beginning to think my SATA Ports on my Mobo were buggered, but you see I could always get the missing harddrives to show but only by slotting out/in the hotswap bay, not good to do that evertyime, any I come to the point it must be the BIOS, as the missing harddrives were not showing in the BIOS, although sometimes one of the 2 harddrives did show!, confusing I know. So I set about the BIOS this morning and change one of the settings to ACHI!, don't know why but gave it a go, and my motherboard would not post, it was showing all 4 of my harddrives on the screen and was stuck in a reboot loop, each time with a normal beep. So went into BIOS again and unchecked the ACHI mode and as far as I know put the settings as they was before, I reboot and hey presto al my harddrives are there from the start!, I reboot to check my BIOS and all 4 harddrives are showing in the BIOS, so this tells me my Motherboard SATA ports/controller is not faulty and neither are my harddrives, it must just be down to either the wrong settings in the BIOS or something was stopping my harddrives from showing up, who knows what. So it seems I have fixed the problem for now at least, hopefully it will stay this way.