Question Why won't Windows recognize my hard drive?

[jamesdsimone]

I got my 4 6 TB drives for my NAS. I partitioned them GPT and formated NTFS . I installed one to my External SATA dock and to my attached USB dock and Windows does not see either drive. What am I doing wrong? Speccy and my partition software see the drives fine.

 

[OlyAR15]

Did you assign a drive letter to them? Can you see them in Disk Management?

 

[jamesdsimone]

Did you assign a drive letter to them? Can you see them in Disk Management?

My 4 TB drives assigned drive letter automatically. I'll try that thanks. Let me check.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Not sure what is going on. My 4 TB Seagate drives and WD 6 TB drive shows up as the F: drive just fine when I put one in the external SATA dock or the USB dock. When I put any of the Seagate EXOS drives in they don't show up. Between local drives and network drives I have 18 drives so there are drive letters available.

 

[Tech Junky]

EXOS

Do they work on another machine? Are they configured for gpt? Do they show up in disk management?

 

[jamesdsimone]

Do they work on another machine? Are they configured for gpt? Do they show up in disk management?

It shows up in disk management. It is configured GPT. I have an old Ubuntu install I can try them in. I think I figured out the problem. I have 4 network drives assigned but the server with thouse drives is turned off. Windows assigned the EXOS drive letter J: which is assigned to the turned off server. I was expecting it to get letter F:. I'll change the drive letter to F:. I just want to check to see if the drives are working ok before tearing my server down and installing them. I was thinking about mounting to a folder. Do you just put an empty folder to my C: or D: drive?

 

[Tech Junky]

Do you just put an empty folder to my C: or D: drive?

If you're using Linux you make one in /mnt and add an entry in fstab to autmount it.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Once I confirm that the drives work ok they are going in my NAS. If I can't confirm on Windows I'll use my old Ubuntu install and check them.

 

[jamesdsimone]

If you're using Linux you make one in /mnt and add an entry in fstab to autmount it.

No this is for my Windows machines. Linux seems to handle all the drives without a problem. Is it possible to mount network drives in a folder instead of a letter in Windows? That would be helpful.

 

[Tech Junky]

You could add them as a location in explorer. \\ip address\share name

 

[jamesdsimone]

You could add them as a location in explorer. \\ip address\share name

How do I do that? I have a 2 bay Dlink NAS that is mapped to X: and Z: Under Network I see the Dlink server and there are the two drives listed, volume 1 and volume 2. Where do I put the \\192.168.1.170(Dlink IP address\Any share name?

 

[Tech Junky]

When you start typing the location it will show you the share name or disk 1/2 and once your there just drag it under favorites.

 

[jamesdsimone]

When you start typing the location it will show you the share name or disk 1/2 and once your there just drag it under favorites.

Ok figured out the share location. Can I now disconnect the letter connections?

 

[Tech Junky]

Yup. The location option is like a bookmark in a browser. No need to use "mounts" / letters at this point. Less Windows issues if they're unreachable upon a reboot as well.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I disconnected these. How do I delete the entres?

Volume_2 (\\dlink-0176A4) (x
Volume_1 (\\dlink-0176A4) (z

 

[Tech Junky]

Just go into disk management and remove them.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Just go into disk management and remove them.

Disk management only shows the local drives. C: and D: no network drives.

 

[Tech Junky]

Okay then just right click them in explorer and hit disconnect/ remove.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Right clicking gives me the disconnect option but there is no delete. I checked in network mapping and the drive letters are available.

 

[Tech Junky]

Close explorer and reopen and it should be gone.

 

[jamesdsimone]

Okay then just right click them in explorer and hit disconnect/ remove.

There is a disconnect option but no remove option. And when I click on the disconnected drives it still shows the bar that indicates how much space is used.

 

[Tech Junky]

Close explorer and reopen and it should be gone.

 

[jamesdsimone]

I checked and all the drives are working fine. Windows kept assigning them to the disconnected network letters so I didn't even think to look there. I had to go to a restore point. Once that was done. The lettered drives were back. This time when I changed to a network share location disconnecting the drives deleted the entry. I hate windows.

 

[daveybrat]

If your drive is not detected it may be because it is turned OFF in System Setup. Some motherboard manufactures disable unused ports in the BIOS by default. You will need to enter the the BIOS setup in order to verify their current state.

Um, he's not plugging them into the motherboard's sata ports directly so that is incorrect.