Slave drive detection

[Sebastian42]

In my x32Win10ProV2H22, I find that SOMETIMES I have to reboot before newly connected drives (using SATA connection) get detected. At other times I can achieve detection by reseating the leads into the SSDs. Is there another alternative to rebooting ?

 

[Bighorn]

Is there another alternative to rebooting ?

With SATA and the older PATA/IDE drives, No, they are not "hot-pluggable" like External USB drives. There are inserts available for a Desktop case that can allow hot-pluggable but the BIOS has to have a setting to allow that [I have a computer with a GigaByte motherboard that allows it}.

Note: the PATA/IDE drives used a cable for Master and Slave when 2 drives were installed with Master being the bootable drive but SATA connections are for single drives only so Master and Slave have become obsolete.

 

[Sebastian42]

The BIOS does NOT lack that ability. It's just that SOMEtimes that is 'disabled' till I reboot (or reseat the leads into the SDD.

 

[Bighorn]

Do you not shut the computer down before making cable changes? Two possible scenarios, one is simply that the BIOS does not recognize the change until booting which indexes the resources it has to work with which in turn the Operating System reads to know how to use those resources and the other is the possibility that since an ATX-style motherboard usually always has power to it there could be electrical damage to its circuits and/or plugged in parts during the change.

 

[Sebastian42]

'Do you not shut the computer down ?' NO, I don't. The drives have SWITCHED power; that usually works, but sometimes a reboot is required (or reseating of the leads into the SSDs).

 

[Bighorn]

Can't go any further with this, don't have any details/information about the computer itself.

 

[Sebastian42]

I've realised that one possible explanation of the drives not showing in THIS PC, is that they have lost their drive letter - something which can be remedied in Disk Management. I NOW know that Disk Management has a 'rescan disk' option which might well (for all I know) reassign a letter to the missing drive. I have to wait till the problem occurs again before I can judge if this technique works.

Optimistically assuming that it would work, a simple elegant batch file that triggers the rescan function of Disk Management would then be the icing on the cake.

I have seen a batch file that employs DiskPart to do a rescan - it failed to restore detection, but I do not know if that is the same as the rescan in Disk Management.

 

[Bighorn]

Yes, a new drive first has to be initialized, usually in Disk Management, then it needs at least one partition created on it which then needs to be formatted followed by a drive letter assigned. Before Win10 or Win8 the general function when using a NAS drive the letter assigned would be Z: then a second NAS would be Y:, etc. Internal drives would be C:, D:, etc. including ODDs. USB drives would follow those but if keeping a USB drive constantly plugged into the same USB port a letter could be assigned. Changing a USB drive to a different port may cause a change in the previous drive letter, but not always. There's always variables with External drives.

 

[Sebastian42]

My problem does not relate to NEW drives, but to drives that have previously (VERY recently) been detected and accessed by my Windows.

 

[Bighorn]

Obviously, if a drive has already been initiliazed/used that step can be skipped, actually shouldn't appear. I mentioned as it can't be skipped on a new drive.

 

[Sebastian42]

It rather looks like the most promising technique is to depower the drive and power it again - that fixes it SOMETIMES if not always.