I've just completed a major upgrade of my PC, starting from scratch with a new build, but I'm trying to reuse my old hard drives. Unfortunately, none of my SATA HDDs are showing up in the BIOS, disk management, or device manager. The only drive that's detected is my m.2 SSD. I've already spent several hours troubleshooting by switching ports, trying different cables, and checking all the connections to the power supply and motherboard. I know my HDDs were working fine before the upgrade since I plugged them in shortly after using my old setup. Just to mention, my motherboard model is the B650 Steel Legend. I'm really hoping someone can help me with this because I'm a bit anxious after investing all this money into my first build. Big thanks in advance for any assistance! Also, as a side note, one of the HDDs is a Samsung from 2010, and the other is a Seagate from 2014.
4 Answers
It sounds like your motherboard might be disabling certain SATA ports when an M.2 SSD is installed. A lot of motherboards have this behavior. Have you tried all the different SATA ports? It could be that the ports you’re trying to use are disabled because of the M.2 drive.
Have you made sure to try a different SATA cable? And when you check disk management, do you see nothing at all? It would be strange if only the SSD is showing up.
Yes, I’ve tried different cables, and unfortunately, all I see is my SSD in disk management.
I’ve had issues in the past with drives that were used in other machines. You might want to use a partitioning app to see what’s going on with your HDDs. If the SATA connections are working, that might give you a clue on what’s happening.
Do you have any specific partitioning apps you'd recommend?
If the drives aren’t showing in BIOS, that’s definitely a problem. First, check if the drives are getting power—try feeling for vibrations when you start your PC. Also, I found that sometimes covering the third pin on the SATA power connector can help. Here’s a helpful link I found: [Tom's Hardware Article](https://www.tomshardware.com/news/hdd-sata-power-disable-feature,36146.html). Additionally, try connecting just one drive at a time to see if you get a response. Don't forget to test with different power and SATA cables as well!
I didn’t feel a spin when I checked, but I'm not great with sensory inputs, so I'll double-check. I’ve tried different cables too, but I’ll take a look at that article!
Thanks for the tip! I actually tried different ports already, but I appreciate your input.