SSD not showing up in Windows 10 or 11? Don't worry since this post gives a very elaborate explanation about why the SSD drive does not shows up in different situations, as well as how to solve it accordingly.
By
Emily
/ Last Updated August 2, 2022
In work and daily life, an 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 it is a new SSD drive without being initialized to a partition style, then the new SSD will be not showing up in Windows 10. In this case, you can initialize it. To achieve that, the easiest way is to use the Windows built-in Disk Management.
Or, you can initialize the SSD drive via Command Line: 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 can 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 a SSD drive in Device Manager or Disk Management, but cannot see it in Windows File Explorer, 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.
>>Connect the SSD to your computer first.
>>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.
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 it find.
Besides, you can also directly uninstall it in Device Manager to fix the driver issue.
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. First of all, you can follow the steps to reformat it to a compatible file system via DiskPart.exe.
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.
If you are not familiar with the command prompt, you can use a free partition manager named AOMEI Partition Assistant Standard. It can help you partition a hard drive, test disk speed, 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 the partition first and then create partition with NTFS or FAT32 file system.
If you connect the 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 the command prompt on the Windows Setup screen.
Step 1. Press "Shift + F10" to open the command prompt in the Windows Setup window.
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 the 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 thing, please try to format the disk at last if you do not want to lose data.
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