2nd SSD doesn't show up

I am faced with an odd problem:

I received a Precision M3800 with a 512GB SSD mSATA card and a 1TB SSD 2,5" SATA drive. Both drives showed up when I first booted up the laptop. When I wanted to install Windows 10, I took out the 1TB drive to avoid erasing it by accident. (BIOS is set to UEFI with Legacy OPROM, Secure Boot off.)

Now after reinserting the 1TB drive, it doesn't show up in BIOS or Windows. At all.

The SATA cable works in a different computer. The drive works in a different computer.

Right now the only explanation to me is some hardware defect. But again, when I received the laptop both drives did show up.

Any ideas?

Thank you so much for your help!

 

Did you check whether the drive shows up in the disk manager or device manager? It's possible that for some reason, Windows is seeing that the drive is there, but not recognizing that it is partitioned, etc.

 

Thanks for your reply! No, sadly it doesn't show up at all. But I do remember it must have worked for the brief time I tested everything before I installed Windows 10, when I took out the second drive so it doesn't get erased. But as said the drive works fine in another Laptop. Could it be the cable I'm using? The SATA connector came from a Latitude laptop - maybe it's somehow incompatible with the Precision? The connector I used has the Dell part no. HH0YC (came with the Latitude E7440), and since I don't have the original connector for the Precision (Dell part no. DG95V), I used the HH0YC in the Precision as well. To my untrained eye they seemed to be the exact same thing, with the DG95V maybe having a slightly longer cable...

 

The cable could be wired slightly differently, the connector could be damaged (laptop or cable). You could try the cable with another drive and see if it is recognized.

 

Thanks again for your reply. I tried a different drive too, but to no avail. The connector worked once in the Precision, but continues to work in the Latitude.

These cables are not standardized then? I thought it's all the same SATA connector.

I ordered a DG95V connector today - hopefully that works.

 

If the system was previously configured with SRT (Smart Response Technology - mSATA SSD cache) and that was not properly disabled before removing drives, SATA ports and drives can become non-functional or invisible. You may need change some other BIOS options to get the BIOS to stop looking for something that no longer exists before the SATA port/drive will become visible again.

What is the SATA operation mode set to; AHCI, RAID or something else? Do you see any Intel Option ROM screen on a cold boot? What you are looking for is any kind of setting related to Intel Smart Response or RAID or cache acceleration that can be turned off. If you cannot find any such options, you can try simply changing the SATA operation mode in the BIOS to something different than what it is currently set for and see if the drive is visible. If you are set to RAID and see the Intel Option ROM menu at POST, press Ctrl+I before the BIOS screen appears, go in there and disable any Acceleration options present and/or delete any RAID volumes that may appear. Cache Acceleration is a hybrid form of RAID0.

 

Interesting advice! The system is set to AHCI. In BIOS I could only set it to ATA instead, which I haven't tried since I believe then Windows 10 wouldn't boot anymore. But I could try and see if ATA would make the second drive visible again. Only I don't have the connector with me right now. Will try early next week.

No Intel screen shows up when booting up the laptop. (Windows 10 boots up SO fast - awesome.)

 

This is only a possibility, but I have seen what sounds very much like your scenario more than once with Dell laptops, XPS AIO desktops and Alienware laptops. Since your 1TB drive and the SATA cable are verified to work in another machine, I doubt there is anything wrong with those parts.

Since you do not see RAID as a SATA option, only AHCI and ATA, you can definitely try setting ATA. That ATA option will likely make the system feel sluggish and Windows 10 may not boot, but for troubleshooting this issue it should be fine. If you can set it to ATA, save and exit the BIOS, then go back in and see if the HDD is visible in the BIOS set to ATA. Setting it back to AHCI later should restore normal operation. But, don't stop there with changing that SATA mode setting. Look for another BIOS option relating to Smart Response or Cache, Acceleration, something along those lines. If you can find an option like that, make note of its current option and change it to something else and see what happens.

Was your previous Windows installation on the mSATA or the 1TB HDD? Did you do a Windows 10 in-place upgrade, or a format/clean install? Is Intel Rapid Storage Technology installed? Check in Control Panel "Programs and Features" to see if it is installed there. If it is, see if there is an icon in the System Tray. Try to open Rapid Storage Technology. If you find it and it opens, look for an option to disable Acceleration and mark the drive as available. If you did an in-place upgrade to Windows 10, this could be contributing to the problem.

Now that Windows 10 is installed and activated, you should be able to do a clean install from ISO. If it was an in-place upgrade, the clean install may resolve the issue as long as there are no BIOS options set to involve cache acceleration. You cannot use SRT cache acceleration if the only SSD in your system is the operating system boot drive.

 

Again many thanks. Lots of suggestions from you, which all have to wait till early next week. I'll post any findings here. Plus I will receive the "proper" connector for the M3800 (Dell part no. DG95V) sometime next week and will see if that changes anything.

The M3800 came with Windows 7 Pro, but I did a clean install of Windows 10 Enterprise (and during this deleted all existing partitions on the 512GB mSATA SSD).

On an interesting side note: When I called Dell support about my problem, their first reaction was that I might have voided all warranty on the Precision because using the connector from a different Dell laptop could damage the mainboard. Is that even possible?

PS: the 1TB SATA SSD was always a secondary drive, never a drive I booted from.

 

Yes, I suppose it is possible there is a cable compatibility problem. But, not likely that the cable is machine-specific. It could be and you will find out when you get the new cable. I suspect there is a standard pin-out configuration and the differences in the cables are limited to length based on the unique needs of each chassis design variation.

However, if everything worked with Windows 7 that kind of eliminates the question of the cable messing something up or being incompatible. If it was working before Windows 10, in my mind that removes all doubt. If the 1TB HDD was never used with Windows 7 and your M3800 has never worked with the 1TB HDD at any point before, then maybe the cable is the issue.