SSD Only Partly Detected

[Mike Soda]

Okay so I've physically installed my 250GB Samsung 850 EVO into my PC & it's only being partly detected. It shows up in the very first screen of my BIOS but not under the Boot Tab for a third device, when I try to enable a third device it just repeats my HDD & CDROM options but not anything named Samsung. I figured maybe the Magician software needed to be installed but both that & my Windows 7 SP1 don't detect it inside the OS. It's an ASUS M4n68T-M-V2 Motherboard, what am I doing wrong?

 

*EDIT: Going to re-enter BIOS now & take some more notes on the settings in case it's needed to help y'all help me.

[NinJake]

What are you trying to accomplish with this SSD? Install windows and use it as a boot drive? Just use it for storing games?

[NumLock21]

Your SSD is DOA.

 

[Mike Soda]

19 minutes ago, NinJake said:

What are you trying to accomplish with this SSD? Install windows and use it as a boot drive? Just use it for storing games?

I want to mirror my current OS install & files to it, which is only 55.7GB of my 1TB HDD used. Then set it so the SSD is primary boot drive so I can re-mirror/update my HDD as a backup boot drive manually once a week or month. In the long run I plan to then reformat this SSD & reuse it in new PC & go back to my HDD as primary boot in this older PC but that wont be for another 2+ months.

[NinJake]

Can you initialize the disk in disk management within windows?

 

If you can, I would just wipe your HDD after installing windows solely on the SSD and start from scratch, with both SSD and HDD.

As numlock said, it could be DOA but make sure you can or can't access it within disk management.

[Mike Soda]

10 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Can you initialize the disk in disk management within windows?

 

If you can, I would just wipe your HDD after installing windows solely on the SSD and start from scratch, with both SSD and HDD.

As numlock said, it could be DOA but make sure you can or can't access it within disk management.

I can at least I think, I'll attach some screenshots so you can see what I am. I'd rather not try clean installing my Win 7 64-bit because it's an OEM copy & the disc this CyberPowerPC came with years ago says "The software on this Recovery Media was preinstalled on your HDD at the factory & may only be used for backup & recovery...". That makes me think I'd have to jump through hoops to get it re-validated through Microsoft, not counting having to custom install my GPU drivers & other software which is so complicated I don't have the time.

[NinJake]

Your disk is there, it's just not initialized. Thankfully it's not DOA. Now I doubt you'll be able to simply transfer everything from your HDD to your SSD, I believe it's possible, but never recommended.

 

There is software to attempt that, but I don't want to be held responsible for telling you to try anything past initializing your SSD and clean installing. It's honestly your best option.

[Mike Soda]

3 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Your disk is there, it's just not initialized. Thankfully it's not DOA. Now I doubt you'll be able to simply transfer everything from your HDD to your SSD, I believe it's possible, but never recommended.

 

There is software to attempt that, but I don't want to be held responsible for telling you to try anything past initializing your SSD and clean installing. It's honestly your best option.

Phew good I'll initialize it in a bit when I get back but ugh, when I bought this thing others told me it'd be easy to mirror my OS install & files on current HDD to SSD using Samsung Magician software or something.

[NinJake]

1 minute ago, Mike Soda said:

others told me it'd be easy to mirror my OS install & files

Easy? Sure.

 

Reliable? Maybe.

 

(Especially with OS, anything other than the OS and I'd say go for it.)

[Mike Soda]

27 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Easy? Sure.

 

Reliable? Maybe.

 

(Especially with OS, anything other than the OS and I'd say go for it.)

I forgot to ask which partition style should I use, MBR or GPT? I'll give it a try though because if something goes wrong then I'll just do what ya said & clean install the OS.

[NinJake]

MBR is fine for that drive. But either will work!

[Mike Soda]

Just now, NinJake said:

MBR is fine for that drive. But either will work!

Done but it's still not being detected in My Computer or Magician, am I supposed to create a new simple volume?

[NinJake]

Yes create a new simple volume

[Mike Soda]

11 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Yes create a new simple volume

I got an error saying Windows can't format the drive, the partition was completed though as it says 232.88GB RAW, Healthy (Primary Partition). Is this normal & what next if you don't mind me asking?

[NinJake]

Make sure you don't name conflicting drive letters. AKA your HDD is probably C:,  so name your SSD Z: or something

[Mike Soda]

4 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Make sure you don't name conflicting drive letters. AKA your HDD is probably C:,  so name your SSD Z: or something

I named it S which nothing else is named, now it is showing up in My Computer but when I try to open it Windows keeps I need to format it. I tried changing the Allocation unit size to default but that failed too. Am I supposed to retype the Volume label I gave it before or is there something else wrong?

[NinJake]

Could you show a picture of the disk management screen again?

[Mike Soda]

3 minutes ago, NinJake said:

Could you show a picture of the disk management screen again?

Yup here.

[NinJake]

Yeah you don't want that to say RAW. If you right click it what are your options exactly?

[Mike Soda]

1 minute ago, NinJake said:

Yeah you don't want that to say RAW. If you right click it what are your options exactly?

This.

[NinJake]

I would delete the volume and re-create the simple volume.

[NinJake]

If that doesn't work... power off your pc and unplug the sata power and data cables and replug them in on the SSD side of things and your motherboard to ensure they are fitted securely

[Mike Soda]

2 minutes ago, NinJake said:

I would delete the volume and re-create the simple volume.

Okay I'm going to go through all the steps & take screenshots of the options I picked so you know what I'm doing but this time I won't rename anything.

[Mike Soda]

9 minutes ago, NinJake said:

If that doesn't work... power off your pc and unplug the sata power and data cables and replug them in on the SSD side of things and your motherboard to ensure they are fitted securely

I'm positive everything is plugged in all the way, spent over 2 hours doing so but here's what happened when I tried to recreate a simple volume. Am I supposed to change the volume size in contrast to the disk space available? Still can't believe this is turning out to be so complicated when everyone else told me it'd be plug n play .

[NinJake]

Technically aside from initializing your disk it should be plug and play. Checking your pics now.