Xps 8900 and Evo 850 will not see 6tb WD black

[Kung Lau]

Got a new xps 8900 and immediately swapped out the 1tb had with a Evo 850 512g sad and everything works great. Tried to add a 6tb WD black but win10 does not see it in disk manager. Shows up in bios. Tried booting in non UEFi mode, unsecure but nothing's showing the WD. Got a external sata usb HD dock and through the dock, Windows sees the HD. Able to format. Connect back to MB sata port directly and again the HD does not show up. Updated all drivers on Dell. Any ideas?

 

[bradly1101]

Was it initialized as a GPT volume (not sure if it would let you choose MBR)?

 

[Kung Lau]

Gpt

 

[bradly1101]

And I'm guessing you tried different ports. Check out this thread: http://www.tenforums.com/drivers-hardware/11021-upgrade-8-1-10-hard-drive-no-longer-recognized.html

Dell's BIOS is ready, but maybe the driver...

 

[Coup27]

Have you gone through all your BIOS settings to make sure there isn't some stupid setting like "SATA port disabled"? I have seen settings like this and would explain the symptoms you have.

 

[Kung Lau]

Yeah, I tried moving through different SATA ports on the MB. The Bios is pretty dumbed down and not many options available since it's Dell's and it's the latest available.
The WD clearly shows up in bios under SATA with the WD part number, just not visible in Windows. It's weird that if I connect it as an external drive via USB/SATA, Windows sees it. I would prefer to keep this one inside the case.

 

[Coup27]

Does it appear in device manager when you expand disk drives?

 

[Kung Lau]

No, it doesn't appear in device manager expanded tree either

 

[tcsenter]

Try Disk Management in Administrator Tools (Computer Management). Or even diskpart or other console apps but I'm not too savvy on those under Windows 8.1 and later yet.

 

[Ketchup]

Have you tried a different SATA cable? I didn't notice you listing that, and would be a change going from the dock.

 

[Coup27]

Try Disk Management in Administrator Tools (Computer Management). Or even diskpart or other console apps but I'm not too savvy on those under Windows 8.1 and later yet.

If it's being displayed in device manager then Windows isn't registering it.

Have you tried a different SATA cable? I didn't notice you listing that, and would be a change going from the dock.

The SATA cable works when in BIOS.

Did you clone your Windows 10 install from the Dell image or install from scratch? If you cloned, I think you should download the Windows 10 media from Microsoft and install a clean copy. Remember to secure erase the SSD first.

 

[Kung Lau]

That's the thing that's been in the back of my mind. I had imaged the Win 10 to the EVO 850 from the stock 1tb HD and everything seemed to work perfectly. I will do a clean install on the SSD and try again later tonight or tomorrow.

Again, Bios sees the WD 6TB. Windows 10 does not see it at all except if I hook it up to a USB/SATA external HD dock, then it sees the WD and works fine.

Something within the OEM MB may be preventing recognition of the WD HD as a 2nd HD but I haven't seen similar complaints on the Dell XPS forums. Posted there first.

Most of the related threads seem to be about Windows not recognizing the full size; however Windows does show the drive; just not it's full capacity. That's not what I'm having here. Windows won't see the internal HD off SATA port at all.

Edit: Just tried swapping in the original 1TB hd as the 2nd drive and Windows saw it but would not mount it as it says there is a "signature collision" with the SSD that's the boot drive. That makes sense and lets me the cable and ports are working fine. And I know the WD HD works because of it's functioning as an external. Now I need to find out if it's a new WD driver I need or a Windows/Intel one. I've tried all that Dell has to offer...

 

[Coup27]

I don't think you will need a driver from WD. It's all built into the GPT standard.

Do you have another HDD knocking about, something smaller you could swap in just to see if it picks it up?

 

[Kung Lau]

Yes, the original, OEM 1tb HD. I added it as the 2nd HD to the SSD and Windows does not see it as well.

I'm going to put the original OEM 1tb HD as the boot as it was and see if the original boot drive will see the new WD 6tb drive.

 

[Coup27]

My hunch is it won't. Personally, I never use OEM OS installs and always install a clean copy myself. If you feel the same you could diskpart clean the 1TB and connect it as the secondary HDD and boot from the SSD to see if it appears in device manager. That'll rule out any weird conflict with the 6TB HDD. If it doesn't pick that up either but it also displays in BIOS I think you need to secure erase and reload.

 

[Ketchup]

My next hunch would ve something wonky with the SATA/chipset drivers that came with the machine. What OS did it come with? See if Dell's website has a better SATA/chipset driver.

 

[MongGrel]

Try Disk Management in Administrator Tools (Computer Management). Or even diskpart or other console apps but I'm not too savvy on those under Windows 8.1 and later yet.

This would still be the first place I'd look at, have a couple RAID setups on the main.

 

[tcsenter]

This would still be the first place I'd look at, have a couple RAID setups on the main.

Well he said in OP that disk was not reported in "disk manager". I initially read that as Device Manager but maybe he already checked Disk Management snap-in.

 

[sdifox]

If the one Tb is not being picked up, I suspect hardware failure on Mb.

 

[Elixer]

If it was me, I would get a linux boot CD/pen drive and see if that sees it.
If it does, then it is some kind of windows corruption going on, since OP says the BIOS shows it.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

Hey there Kung Lau,

My tow cents on this: since the drive is visible in BIOS then we can almost certainly rule out bad cable or port. If the drive works fine as an external one then the drive should be OK too and it shouldn't be causing the issues. I'd suggest that this is more of a OS setting/problem and would contact MS's support.

Elixer's suggestion for testing it with another OS is good and I'd try that just to be on the safe side that the drive works fine as a secondary and it's functioning normally. I'd also try it on another system and possibly run WD Data Lifeguard Diagnostic tool to verify the health of the drive. If the WD Black passes both the quick and the extended tests it can be excluded as the possible cause of the issue.

If you want to make sure that the port and the cable are both fine I'd simply swap the cable and the port with the ones of the SSD and see if that has any effect at all.

Post back with some more test results.

Captain_WD.

 

[Kung Lau]

Ok, that's weird.
Before I tried to clean install Win 10 from the Dell image, I threw the original 1tb HD back inside with the 6tb WD as the 2nd and it still didn't recognize the WD so I thought it couldn't be the imaging on the SSD as the original boot HD was working fine in itself but nothing I did made the 2nd HD readable.

I went back into BIOS and SATA Operation screen only has 3 options. Disabled, AHCI and RAID.

Guess which one lets me see more than one HD???

RAID, that's the weirdest thing I've seen in a problem like this. For Dell, any HD in addition to the boot needs to be in RAID mode?

I'm really surprised this issue wasn't posted earlier in the Dell forums or does everyone know this little fact already? Isn't SSD boot and large storage HD pretty standard these days?

 

[nerp]

What I'd do is connect externally, run disk management, nuke all partition information so it's just bare and unformatted, then pop it in windows and see what happens.

 

[sdifox]

So maybe you need to define two array of single drives.

 

[Captain_WD]

~snip~

You should be able to run multiple separate drives in AHCI mode. I'd contact Dell's support for that and see if the guys there know about this issue and if they have a fix for it. If RAID works for you I'd go with that as many manufacturers recommend that you use RAID instead of AHCI since it incorporates AHCI features in it, regardless if you have arrays or not.

Captain_WD.