My Windows 11 Alienware R5 stopped recognising a HDD. Details following.
Asked by
NovDel (
847
)
April 16th, 2023
I bought a 4TB HDD to replace the original 2TB HDD. I cloned the old drive (a basic data partition) onto the new one, and Installed the new drive. I decided, since there are 3 drive bays, to leave the old drive in, but in a different bay (I’d already installed the new drive in its original bay). The system recognised both drives, so I decided to move the libraries to the old drive. All was well, until the system just stopped seeing the old drive. I checked connections etc (all OK), so I took the old drive out and put it in a caddy. No problems, and I reinstated the libraries. But, I’m puzzled as to why this would happen. Any ideas?
Observing members:
0
Composing members:
0
6 Answers
What is the size of the RF’s power supply, and has the additional power draw of the second drive exceeded whatever size/capacity it has?
You will probably have to go into Disk management and reformat the drive or at least remove the boot partition from it.
@elbanditoroso My setup is 850W. The system normally pulls about 100W, so I don’t think power supply is a problem..
@Blackwater_Park The drive was being recognised. I transferred data to it, then suddenly it wasn’t being seen. It didn’t show in disc management either.
Many thanks for both answers.
Not showing in disk management is generally a bad sign. Check your cabling, move the drive to a different port etc..
Is it consistently showing in the Bios?
Press F2 when the logo is displayed on the screen to enter the BIOS setup program. A list of hard drives are displayed under the System Information in the General group.
As the drive still seems to work in an external enclosure I’d guess the drive is ok.
It’s possible that the drive came unseated but as you say you checked the connections that seems unlikely. (Although not impossible)
If the laptop has three internal bays have you tried the third bay?
Have you tried swapping the new drive and the old drive? Does the old drive work in the bay the new drive is in? It’s possible the second and third drives aren’t connected via the chipset and have a separate controller that’s a bit dodgy.
It’s also possible you FODed the motherboard when you opened it. Had this on a few years back when I managed to overtighten a standoff and a tiny shaving of metal ended up on the board and caused a short or something. 1 SATA port refused to work and it was driving me nuts. Eventually took the whole pc apart and found it but the port never worked.
Answer this question 
This question is in the General Section. Responses must be helpful and on-topic.
Composing members:
0
