THREE hard drives installed but can see only one. GA-X79-UD5 REV. 12.

[PJ1073R]

First time build: I have a new GA-X79-UD5 mobo. REV 12.  I installed one 240 Gb SSD drive via Sata cable, then successfully installed Win 7 Pro. I then installed two more hard drives (another 240 GB SSD and a 1TB Western Digital Sata drive, both internal).  The issue: I cannot see the new drives anywhere in Win 7 and there is no reference to them when I look in the bios setup. I know very little about this stuff so I admit I am bit over my head here. My bios Sata setting is set for AHCI (not IDE) by the way. Is there some trick to having the system find my additional HDs?

[absic]

Hi there,

are the two unseen drives new? If yes, go to Control Panel/System and Security/Administrative Tools/Create and Format Hard Partitions. You will need to initialise and format the drives for them to be seen in Windows 7

If they are old drives that have already been formatted, go into BIOS and check under the System Heading for ATA Port Information. Highlight this then double click or press enter key on keyboard to bring up sub-menu and check that the SATA ports are enabled. If you plan to Hot-Plug any HDD's then you also set this here.

[PJ1073R]

Hi there,

are the two unseen drives new? If yes, go to Control Panel/System and Security/Administrative Tools/Create and Format Hard Partitions. You will need to initialise and format the drives for them to be seen in Windows 7

If they are old drives that have already been formatted, go into BIOS and check under the System Heading for ATA Port Information. Highlight this then double click or press enter key on keyboard to bring up sub-menu and check that the SATA ports are enabled. If you plan to Hot-Plug any HDD's then you also set this here.

Thanks so much for your help. You saved the day! I will have that cup of tea but I now have nothing to curse about (the day is young). Many thanks for your prompt assistance to my issue.

[absic]

Pleased to have been able to help. What was the actual problem?

[PJ1073R]

Pleased to have been able to help. What was the actual problem?

The NEW second SSD drive had not been formatted and was therefore not recognized at all by the PC. The other drive had been previously used in my Mac Pro and so it had been formatted for that Mac OSX.  I simply put both of the drives in the Mac and then formatted them for Fat 32. When I placed them back in my PC they were recognized. I then reformatted them for NTSF so all is good. Your ideas helped me to figure this out. Thanks again. 

[absic]

Thanks for the update, it might well help others if they face a similar problem.