Drivers Question

[Jiminimity]

So, I finally made the move to my new parts, and MOSTLY everything is working like a charm. Windows 11 runs great, 7800X3d running fine, Aorus x670 Elite AX running smoothly (especially after the up-to-date BIOS update). However, my SATA HDD drives are simply not showing up. One of them is being detected in Q-Flash, but no more than that, and the other might just not be showing up at all. I can't partition either.

I'm trying to update the SATA drivers to hopefully get them to work, but I just don't know how to do that in the first place, and I was wondering how I can update them?


TL;DR Sata HDDs not showing in PC, trying to update SATA drivers, don't know how

[plat]

Is the chipset of your motherboard up to date as well?

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/X670-AORUS-ELITE-AX-rev-10-12/support#support-dl-driver

[Jiminimity]

Escrito originalmente por plat:

Is the chipset of your motherboard up to date as well?

https://www.gigabyte.com/us/Motherboard/X670-AORUS-ELITE-AX-rev-10-12/support#support-dl-driver

Just updated it, still no dice unfortunately. I'm really going crazy trying to figure out these damn SATA drives.

[lsdninja]

Modern Windows has AHCI support built-in, you should at least be seeing them in Windows, even without specific drivers installed (protip: avoid whatever version your motherboard vendor is offering and try and go directly to the source, AMD in this case. Are you sure you haven’t connected your drives to SATA ports that are getting disabled in favour of an M.2 slot (the Ryzen SOC typically gives you a choice between a pair of SATA ports or an extra M.2 iirc)? Check with your motherboard manual to make sure.

[Jiminimity]

Escrito originalmente por lsdninja:

Modern Windows has AHCI support built-in, you should at least be seeing them in Windows, even without specific drivers installed (protip: avoid whatever version your motherboard vendor is offering and try and go directly to the source, AMD in this case. Are you sure you haven’t connected your drives to SATA ports that are getting disabled in favour of an M.2 slot (the Ryzen SOC typically gives you a choice between a pair of SATA ports or an extra M.2 iirc)? Check with your motherboard manual to make sure.

According to the manual the M.2 should work with all SATA ports, as far as I can tell.

I don't know if I should have it set to SATA RAID, or SATA AHCI in the BIOS, however, I did have a question. Can cords be backwards? Like... the mouth that leads to the Motherboard from the HDD actually leading to the HDD and vice versa? Or does it not matter?

I don't know if this is irrelevant information, I don't see IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers in my device manager, or the HDDs themselves.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Enable the SATA controllers in the BIOS and set them all to AHCI. If you have more then 4X SATA ports, avoid putting High performance drives on SATA ports beyond the first 4, labeled SATA 0-3

0-3 will be connected to the AMD Chipset. The others are on a 3rd party chipset.

Once back in Windows, go to Classic Control Panel > Programs and Features.

Uninstall everything for the Old Motherboard and reboot when done. Then download all latest drivers for your new Motherboard from the makers support website and install them. However get the AMD Chipset Driver from AMD Support website. Install them all and reboot.

[lsdninja]

There's no "backwards" or "forwards" with SATA cables. The connector is the same at each end and it's keyed to prevent mishaps.

You want the mode set to SATA AHCI. It should be the default these days, but I've definitely seen machines where it's not for whatever reason.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

Well on many Motherboard lately I'm seeing the default is that all the SATA are disabled.

Yes enable all of them and set all to AHCI MODE.

[AmaiAmai]

Escrito originalmente por Duende:

So, I finally made the move to my new parts, and MOSTLY everything is working like a charm. Windows 11 runs great, 7800X3d running fine, Aorus x670 Elite AX running smoothly (especially after the up-to-date BIOS update). However, my SATA HDD drives are simply not showing up. One of them is being detected in Q-Flash, but no more than that, and the other might just not be showing up at all. I can't partition either.

I'm trying to update the SATA drivers to hopefully get them to work, but I just don't know how to do that in the first place, and I was wondering how I can update them?


TL;DR Sata HDDs not showing in PC, trying to update SATA drivers, don't know how

Q: What drive and model # is it?
Q2. Did you reinstall Windows or simply put disk there and start using it?

If you cannot see a drive in BIOS, you will not see it in Windows. Windows gets a "hand off" from the UEFI driver to the system UNLESS you are running Windows in Legacy Mode, where Windows will initialize the disk itself.

--

I. Drives that don't show up in BIOS are either:

1. Actually disconnected
2. Port malfunctioned
3. Returning an error code & system keeps it powered off (can be due to encryption or other reasons such as incompatible SSD firmware -- rare but it happens)
4. Misconfigured

--

II. Drives that show up in BIOS but not Windows

1. If you have those disks in GPT format, they will not show up in Winodws if your Windows was installed in LEGACY and not UEFI. Remember above

2. Check the DISK MANAGEMENT utility to see if the drive appears there, if it does it means the file format is not supported by Windows or the drive is locked due to other issues like BITLOCKER or MALWARE or maybe you encrypted it.

If [2] fails, then verify your system is running in UEFI mode...see:

https://www.easeus.com/partition-master/how-to-know-if-windows-using-uefi-or-legacy.html

3. If that is the case and you still cannot see it, I recommend attempting to see it using Linux. If it doesn't show up there it is not an issue fixable by drivers in Windows.

--

III. About RAID

These drivers are typically PRE-INSTALL drivers, to install them after Windows is installed, get assistance on MSDN because it will be a process dependent on your hardware and configuration.

RAID configurations from another system aren't going to be valid on your new one.

--

IV. Other

It can always be an issue with the firmware. Did it work with older firmware and stop? If so you must contact GIGABYTE .


You can also seek help here:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/

There you can get better assistance since you can provide a dump so it can be identified clearly. If your disk is dead or Windows/ your system thinks so, it will be visible in the dump.

EDIT: Fixed the bold

[PopinFRESH]

That board looks to have 4x SATA 6Gb/s connections, which are shared with the two M.2 slots (M2C_SB, and M2D_SB) coming from the chipset.

What are all of the disks you have an how are they populated?

You need to ensure you have installed both chipset drivers for AMD Chipset Driver and AMD APU Driver first. Then you will need to ensure you've also installed the SATA RAID/AHCI drivers and RAIDXpert2 utility (even if you aren't using RAID).

You'll need to make sure in Windows device manager that you have the SATA controller listed with the AMD "SATA RAID" driver using the rcraid.inf

So you need to check a few things and then in-order ensure you have the configurations done to support the SATA disks

in UEFI/BIOS ensure the SATA controller is set to AHCI

https://download.gigabyte.com/FileList/Manual/mb_manual_amd600series-bios_e.pdf?v=83f1737feb9242d81c7b2f56a3e11274

In UEFI go to Advanced Mode > Settings > SATA Configuration and ensure the SATA Mode is set to AHCI

Assuming you aren't using the two M2C_SB, and M2D_SB M.2 slots, change the NVMe RAID mode to disable (not sure why they have this under the SATA Configuration menu)

Change Chipset SATA Port Enable to enabled
Change Chipset SATA Port Hot plug to enabled

Then save changes and exit UEFI and reboot back into the UEFI and navigate back to the SATA Configuration menu. Check the Chipset SATA Port option which should show the information of the connected SATA devices and you should see both of your SATA drives connected to which SATA port they are hooked up to. (assuming your drives are physically connected correctly and have SATA power supplied to them.

If the drives aren't being shown as noted above then you have a physical connection issue or an issue with the disks; not a driver / software issue. Double check that none of the connectors are damaged or incorrectly seated on either end. Try a different SATA port on the board. Ensure the SATA power connection is properly connected to the PSU and the connectors are not damaged. All of the SATA connectors are key'd so you should not have been able to connect them incorrectly without forcing it and damaging the connectors.

Assuming you are now successfully seeing both disks in UEFI/BIOS then boot into Windows to ensure the drivers are properly installed for the Chipset and SATA controller.

First install the AMD Chipset driver

AMD Chipset Driver	[5.03.24.2328]	63.68 MB	Mar 31, 2023

Then install the AMD APU Driver

AMD APU Driver	[22.40.40.00]	597.49 MB	Mar 31, 2023

Then install the AMD RAID Preinstall Driver

AMD RAID Preinstall Driver	[9.3.2.130]	0.74 MB	Nov 17, 2022

Then install the RAIDXpert2 utility

RAIDXpert2 utility	[9.3.2.130]	79.53 MB	Oct 13, 2022

(I'm assuming when you've said you updated the BIOS you are running the latest F11d firmware version correct?)

In Windows after installing those driver packages go do the Windows Device Manager and find your chipset SATA controller under the Storage Controllers and select update driver. You should be able to then select Browse for driver and find the folder where you downloaded the "AMD RAID Preinstall Driver" package to (this should have been a .zip file so you'll need to extract it first). In that folder you'll have an NVME_DID folder and a SATA_RAID folder. Open the SATA_RAID folder and you should be able to select the rcriad.inf driver for the storage controller.

Then you'll need to open Windows Disk Manager and see if the disks are showing up there. If so and they aren't showing up in your file explorer then you'll likely need to configure them with a drive letter in Disk Manager, or there is also the potential that they aren't partitioned and formatted (or have an incompatible partition/format, such as a very old fat filesystem) so you may need to re-partition and format them with an NTFS volume.

[emoticorpse]

You sure you connected the power plug in it firmly?

[Jiminimity]

Update: I have looked into my HDDs on BIOS, while AHCI is on now (as well as Hot Plug and Port Enable). The SATA drives are showing up as 'not installed' in BIOS, so I'm assuming it's probably a physical thing. However, when I try to install the AMD RAID Preinstall Driver, it tells me that the best drivers are already installed at the moment.

I'm running F11d BIOS.

My M.2 is in M.2 slot A, I'm not sure which slots the SATA drives are plugged into exactly.

I should add that USB drives are read easily, I don't know if that proves or shows anything in the first place.

Thank you everyone for helping, hopefully we can get this figured out!

[PopinFRESH]

Escrito originalmente por Duende:

Update: I have looked into my HDDs on BIOS, while AHCI is on now (as well as Hot Plug and Port Enable). The SATA drives are showing up as 'not installed' in BIOS, so I'm assuming it's probably a physical thing. However, when I try to install the AMD RAID Preinstall Driver, it tells me that the best drivers are already installed at the moment.

I'm running F11d BIOS.

My M.2 is in M.2 slot A, I'm not sure which slots the SATA drives are plugged into exactly.

I should add that USB drives are read easily, I don't know if that proves or shows anything in the first place.

Thank you everyone for helping, hopefully we can get this figured out!

Yeah if you have those settings in the Advanced Mode > Settings > SATA Configuration configured as such and the drives are not showing up there then you have a physical issue; not a software/driver issue.

• SATA port on motherboard isn't working; try changing which port on the board you have the disk connected to
  
• SATA cable is bad or damaged; try to replace the cable with a different one.
  
• SATA (data) port on the disk is damaged; physically inspect the connector to make sure it isn't damaged
  
• SATA (power) port on the disk is damaged; physically inspect the connector to make sure it isn't damaged
  
• SATA (power) connection isn't supplying power; try a different SATA power connector from a different PSU cable lead
  
• Disk is damaged/failed; try connecting the disk to a different computer (such as if you still have your old PC, or a friends PC) and see if it is detected. Alternatively, you can get a SATA to USB adapter and try to connect the disk to your system via USB to see if the disk is the issue.

As with any proper troubleshooting; only do one thing at a time so you aren't affecting multiple variables simultaneously.

If you've already installed those drivers and the controller reports that it already has the latest one in Windows then once you have the disks showing up in UEFI/BIOS they should show up and work in Windows (unless again they have an old partition table and filesystem which isn't properly supported on Windows 11; however, this is unlikely if you've used them on your previous system with any relatively modern Windows installation beyond Windows Xp).

[_I_]

with many boards, some sata ports are disabled when using the m.2 sata/nvme drives
look up the mobo manual to see whats disabled, and do not use those sata ports

[PopinFRESH]

Escrito originalmente por _I_:

with many boards, some sata ports are disabled when using the m.2 sata/nvme drives
look up the mobo manual to see whats disabled, and do not use those sata ports

Already covered this. They are using one of the two M.2 slots coming from the CPU, not the M.2 slots coming from the chipset.

[_I_]

double check you have power and data cables plugged into the drives