Dual drives, single Windows install, and BIOS issues

Nah, it’s not even what the title makes you think. It’s literally 😁

So, here's the deal. After a massive Windows update—I mean, I hadn't updated in like a year and a half!—it started installing, and I ended up just shutting it down on it. (It had been spinning its wheels for six hours straight... honestly, I just needed to go to sleep 🙂

On Slave 0, I've got this old 320 GB drive
But on Master 2, where my 1TB Windows drive should be? Nothing. It won't even show up.

I have zero clue how it was set up like this, because it was working perfectly fine before! No idea. 😛 😁 Clearly, that Windows update just completely trashed everything.
Should I drag this thing down to a local repair shop, or is it just a case of bad cabling?

https://ibb.co/e60qjq

This is me trying to get the boot order back to the way it was, booting from the master drive; but nope, still can't see the disk.
https://ibb.co/b2aUcA

Thanks a million for any help you guys can give!

Maybe try swapping the cables from that old rig over to the new one? If it still doesn't show up in the BIOS, hop back in there and check again to see if it’s visible now. If it’s still MIA, it basically means the drive is toast and you’ll need to grab a new one. 😢

One’s an ATA and the other’s a SATA. They aren't interchangeable, so there's no swapping them out.
No, but seriously... was it just bad luck that the drive started making that clicking sound right when the update kicked off?! I mean, the damn thing was definitely grinding away after I restarted a few times.

One’s an ATA and the other is SATA. So yeah, they aren't interchangeable at all.
But wait—is it just a crazy coincidence that the drive started making that clicking sound right when the update kicked off?! I mean, the damn thing was definitely chugging along weirdly after I tried restarting it a few times.

Thanks so much for all the helpful advice!
And honestly, since there are already two of them, I really don't think grabbing a new one is the way to go.

I honestly thought we had this figured out already... if your PC isn't picking up that drive, you really need to try plugging it into another machine. If it doesn't even show up in the BIOS there, then it's officially a paperweight. Just toss it.
Since you grabbed that 1TB drive specifically to boost your storage—especially since your old one is basically a fraction of the size—it makes total sense why I suggested just buying a fresh HDD in the first place.

ps: I’ve always got three drives running constantly (one older IDE and two SATA), but I keep a fourth one strictly for storage and only fire it up when I need to run a backup.

Try reinstalling those SATA drivers from scratch. First thing you need to do—and don't skip this part—is grab an image of your C drive just in case things go south... then head over to the Device Manager and uninstall the IDE ATAPI controller. Give the machine a reboot. Once it comes back up, you should see the standard Windows driver pop up in its place, and that's when you can finally install the latest SATA drivers specifically for your motherboard.

...aren't you kinda late to the party? It's been days since this was even relevant.

ps: Those SATA drivers for Windows won't do squat here because the BIOS isn't even picking up the drive at all.☕

wearymason4 said:...aren't you kinda late to the party? It's been days since this was even relevant.

ps: Those SATA drivers for Windows won't do squat here because the BIOS isn't even picking up the drive at all.☕

He put "BIOS" right there in the title, but then doesn't even mention it once in the actual post. I didn't even bother looking at the photos...

Jacob Cooper5 said:Try reinstalling those SATA drivers from scratch. First thing you need to do—and don't skip this part—is grab an image of your C drive just in case things go south... then head over to the Device Manager and uninstall the IDE ATAPI controller. Give the machine a reboot. Once it comes back up, you should see the standard Windows driver pop up in its place, and that's when you can finally install the latest SATA drivers specifically for your motherboard.

Wait, how am I supposed to do that if Windows is actually running on that same drive??

Thanks for the help, though! 🙂