SSD not showing up in Windows 10 or 11 can be caused by various elements. Refer to this post to get corresponding solutions when SSD not appearing in Disk Management, Device Manager or when installing Windows 10.
By
Emily
/ Last Updated September 24, 2021
In the work and daily life, SSD drive will be a great choice if you want faster read-write speed, lower power consumption, etc.
However, you may find that SSD drive not appearing when you install it on your computer. Usually, the SSD drive is not showing up in Disk Management or Device Manager. Also, there is a possibility of SSD not showing up when installing Windows 10. When this issue happens to you, you cannot access data on the SSD drive
Besides, you may encounter similar issues, like external hard drive not showing up, USB device not showing up or hard drive not showing up on your computer.
When you receive this issue, you may want to know why and how to fix SSD not showing up in Windows 10 Disk Management, Device Manager or other locations. Here, I’ll list some reasons and possible measures in the following.
1. New SSD is not initialized.
If the new SSD is not showing up in Windows 10, you need to initialize it. You can type diskpart > list disk > select disk n (n refers to the disk number of the new SSD) > attributes disk clear readonly> online disk > convert mbr(or convert gpt)in the command prompt and hit Enter to run it.
2. SSD partitions are lost and become unallocated space.
This situation often happens to the old drive and your disk may be marked as Not Initialized or Online. You need to recover lost partition in Windows 10 first and then see if your disk and data cannot be accessed.
3. The file system of SSD drive cannot be recognized.
If your computer is Windows 10, you’d better use NTFS or FAT32 file system. If not, you’d better format it to NTFS or FAT32.
4. The drive letter of SSD partition is missing or conflicted.
If you can see SSD drive in Device Manager but you cannot see it in Disk Management or Computer, the drive letter may get lost. You are supposed to assign drive letter in Windows 10.
5. SSD partitions are hidden.
If you cannot see your partitions on SSD drive, it may be hidden. You need to unhide partitions.
6. SSD has driver issues.
The driver issue can be one of the reasons for SSD drive not showing up in Windows 10. You can try Hardware and Device Troubleshooter in Windows 10 or you can directly uninstall the driver in Device Manager.
7. SATA storage controller mode/protocol (IDE, AHCI, ATA, RAID, etc) is wrong.
If the storage device controller is the issue for your problem, you can try to update your motherboard storage controller and IDE ATA controllers drivers or uninstall IDE ATA storage controllers drivers.
8. SSD is infected by virus or malware.
If this is your problem, you can try anti-virus software to scan and fix this issue.
From above, you can get the common causes for SSD drive not showing up in the computer and related solutions. Thus, I just talk about some situations in the following. Before you start any operation, you need to do the following things first.
1. Connect the SSD to your computer first.
2. Try to format disk at last. This operation will lead to data loss.
If you cannot see SSD in the BIOS, the most common possibility is that the disk cannot be connected up correctly. You need to check it.
Besides, you can see the following suggestions.
Drive not enabled in the BIOS. You need to access BIOS by a specific key and enable it.
The Serial ATA motherboard drivers do not load properly. You need to update the storage controller for your computer.
The data cable is faulty or unplugged. You are supposed to replace it.
If your problem is caused by disk driver issue, you can use Hardware and Device Troubleshooter to fix driver issue or directly uninstall it in Device Manager.
SSD not showing up – fixed by troubleshooter
Step 1. Type Troubleshooter or Troubleshooting in the search box and select it from the list.
Step 2. Under the Hardware and Sound link, click Configure a device.
Step 3. Click Advanced and tick Apply repair automatically in the new window.
Step 4. Click Next to start the pending operation and repair the issues its find.
External SSD drive not showing up in Windows 10- fixed by Device Manager
Step 1. Press Win + R to summon the Run window, type devmgmt.msc in the box and hit OK to go to device manager
Step 2. In Device manager, go to Universal serial bus controllers, right-click the SSD and then click Uninstall.
Step 3. Remove the SSD and restart your computer. Windows will automatically install the correct drivers.
Step 4. Connect the SSD and see if you can see it on your computer.
If the file system is the issue, you can try to format it to NTFS or FAT33 using Diskpart or a third-party tool.
SSD drive not recognized in Windows 10 /11– fixed by Diskpart
Step 1. Type cmd in the search box, right-click it and select Run as administrator.
Step 2. Type diskpart in the command prompt and hit Enter.
Step 3. Type the following commands and press Enter.
list disk
select disk n (n refers to the number of the disk containing unsupported or corrupted file system)
clean
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs (or format fs=fat32)
Step 4. Type exit to leave Diskpart and check if it works.
Note: This operation does not assign a drive letter for your SSD. If it can be detected, you can assign a drive letter using Disk Management or a third-party tool like AOMEI Partition Assistant.
SSD not showing up in my computer Windows 10/11 – fixed by partition manager
If you are not familiar with command prompt, you can use free partition manager AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It can help you partition hard drive, partition and fix some problems related to disk and partition.
Step 1. Download free partition manager - AOMEI Partition Assistant, install and launch it.
Step 2. Right-click the drive not recognized and then select Format Partition from the context menu.
Step 3. Click the drop-down menu, select NTFS or FAT32 file system and click OK to move on.
Step 4. Click Apply and then Proceed to start the formatting process.
Step 5. Open Disk Management or This PC and see if it’s there.
If this does not work, you still can delete partition first and then create partition with NTFS or FAT32 file system.
If you connect SSD drive and try to install Windows 10/11 on it, but you cannot find it. The simplest reason is that the BIOS is outdated. You should update it to the latest version. Besides, you can try command prompt on the Windows Setup screen.
Step 1. Press Shift + F10 to open the command prompt.
Step 2. Type diskpart in the pop-up window and hit Enter.
Step 3. Type the following commands in order and press Enter.
list disk
select disk m(m is the disk number of SSD disk.)
clean
Step 4. Try to install Windows 10 /11 again.
Reading here, you can get clearly that SSD not showing up on Windows 10 or 11 can be out of various causes. In this article, the possible causes and solutions are listed. You can try all the solutions one by one. One more things, please try to format disk at last if you do not want to lose data.
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