There are few things more confusing than buying a brand-new SSD, installing it happily, only to discover that your PC is not recognizing it. Show
Follow our guide on how to fix an SSD that does not show up in the BIOS to save yourself countless hours and money spent on shipping “not working SSD” back and forth. Why Is My SSD Not Showing Up in BiosBefore you read through the troubleshooting steps, be aware of the most common causes that an SSD is not being recognized.
The steps listed below will directly address all of these issues. The order in which you perform the troubleshooting is critical, so please don’t just jump to random steps midway and instead go methodically from the first step to the last one. The order is meant to narrow down the possible causes, as oftentimes, it’s tough to pinpoint why a hardware part is not showing up. How to Get Your System to Recognize the New SSDCheck the Cables!You can save hours of troubleshooting if you find that the SSD was into the wrong motherboard connector. Maybe the SATA cable was faulty or did not make complete contact. This step will help to physically examine the connector cables from the SSD to the motherboard and power supply. They are usually around the edges of the motherboard, either on the right side or the bottom side.
Confirm That the Motherboard Drivers Are Up to DateThe first step is to check if your motherboard has the latest driver installed. If the motherboard driver is outdated, it could have issues detecting some newer models of SSD’s. Update Your Storage Controller DriverIf the SSD is not showing up in BIOS, you can troubleshoot it in the following way:
Whenever you install new hardware parts, the computer automatically detects and configures them. Formatting an SSD to Make It Appear in BIOSFormatting was often a quick fix when I was trying to recover DATA from older hard drives in the past. From personal experience, I resolved most of my issues after correctly formatting the hard drive. To conduct this procedure, please follow these steps:
After formatting is complete, please restart your computer and check if the SSD is correctly recognized or working. I successfully resolved about 90% of the cases from my past dealings with difficult hard drives via formatting them. Check if the SSD Itself is DefectiveDo these small steps in order so we can narrow down the potential cause of your SSD issues.
If the SSD is not detected on two separate systems/ builds, it’s most likely damaged or dead on arrival. How to Enable an SSD Only by Using the BIOS Settings During Startup
All motherboards have a different interface configuration and the way you reach certain settings can vary. This is just the universal way of describing how to enable any disabled hard drives. Try the Systems Devices and Hardware Diagnostics, TroubleshooterThe Windows operating system’s convenient built-in feature allows users to input commands and execute tasks manually. You can access the Hardware panel by clicking the windows key > Control panel on the right side. If the “Hardware and Device” troubleshooter is not in the control panel menu do this instead:
When the “Hardware and Devices troubleshooter” is run, the System will automatically configure and fix any current SSD issues. Press “Next” and wait until the program has entirely run its course. Fix a Faulty SSD by Assigning a Different Drive LetterWhat is an SSD drive letter? It is simply the letter assigned to a hard drive so that you can differentiate between the various installed hard drives on your computer. To see the current letter associated with your main hard drive, go to the start menu and locate the tab called “this PC’. Typically the primary storage is called “C”, and the reserved or secondary ones are “F” and “E”. To apply and assign a new letter to a drive, you need to open the Disk Management tool.
Surprisingly, just applying this fix can sometimes force your PC to recognize an unknown hard drive correctly (windows coding works in mysterious ways). Check for Memory-related Issues Associated With a Faulty SSDThere are certain times when the SSD itself is appropriately working. Still, due to an error generated in the RAM, this can hinder the detection of a newly added hard drive. RAM is responsible for assigning easily accessible memory to all computer components in need, including hard drives. For proper communication between both devices, make sure to fix any present memory issues with a simple to run diagnostics tool.
Running the windows memory troubleshooter can take a long time. Time taken depends on the severity of the memory leak or issue; make sure you don’t have any immediately urgent work on that computer. After the process finishes, the computer will automatically reboot itself. If you have performed all the steps above and the new SSD still doesn’t show up, you should be covered by a warranty. In that case, return the SSD to the seller and ask for a replacement. Can You Recover Data From a Faulty SSD?Suppose you already have essential information and data stored on the SSD. In that case, it is still not showing up as adequately connected/missing or malfunctioning. The best resort is to send the SSD to a specialist dealing with data extraction. You can also do this yourself, but it would require a computer with an already working primary drive. Here is the only step to recover data yourself:
Let the software run its course and see which files it could recover. The more read/write cycles that SSD has had, the harder it is to recover. But it’s worth trying before you throw it away. How to Detect if Your System Is Not Recognizing Your SSDFrom my personal experience, sometimes a newly installed SSD will not show up in the BIOS but instead, appear in the devices tab. How to check if the SSD is listed under the hardware section in the device manager
Frequently Asked QuestionsHow to Set an SSD Drive as the Primary Hard Drive?The primary drive refers to the drive that your computer uses to load up any installed operating system, be it Windows Mac or Linux. A mismatch occurs the most when installing more than one hard drive simultaneously, as the motherboard will struggle to guess which one has an operating system.
A word of caution: Under no circumstances do this swap unless you have an already installed operating system on that SSD that you want to set as primary. If you do this procedure incorrectly, you can be locked out from your primary OS hard drive. How to Initialize Any SSD (Windows)Before you do these steps, your SSD must be selected as a secondary drive, not a primary one (see the steps above on how to change priority). Plug any new SSD and start your computer for the initializing prompt to appear. For Windows 7 and older versions, the procedure is different
For Windows 8 and newer versions, the steps are:
You have successfully formatted the SSD, and it is ready to be used. My SSD Just Disappeared From My System After a ShutdownSuppose you experience an unexpected power outage or accidental system shutdown. In that case, the operating system can fail to recognize an SSD drive upon reboot. The first way to solve this issue is to reconfigure your Windows power options To optimize the power settings (of the battery, UPS or wall power draw), follow these steps:
Tick the box and reboot your computer. An alternative way to solve this issue is to connect the SSD that is not recognized via a USB cable directly to one of your USB ports. Use the set of USB connectors on the back of your Desktop for optimal power draw. After your computer recognizes the hard drive, unplug it and then install it directly to the motherboard. SummaryTwo leading causes for an SSD that is not showing up as plugged in
When it comes to troubleshooting SSD’s more often than not, the solution is something incredibly mundane and simplistic. Something as minor as how Windows assigns that drive its letter can be the difference between the System recognizing the presence of an SSD A last note about the second-hand market for complex drive parts in particular: Abstain from buying used SSD drives! You never know if they have bad sectors or have too many write/read cycles already to the point where performance is horrific. |