How to Fix Your SSD Not Showing Up

If you purchased an SSD to replace your HDD, it could be frustrating if your new drive refuses to show up on your computer. Luckily, you can fix this issue quickly in most cases, and you do not have to return your brand new SSD! 

Your SSD may not show up for several reasons. For example, your operating system could have errors showing the SSD, or you could have outdated drivers that prevent your drive from being detected. Your SSD may also not be initialized, your partitions could be lost or hidden, or you are missing drive letters. In more severe cases, the culprit can be a virus or malware that has infected your computer or a corrupt file system of partitions.

Whatever the reason may be, we will go through ten solutions step-by-step so that you can enjoy your new SSD as soon as possible!

Why Is Your SSD Not Showing Up?

There are several reasons why your SSD is not showing up. Some of them include:

1. The operating system has issues showing the SSD.
2. The drivers are out-of-date or have other issues.
3. The SSD drive is new and has not been initialized.
4. The SSD partitions are lost or unallocated.
5. Drive letters of SSD partitions are missing.
6. The SSD partitions are hidden.
7. A virus or malware has infected the SSD drive.
8. The file system of partitions cannot be recognized.

How to Fix SSD Not Showing Up

If you still do not know why your SSD does not show up, you can follow our ten solutions to fix the most common problems.

Verify That Your SSD Shows Up In BIOS

When you experience issues with your SSD, you can start troubleshooting by checking if it shows up in BIOS. Just follow these steps:

1. Restart your computer and press the BIOS key while still rebooting to access the BIOS menu. Depending on your device, you may have to press one of the following keys: F8, F10, F2, or F12.
2. Check whether you can see your SSD in the BIOS menu listed with your other devices.

If you can see your SSD listed, your computer recognizes the drive. When an SSD does not appear in BIOS, your operating system is likely the issue. The most common way to fix it is to reinstall your operating system, but this can take a while and result in data loss.

Update Drivers

If your SSD does not appear in BIOS, your drivers may be outdated. If you have not updated your BIOS in a while, you run the risk of disk initialization errors.

Follow these steps to update your BIOS up and to fix your SSD issues:

1. Press the Windows key or click the Windows Start button, search for System Information, and open the application.

   

2. Find the BaseBoard Manufacturer and BIOS Version/Date information in the System Summary section.

   

3. Launch a web browser and visit your BIOS manufacturer’s website.
4. Find the latest BIOS version for your device and download it.
5. Grab a USB stick and plug it into your computer.
6. Unzip the downloaded archive to your USB stick.
7. Restart your computer and press the BIOS key while still rebooting to access the BIOS menu. Depending on your device, you may have to press one of the following keys: F8, F10, F2, or F12.
8. Create a backup of the current BIOS version and run the update.

Once the process is complete, you should boot Windows as usual and see whether your SSD shows up.

Initialize Your SSD

If your new SSD is not showing up in Disk Management, you need to initialize it. However, if your SSD drive is not new, we do not recommend initializing it because you risk losing all your data. Instead, skip to the next solution.

Otherwise, follow these simple steps to initialize your SSD:

1. Press the Windows key and the R key at the same time to open the Run Command Box.
2. Type compmgmt.msc and click OK to open the Computer Manager.

   

3. Locate Disk Management on the left-side panel of the window, under the Storage header, and click it.

   

4. Locate the uninitialized drive, labeled as unallocated. Right-click it and select Initialize Disk.
5. Select GPT (GUID Partition Table) and click OK on the next prompt.

Once the process is complete, you will be back to the main window. You will notice your SSD listed as Online and Basic, so you can check whether you can access it.

Recover a Lost Partition

When SSD partitions are lost, they become unallocated space. As a result, the disk will become “not initialized”. In such cases, you should try recovering the lost partition first.

The easiest way to recover a lost partition is to use a professional recovery program. There are many such programs, but they all work the same way. They manage your disk and its partitions and include features such as partition recovery.

The partition recovery tool may be a paid feature of the program, so you may not recover your data if you use the free edition. However, the free edition should still allow you to check whether your lost partitions can be found. If the program can scan the partition, then it can be recovered.

Some reliable recovery programs you can check include:

• Stellar Data Recovery
• Mini Tool Partition Wizard
• AOMEI Partition Assistant
• DeskInternals Partition Recovery

If you do not want to use a third-party program, you can use the Command Prompt to assign a drive letter and make the drive visible in File Explorer.

Assign a Drive Letter

If you do not want to use a third-party program, you can use the Command Prompt to assign a drive letter and make the drive visible in File Explorer. There are two ways to assign a drive letter: using Disk Management or the Command Prompt.

Using Disk Management

Follow these steps to find the lost partition and to assign a drive letter using Disk Management:

1. Press Win + R to open the Run Command Box.
2. Type diskmgmt.msc and click OK to open Disk Management.

   

3. Select the partition that is missing a drive letter, right-click it and select Change Drive Letter and Paths.

   

4. Click Add if you do not have a drive letter assigned, or click Change if you already have a drive letter.

   

5. If assigning a new drive letter, click on Browse in the next window. Set the new drive path by selecting an empty NTFS folder. Click OK to apply the changes.

   

6. If you are changing the drive letter, select a drive letter from the list and click OK to apply this change.

   

You can now close the Disk Management window and check whether your drive shows up.

Using Command Prompt

If your SSD is not showing up in Disk Management, you can assign a drive letter using the Command Prompt with these steps:

1. Press Win + R to open the Run Command Box.
2. Type CMD and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

   

3. Next, type diskpart and press Enter to access the integrated partition manager.
4. Type list volume and press Enter to check out all disk drives.

   

5. Identify the number of your SSD drive. Use it to run the command select volume # (e.g., select volume 1).

   

6. Type assign letter= and add the new drive letter after it (e.g., assign letter=e). Press Enter.

Exit the Command Prompt and check whether you can access the partition.

Unhide SSD Partitions

Your SSD may not show up because third-party software has hidden it to prevent access or protect data. To unhide an SSD partition, you will need to download third-party software because Disk Management does not have an option to unhide a partition or show hidden partitions.

Luckily, most recovery programs include this feature in their free editions. You can try using these programs to unhide SSD partitions:

• Stellar Data Recovery
• Mini Tool Partition Wizard
• AOMEI Partition Assistant
• DeskInternals Partition Recovery

Scan Your Computer For Viruses and Malware

If a virus or malware infects your computer, it can hide your SSD from BIOS and Disk Management. You should use anti-virus software to scan your device and fix the issue. Windows Defender is an anti-malware software of Windows that can help you detect an infected file. 

Follow these steps to scan your computer for malware using Windows Defender:

1. Press the Windows key or press the Start button and type Windows Security. Open the app.

   

2. Select Virus & threat protection.

   

3. Click Scan options, select Quick scan and click Scan now.
4. If the scan finds nothing, run another one using Windows Defender Offline scan mode. Keep in mind that the process will take about 15 minutes, and it will restart your computer once it has finished.
5. Let Windows remove or quarantine any suspicious files unless you are confident that a particular file is safe. If you know the file is secure, you can mark it as a false positive.

You can now restart your device and check whether your SSD shows up.

Format Your SSD Drive

If the file system of partitions cannot be recognized, your final option is to format the drive. You will lose all stored files, so only use it as a last resort. There are two ways to format your SSD drive: Disk Management or Command Prompt.

Using Disk Management

1. Press the Windows key and the R key at the same time to open the Run Command Box.
2. Type compmgmt.msc and click OK to open the Computer Manager.

   

3. Locate Disk Management on the left-side panel of the window, under the Storage header, and click on it.

   

4. Right-click the drive and select Format.

   

5. Set the volume label, file system, and allocation unit size of your choice.
6. Disable Perform a quick format.
7. Make sure Enable file and folder compression is disabled.

   

8. Click OK and wait for the formatting process to end.

Using Command Prompt

If your SSD is not showing up in Disk Management, you can format the drive with these steps using the Command Prompt:

1. Press Win + R to open the Run Command Box.
2. Type CMD and press Ctrl + Shift + Enter to open Command Prompt with admin rights.

   

3. Next, type diskpart and press Enter to access the integrated partition manager.
4. Run the command list disk to view all HDDs and SSDs.
5. Identify the number of your SSD drive and use it to run the command select disk # (e.g., select disk 0).

   

6. Run clean to delete all files and folders from your SSD permanently.
7. Run format fs=ntfs to format the SSD as NTFS

Exit the Command Prompt, reboot your computer, and inspect your SSD to check whether it shows up now.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is SSD and What Is It Used For?

An SSD (solid-state drive) is a solid-state storage device that contains non-volatile flash memory. It stores files and data better than a hard disk because of its faster speed.

Why Is My M.2 SSD Not Showing Up?

A M.2 SSD may not show up for many reasons: operating system issues, outdated drivers, uninitialized drive, lost or unallocated SSD partitions, missing drive letters, hidden SSD partitions, or malware infection.

Why Is My NVME SSD Not Being Detected?

A common reason your NVME SSD does not show up is that it is not properly connected to your computer. Other causes include a disabled NVME SSD, an outdated driver, or a missing drive letter.

Conclusion

Buying a new SSD and having it not show up on your computer can be annoying. However, you can start with simple solutions, such as updating your drivers and scanning your device for malware. If those do not work, you can resort to more severe resorts, such as formatting your drive. Hopefully, one of our ten solutions helped you get started with your SSD’s faster storage load times!