After installation, windows 7 does not see the disk. How to restore hard drive visibility in Windows

You finally bought a second HDD, it into the system unit, and connected. We checked its visibility in . Everything was fine there, the system booted up, and new hard disk like no. The system did not recognize it. Don't panic. This is normal. Now we will find your new disk and connect it according to the rules.

Most likely, the hard drive has not been assigned a volume letter and has not been formatted. In order to assign a volume letter to it and format it, you need to get into the administration service.

Open menu Start, go to Control Panel, and in the search box enter the word " administration" (without quotes).

V the Computer Management window in the box on the left find Disk Management and click on it once.

In the window where all disks are graphically displayed, find the disk that has the entire partition unallocated and is marked with a black bar. This is our new disc. Click on the image of this disk right click mouse and in the drop-down menu, select the entry " Create Simple Volume…”

Follow the instructions of the wizard without changing anything. Finally, after pressing the button Ready, the new drive will be formatted and ready to go. And your new drive will appear in the This PC folder.

Watch a video on how to identify a hard drive in the Windows 7 operating system.

The hard disk stores most of the data of the entire system, and it plays the role of information storage. Sometimes the hard drive is not detected by the operating system or computer. There may be several reasons for this, both incorrect settings and mechanical damage. In this article, we will consider in detail the solution to this problem.

Initially, it is necessary to determine the cause of the malfunction. To do this, you need to perform just a few steps. Disconnect the hard drive and connect to another computer. If it is determined and functions normally, then the problem lies in the system itself and it is necessary to dig further to find the cause of the malfunction. In the case when the hard drive does not work on another computer, it should be transferred to specialists, they will repair it or establish that this device not repairable. Now let's look at several solutions in the case of malfunctions in the system.

Method 1: Reconnecting the hard drive

Perhaps on motherboard one of the SATA connectors does not work or the connection cable is broken. Then you must first disassemble the case and reconnect the hard drive, if it is still not detected, then you should try replacing the cable.

Method 2: Replacing the power supply

If, when building a PC, you bought an insufficiently powerful power supply, then it is likely that the problem lies precisely in it. A lack of energy will be indicated by characteristic clicks of cycle changes and buzzing sounds. In this case, change the power supply to a more powerful one. You can read more about the choice of this component in our article.

Method 3: Changing the file system

The hard drive will work properly only if the NTFS file system is installed. If you cannot determine it, then it is best to format the hard drive by selecting the required file system. Implemented this action very simple and there are several convenient ways to do this. Read more about this in our article.

Method 4: Setting up Windows 7

If operating system still does not see the hard drive, then you need to run manual setting using standard Windows tools. The user does not need any knowledge or additional skills, just follow the following instructions:

Today we looked at several ways to solve the problem when the operating Windows system 7 does not see the hard drive. We strongly recommend that you first test the device on another computer in order to make sure that the cause of the malfunction is systemic and not mechanical.

Have you prepared your computer for installing Windows 7 or XP, started the installation process, but no hard disk or its partitions have appeared in the disk selection window? The installer does not see any hard drive, where it would be possible to install the "seven"? All users faced the problem during the transition from XP to Windows 7. There may be several reasons for its appearance:

• used in Windows installation the distribution kit is distributed without integrated drivers for the SATA controller (the main reason);
• the power connector or cable has come off, so the hard drive is not detected;
• you got a problem Windows assembly 7.

The article discusses possible reasons, by which the XP and "seven" installer does not see a single hard drive, with possible methods of getting rid of them.

Checking the reliability of connections

There are frequent cases when reinstalling Windows user disables one HDD. In this case, you can accidentally hook the cable connecting the second HDD to motherboard or power supply. Before panicking when the HDD is not working in Windows, or when no program from LiveCD or WinPE sees the hard drive, check if the power is connected to it and if the SATA cable is connected securely. If possible, connect the hard drive to the computer and power supply using a different SATA connector and power cable.

Lack of SATA driver

If, when installing XP or "seven", the installer does not see the hard drive connected via SATA interface, most likely the drivers for the SATA controller were not integrated into the image. In this case, there may be several solutions:

• loading a new image, the author of which included the SATA controller driver in the distribution;
• integration of the appropriate driver into Windows image XP or "seven" manually using nLite and vLite, respectively;
• manually adding the missing software components that were previously downloaded for the installed version of XP or Windows 7 of the required bit depth.

In most cases, the easiest. In addition to the cases mentioned, this method is applicable when a “crooked” assembly came across, an ISO format file loaded with an error (-s), which is unlikely when using torrent clients, or a failure occurred while copying the installation files to a USB flash drive (perhaps on it there are bad sectors).

Driver Integration

Having installed program nLite for XP (let's look at its example) or its equivalent for the "seven" called vLite, in a distribution kit with installation Windows files missing software can be integrated.

• Unpack the contents of the ISO file to any directory.

• Download the SATA driver and extract it.

• Run nLite and set the path to the folder with installation files.

• From the available functions, select "Drivers" and "Bootable ISO".

• Click "Add", click "Drivers Folder" and set the path to the directory where the file was unzipped in the 2nd step.

• Choose a version software product if the system sees more than one.

• We mark the item "Test mode driver" and select all the lines in the form below.

• We start the integration process.

• At the end of creating the image, we write it to the USB flash drive again and check if the installer sees the hard drive.

If you do not want to perform the above time-consuming procedures (and in the case of the “seven” image, the process will drag on for several minutes), adding a preloaded driver can be done when installing Windows.

• Download the driver for the SATA controller. Your best bet is to use the official support resource for your laptop or motherboard.
• Unpack the archive to bootable flash drive with the installation files of Windows XP or the "seven" (this time we will consider its example). As a rule, the archive contains files for both bit depths of Windows, so you can unzip it to a hard drive, and then copy the driver folder for the required bit depth to a USB drive.
• We boot from a USB flash drive and perform all the procedures as before, until we get into empty window, which should display the hard drive or drives and their partitions.
• We click "Download".

• Specify the folder where the driver for the SATA controller is located as the target directory.

• Click "OK".

After a few seconds, the hard drive and its partitions will be displayed in a familiar window, after which you can select the desired volume and install Windows.

(Visited 25 741 times, 5 visits today)

Problems with determining the hard drive can occur in different situations: when installing Windows XP, 7, 8 or 10, connecting a second or external hard drive. Depending on the conditions for the occurrence of an error, the methods for its elimination differ significantly.

Finding a disk during installation

If during installation Windows does not see the hard drive, then the cause of this error is the lack of required drivers. Usually the failure appears on laptops and ultrabooks with SSD. In a programme Windows installations there is no necessary software, so to install XP, "seven", "eight" or Windows 10, you must first install the drivers.

Look at the specification of the computer. You need to find out which processor is being used - Intel, AMD. For Intel computers download the Intel® Rapid Storage Technology driver. If worth AMD processor then look for what you need software on request "SATA/RAID driver + motherboard model".

1. Download and unzip the data archive. Throw it on installation flash drive Windows. If you are installing XP from a disc, transfer the driver to a USB flash drive anyway; must be connected with installation disk before turning on the computer.
2. Start installing Windows 10, 8, 7, XP. When you reach the section selection stage, click on the "Download" link.
   
3. Specify the path to the downloaded driver on the flash drive.
   

After adding the drivers, you will see the available partitions of the hard drive and will be able to install on Windows computer XP, 7, 8, 10.

External drive detection

If Windows 7 does not see a hard drive that is connected via USB interface as external media, the first step is to make sure that the correct drive letter is assigned.

1. Open the control panel, set the value to " Large icons' for the View option. Go to the "Administration" section.
   
2. Launch the Computer Management tool.
   
3. In the menu on the left, find the "Storage Devices" section and launch the "Disk Management" tool.

On Windows 8 and 10, the procedure is completely identical, on XP there are some differences: in particular, the "Administration" section is opened through the "Programs" menu in Start. In any case, in the Disk Management window, you should see all the drives connected to the computer: primary, external, second internal.

If the external hard drive is correctly identified by the system, right-click on it and select "Change letter". Assign a letter that is not yet used in the system, such as X or M.

If the external hard drive is new, you haven’t written anything to it yet, then try formatting it so that the hard drive can be detected in the system. When formatting, all data will be deleted, so you need to be sure that there is nothing important on the media. Unformatted external drive will be labeled "Unallocated".

1. Right click on the disk, click "Create Simple Volume".
   
2. Enter the space size of the new volume. If you want the external disk to consist of one partition, then enter maximum size, that is, the entire volume of the carrier.
   
3. Assign a letter and click Next. Format the volume as a file NTFS system. Leave the rest of the parameters unchanged.
   

After formatting is completed, the external drive should be correctly identified by the system and displayed in the "Computer". The indicated steps are the same on all versions of Windows, from XP to Windows 10. If changing the letter and formatting does not solve the problem, then make sure that USB port works without errors - look in the device manager for controller drivers. Make sure the cable used to connect external drive, correct. If earlier the hard was detected without problems, but now it is not detected by the system, then check it with an antivirus.

Problems with the second disk

If Windows 7 does not see the hard drive connected to the system unit as a second drive, then you first need to make sure that this drive is detected in the Disk Management utility.

1. Press Win+R and type "diskmgmt.msc" to open the connected drive management tool. The team is for everyone Windows versions, from XP to 10.
   
2. Find the second drive among the connected drives. See what status it has - depending on this, the error correction methods will differ.
   

If there are no error messages, then try first simply changing the letter to a value that is not yet used in the system. In terms of errors, the disk may not be initialized, not allocated, or simply have a RAW file system. How to troubleshoot these issues.

before that, we considered the option when, that is, it does not react in any way to any of our actions, in the same article the computer turns on, but the loading of the operating system ends with an error, namely, the installed hard drive cannot be detected.

In principle, this malfunction is somehow connected with the hardware of our computer, that is, with malfunctions and errors of the operating system itself or with wrong settings.

So our computer turned on safely, went through the post procedure, but instead of a greeting, the inscription "Non-System disk" or " operating system not found" she says that the operating system cannot find system files needed to download it. Let's look at all the possible causes of this error.

• The most common is incorrectly set in BIOS priority boot devices, that is, in the Setup BIOS menu in the parameters responsible for loading the operating system, the first device is, for example, a CD-ROM, the second is a hard disk, and in the drive in this moment is not boot disk or the floppy drive is set as the first boot device and there is no boot floppy in it, you need to remove them and try to boot again.
• It happens that there is no disk in the drive and the floppy drive is empty, in which case the operating system should boot according to all the rules, because the second device is the hard disk and the operating system is located on it, but the boot does not occur and. In this case, you need to go to BIOS settings First boot device and set the hard drive as the first boot device. In this photo, we see that the hard drive is set as the first boot device.

• Let's say it didn't help, and anyway, let's think further. If the hard drive is not detected at all in the BIOS, we look correctly and whether it is well attached to us. We try to connect it to another controller on the motherboard, change the cable, it sometimes fails, we try to load BIOS settings v optimal settings. How to do this is our article. If you have an "IDE" interface hard drive, check if it is disabled in BIOS given controller, for example, it can be called "Marvell IDE controller", if disabled, turn it on, save the settings and reboot.

Marvell IDE controller state is enabled.

The hard drive may not be detected in the BIOS if the jumpers are configured incorrectly, switching the hard drive to the Master, Single, Slave, Cable Select operating mode. For correct connection you need to follow the scheme located on the hard drive sticker, you can read our article

Hard disk jumper "IDE"

I had such a case, I changed the BIOS settings, rebooted, but the settings remained the same, that is, they did not change. The problem turned out to be a dead CMOS battery, after replacing it, all my changes took effect.

Another case was even more interesting, when connecting a second hard drive to the system unit, he did not want to be seen in the BIOS and, accordingly, Windows did not see him point-blank, although before that I connected this hard drive in turn to two more system blocks and everything was fine there. The case turned out to be a faulty 350W power supply, it simply did not pull two hard drives at the same time. After replacing the power supply, the two hard drives worked perfectly in this system. So keep in mind that a faulty power supply can be a problem for even one hard drive.