Hi, all. I have a bit of a conundrum and need help. Specifically, I have some Western Digital Blue high-capacity HDDs that worked just fine before I upgraded my PC. I suspected the issue was with the new motherboard but the HDDs aren’t recognized in its BIOS, or in Windows, or Linux. I’ve updated the new motherboard BIOS and scrubbed it for any clue as to a setting that might prevent recognition. Nothing presented itself.
Drive manufacturer support thinks there may be an incompatibility between the drives and the new mobo. While not indicated in the motherboard’s SSD Support List, the HDDs are not exactly old or niche models. The new motherboard support had no answers for me.
The HDDs have been connected directly to the motherboard, as well as by external SATA connectors and enclosures.
The presences of the HDDs are recognized in Windows Disk Management, but they’re otherwise non-workable. Can’t even assign a drive letter.
I attempted to convert between MBR-GPT partition formats but, again, the drives recognize as present but I can’t actually do anything with them.
One last thing that may be of some import: the HDDs served as data storage, not boot drives.
The problem children are Western Digital’s WD Blue WD40EZRZ 4TB HDD and WD Blue WD10EZEX 1TB HDD.
The before and after specs (I’m including as much component info as I can on the off chance there’s some type of crazy incompatibility):
Intel Core i7-8700K@3.7 GHz (4.7 GHz Turbo) LGA 1151
MSI Z370-A PRO LGA 1151 (300 Series)
Corsair Ballistix BLS2K16G4D26BFSE Sport LT (16GBx2) DDR4 2666 (PC4-21300)
EVGA GeForce GTX 1080 FTW2 8GB DDR5 08G-P4-6686-KR
Western Digital Blue WD5000AAKX-6 500GB HDD (oddly enough, this works just fine in the config below)
LG WH16NS40 SATA 16x Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
Enermax ERB600AWT RevoBron 600W 80+ Bronze
Intel Core i7-12700
Gigabyte Z790 UD AC, LGA 1700, ATX, DDR5
G.Skill RipJaws S5 (F5-6000J3238F16GA2-RS5W) 32GB (2 x 16GB) DDR5 6000
AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX
Crucial P3 (CT4000P3SSD8) 4TB PCIe 3D NAND 3.0x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
Samsung PM991 256 GB 3.0x4 NVMe M.2 SSD
LG WH16NS40 SATA 16x Blu-ray Disc Rewriter
Corsair RM850x (CP-9020200-NA), 850W 80+ Gold ATX
So there you have it. I’m stumped, but I’m hoping someone in the know can recommend a fix or workaround. Thanks in advance for any assistance.
