New System detects SSDs, but not mechanical HDDs! And it bricks the HDDs!

I got my new build (AORUS Z690 Elite AX, updated BIOS) up and running with Windows 11 and everything seems good except for one really strange thing that I've never seen before in over 10 builds.

The system works great with SSDs, both the SATA kind and the NVMe kind. I have two of each running fine. But for some reason the system won't recognize any of my old spinning platter hard drives that I want to move over from my old system.

I've tried three of my old HDDs and they apparently don't even spin up, as far as I can tell. The BIOS doesn't see them at all.

I looked at the SATA ports in the BIOS and enabled every function that could be enabled (eg: hot swap) One thing I see that looks odd is that each of the six ports says SATA 1 [not installed] SATA 2 [not installed] etc... There is nothing clickable in the BIOS screen to change this setting. Not sure if it is important or not. It doesn't change when I hook up a SATA SSD.

The really ominous thing is that when I put my old HDDs back in my old system, they won't spin up there either! It looks like I may have bricked three HDDs! Luckily the data is backed up elsewhere and two of those drives are small and won't be missed.

I'm wondering if this is some sort of driver problem or some sort of BIOS configuration problem. Anyone run into this problem before? Any idea how to reactivate those three HDDs? There was never any smoke or other sign of physical damage.

Thanks in advance!

Mike

 

Did you ever get a reply or solve your problem? I have a Gigabyte GA-Z97X-Gaming 7 and a fairly similar problem. I was trying to convert from legacy MBR to UEFI and discovered that when I installed Win 10 a long time ago Microsoft "helpfully" (without approval or even advance or post notice) installed the boot loader configuration file not to the primary OS drive (C but to a non-bootable 4TB GPT drive. Everything was working fine for years. But when I finally got that the BCD switched to a new 2TB Samsung SSD and having learned my lesson working on this (without the old 4TB 5.25's attached) when reattaching them still under legacy BIOS it hoses my windows installation as well as removing the SSD C: drive as the boot priority drive and replacing it with non-bootable ones. Then after using BootIt Bare Metal to restore the SSD the mobo no longer detects any drives (except USB ones). I have tried changing various BIOS back and forth (CSM, file storage, etc. Is it possible the SATA controller went bad? Any ideas?

 

Nope, I never got a reply. To fix the problem with my new Gigabyte build, I returned that MOBO for an Asus MOBO with similar features that had come out on the market while I was dealing with this weird problem. I also replaced the power supply just to be safe. Unfortunately, I never found a way to repair those old hard drives. I lost four of them doing experiments trying to diagnose the problem. I was down to my last back up for some of my data and was getting pretty nervous. Doing a rebuild seemed like the best move under those circumstances. Anyway, I'm no longer a Gigabyte fanboy and so far I've been quite happy with the Asus mobo.

 

I was shocked to get a reply from you as your post was 6 months old. Anyway I solved my problem (or at least detecting the SSD part): by clearing the CMOS - something I may have only done once or twice in the last 40 years. When I thought I was into a new mobo I might have gone with ASUS as it is now cheaper. I like ASUS too. I just wanted this to continue working as a backup as the four 4TBs in it contains my first stage backups before they get moved to external USBs.

As for your HDs, have you tried putting them in an external? I just got a USB 3.2 Gen 2 (6 GPS) ORICO SATA to Type-C Docking Station 6Gbps for 2.5/3.5-inch HDD/SSDs and am happy with it. Before CMOS clearing, the SSDs were recognized in USB to SATA.

 

I haven't tried an external storage system. I use a very large case, so there is room for something like 10 hard drives. I have 4 HDDs in there now as backups for the SSDs that do the work. I do have a hot swap bay for full sized HDDs and I use it to create backups for off site storage.

 

The reason for my problem was I just got some hand me down parts and was building a new PC and revamping my old ones. I decided to get a Fractal R5 for the new one. It also has 10 bays, although 2 are for SSDs, where 2 of the 10 in the old ones took 2.5's I also have a small form factor four 5.25 bay Linux SFTP server. I like to keep one PC or server at home and one at my cottage. Backups are critical.

I assume you have tried those dead HDDs in another computer. The problem with my PC not recognizing SSD and HDD drives was the SATA controller and somehow I got lucky and clearing the CMOs fixed the problem. (They were recognized thru USB.) You might get lucky too.