Summary:
SSDs are replacing the traditional hard drives for their performance. Be it SSD or HDD, drives encounters few indefinite troubles. One such problem associated with SSD is SSD not showing up on your computer or Windows. It can be very annoying if the SSD is not found or recognized as you cannot access your data. The article guides you to fix the error based on different scenarios that caused the issue.
Why is my SSD not showing up?
There could be multiple reasons for SSD not showing up on your computer. Most common reasons are issues with the operating system, faulty storage controller drivers, unallocated spaces on SSD, not assigning the driver letter will lead to the problem of SSD not showing up.
Sometimes, SSD will be not initialized and corrupt file system on the drive leads to the SSD not showing up issue.
Also, you might find that a newly bought SSD cannot be accessed because it does not appear anywhere, neither in Windows Explorer, command prompt nor in Disk Management.
If you ever encounter such situations, here are the methods to follow and fix SSD not showing issue on your computer.
Key Note: When SSD is not showing up on your computer, it is recommended to immediately stop using your drive and recover data. because the methods used to fix the issue uses formatting and reinstalling of the OS, which in turn could cause data loss from the SSD drive. Therefore, before it gets too late, with the help of a safe and trusted SSD recovery software recover all your data from the drive.
How to Fix SSD Not Showing Up on Your Computer?
With the help of below mentioned methods, you could make your SSD detectable on Windows.
- 3 methods to solve when PC Won’t Detect your SSD
- How to Initialize your new SSD Drive to Show Up on Windows?
Method 1: Verify if SSD is showing up in BIOS
If your operating system is unable to access the SSD or SSD fails to show up on the BIOS, all you have to do is unplug all other drivers from your computer. If there’s any issues related to other drives it should resolve that as well.
The BIOS will not detect an SSD if the data cable is damaged / corrupt or the connection is incorrect. Often, SATA cables fall out of their connection when it is handled improperly. Be sure to check your SATA cables are tightly connected to the SATA port connection.
If still your SSD is not recognized in BIOS, follow the below steps
To make BIOS detect the SSD, you need to configure the SSD settings in BIOS as follows.
- Restart your computer, and press the F2 key after the first screen to boot-up the computer. (Different manufacturers will have different methods to enter Setup, so please verify with your system documentation for specifics)
- Press the Enter key to enter Config.
- Select SATA and press Enter.
- You will see the SATA Controller Mode
- Save your changes and restart your computer to enter BIOS.
If you can see the SSD in the BIOS menu listed with other devices, the system recognizes the SSD
If the system doesn’t show the SSD in normal mode, you may need to reinstall the entire Windows on your system to fix the problem. Reinstalling Windows may cause you data loss as it formats the drive and creates new drive partitions. It is suggested to use Data recovery software to recover your data before reinstalling Windows.
Once the process completes, your SSD should be responding. If this is not the issue you are dealing with, try performing the other solutions discussed in the article.
Method 2: Format your SSD with NTFS file format
If above method doesn’t help you fixing the SSD issue, try formatting the drive with NTFS file system. This method helps you accessing SSD when SSD file system is deleted or corrupted.
- Open the disk management as shown in Method 2.
- Select your SSD -> Right Click -> select Format
Note: Formatting the drive will erase the data stored on it. If you have formatted the SSD without backing up your data, you can make use of SFWare Data Recovery Software to recover data from formatted SSD drive partition.
Method 3: Assign a Drive Letter
Changing the drive letter helps you fix the SSD not showing up on your Windows when the Letter is unallocated. In such situation, you need to assign an appropriate drive letter
- Open the Disk management and locate unallocated drive
- Right-click on the SSD and select new simple volume -> Next
- Next select the your SSD volume size and hit Next
- Now, select Assign the following drive letter, choose a letter from the drop-down list and click Next.
- In the next screen, Click on Format this volume with the following settings and choose NTFS -> Next
Lastly click Finish to complete the process. Reboot your system and check if the problem is fixed.
Method 4: Update the Storage Control Driver
If outdated, corrupt or incompatible storage control driver causes this error SSD not showing up, updating the driver should help you fix the error.
- Press Windows + X, Select Device Manager from available options
- Find the storage controllers, expand the controller’s category and right-click on the controller driver to update.
- Click Update driver to proceed
- Select Search automatically for updated driver software in the next window
- Now, let the Windows search for the latest controller driver.
If Windows couldn’t find the latest driver for your device, it is suggested to manually update the drivers by referring to the manufacturer’s website.
How to Initialize your new SSD Drive to Show Up on Windows?
If the drive you are trying to access is the new one, you may have not initialized the drive to make it accessible. To initialize an SSD, follow these steps:
- Press the Windows + R keys at the same time, type diskmgmt.msc -> Enter.
- Disk Management screen appears, locate the drive that is not initialized, which will display as unallocated
- Right-click on the SSD drive and select Initialize Disk
- When the next screen prompts select GPT instead of MBR and click Ok
Once the process completes. Verify if you can access your SSD
How to Recover Data when SSD is not Showing Up?
To recover data from the solid-state drive not being detected, download and install SFWare SSD Recovery Software and launch the application.
SFWare SSD recovery software is developed by testing against real-time data loss scenarios. It has a built-in robust data recovery algorithm that helps in scanning and recovering all the lost or inaccessible partitions.
Before initializing the recovery process, make sure the TRIM command is enabled or disabled. Because it becomes impossible to recover if TIM command is enabled on your SSD.
- From the main screen, select Recover Drive/Partition. Select Drive/Partition Recovery from the next screen
- From the list of drives displayed on screen, select the SSD from which you want to recover the data
- After the scanning process completes, recoverable files available on the drive is displayed.
You can either view in Data View or File type view. Preview Your files and if you are satisfied with the results, save the files.