Hard drives are malfunctioning System fails to start Storage devices not responding
Hard drives are malfunctioning System fails to start Storage devices not responding
I attempted to reinstall Windows 10 but kept encountering blue screens. I thought it might be another issue or required a BIOS update. After restarting, the BIOS updated and I tried reinstalling again. This time, no storage drives showed up. Online research suggested the problem could be related to a driver. I tried installing a driver but couldn't have the system recognize existing ones on the flash drive. I also verified my motherboard driver was detecting storage devices, which it did. Unfortunately, I can't perform a startup repair or system restore. My new system is failing, and my motherboard model is a Gigabyte B760 Elite Ax (rev, 1.x).
I typically unpack the Intel Rapid storage drivers and place them on the installation USB, even though your board comes with an Intel SATA preinstalled driver. I’d add the unpacked version to the same USB drive.
If only M.2 drives were affected, I’d suspect a driver problem. However, with a consumer Gigabyte desktop and a mechanical SATA HDD connected and not showing up, the issue might be different. Try resetting the CMOS and retrying the installation. If needed, rebuild the install USB. After resetting, avoid changing any BIOS settings—especially those related to RAID or AHCI. If your motherboard is configured for RAID, your drives may fail to appear. To ensure drivers show up in Windows, confirm they’re in an unpacked folder and disable the “hide incompatible drivers” option, as it can sometimes conceal compatible ones.
Occasionally use a USB 2.0 connection instead of a USB 3.0 port during the Windows setup.
Huh? Sata is AHCI? There are Raid, AHCI, and IDE(on much older boards) drive options in bios. AHCI is the one that you want it set to. AHCI is the option for Sata drives and M.2s. I don't know what you're referring to in changing it from Sata to AHCI? Also the whole reason I mentioned the Sata drive at all was to explain that if it was a driver issue the Sata drive would still show up, so if not even the Sata drive shows up in the installer something else is going on. Also, no one said anything about removing drives they aren't installing to, once we get to that point then we can explain that, right now we're trying to figure out why drives aren't showing up at all.
Thanks for your support. I successfully got a driver installed so the storage devices would show up. It took six different drivers to finally get Windows to recognize one. All my drives are now visible. I selected the quicker option and everything is working properly. Appreciate the assistance. Still unsure what caused the issue, but the fix is great.