"A required device isn't connected or cannot be accessed"

Chimaera987 · June 3, 2019

Hello guys, I have this stupid problem. I guess I should start at the beginning. I bought an SSD and I wanted to use it in my existing system with two HDDs, a quite old one(10+ years) 230GB HDD and a 1TB one. I realized that I have no spare SATA cables so I ditched the 230gig one in favor of the SSD. That drive had my OS. On Windows installation I formated and later deleted the disk and "removed" it, it's still in just not connected. All fine and dandy, Windows installs and on restart I get this message, every time. Now, you would think it has something to do with the old drive, but no, I reconnected it and it still does this. It may or may not be the other HDD, which I didn't format because I have some things that I need on it. The thing is, Windows recognizes every drive. Now comes the crazy part. When I get into the BIOS, I do absolutely nothing, just press "Save changes and restart" and Windows starts like nothing happened. I'm really confused by this, shouldn't I get the same error?

NumLock21 · June 3, 2019

I am not understanding what you're trying to explain here.

So you have 2 HDDs a 230GB and a 1TB, because you don't have anymore spare SATA cables, you disconnected your 230GB HDD, and installed your new SSD. On the SSD you installed a clean OS and you get this "A required device isn't connected or cannot be accessed" error message.

Then you think it might be the old 230GB HDD, so you reconnect that back it still shows the same error message.

You have not formatted your 1TB HDD because it contains your personal data. Went into bios, did no actual changes, still "save changes and restart" and windows act like as if nothing was wrong.

Are you getting the same exact error before changing to the SSD?

Disconnect your 230GB and 1TB HDD, and do format and clean install again on your SSD.