Solved: Samsung 850 EVO Not Detected on Windows 10

About Samsung 850 EVO SSD

Samsung 850 EVO SSD is one of the most popular SSDs among personal computer users. It costs fewer prices than Samsung 850 PRO yet bring almost the same performance to its users. 850 EVO has 2.5-Inch, mSATA and M.2 different Form Factors. SSD capacity varies from 120 GB to 4 TB. Also, tested sequential read and write speed are up to 540 MB/s and 520 MB/s. From performance, cost, or capacity perspective, Samsung 850 EVO could be the ideal drive for any home user.

With the wide use of 850 EVO SSD around the world, one obvious problem of this disk emerges. Many users complained that Samsung 850 EVO not detected in Windows 10. The “not detected” issue may happen at Windows installation, in BIOS, in Windows Explorer, or when they want to replace hard drive with Samsung EVO 850 SSD. Well, what on earth caused this problem? Let’s get to know them one by one.

Situations and fixes: Samsung 850 EVO not detected on Windows 10

In general, Samsung SSD cannot be detected on Windows when it has not been properly formatted, for example, wrong file system like EXT2 that cannot be recognized by Windows. In that case, you can reformat disk to FAT32 or NTFS. Also, when it has a corrupted Master Boot Record (MBR) which has been ruined by virus or inappropriate behaviors, you’ll get Samsung SSD 850 not found error. Then you can fix MBR on Windows 10 and retry.

Besides, a disk has not been initialized will not be detected as well. You can initialize or format Samsung 850 EVO via Windows device manager or free partition tool to reformat disk. To be specific, there are most commonly seen five situations that Samsung SSD 850 EVO not detected on Windows 10.

│Case 1: Samsung 850 EVO not detected in BIOS

This problem is kind of important because first you need BIOS to recognize it, and then you can use it. Keep tapping F2, F8, or Del right after powering computer will bring you to BIOS interface. If you cannot find your Samsung 850 EVO, it could be the following causes. You can refer to follow-up suggestions.

● The BIOS is update. You need to upgrade the BIOS to the latest version.

● Your Samsung SSD hasn’t connected correctly. You may want to disconnect it and try again.

● It could be the problem of SATA port as well. You may want to connect your Samsung 850 EVO SSD with another port and try again.

│Case 2: Samsung 850 EVO not detected when installing Windows 10

Some users reported Samsung 850 EVO didn’t show up when the installation process came to which drive to install Windows on. Well, if every installing step corrects, and you get the error: 0Xc000021A, it could be the problem of UEFI firmware. You can update the UEFI firmware.

If you still cannot find the Samsung SSD from the list. Connect the SSD to another computer. Go to Windows Disk Management. Right-click the SSD and select New Simple Volume to create a new partition. Then, do the installing again, you’ll find it is right there when came to which drive you want to install Windows on step.

If you receive the message that says: “We couldn’t create a new partition or locate an existing one…” during windows 10 installing, you may ask another tool for help in another way. That is, you will have Windows 10 on Samsung 850 EVO by cloning from an old hard drive to that SSD. You can employ a SATA-to-USB adapter and install Samsung Magician to do the cloning. That software will help you install the Samsung SSD properly.

Please visit Windows cannot install on SSD if you have other trouble of installing Windows 10.

│Case 3: Samsung 850 EVO not detected by Samsung Magician

If your SSD is detected by Windows but not by Magician, you can try the following operations.

First, this SSD should be detected as either an IDE or an AHCI device. If not, you can install the standard AHCI controller driver for Windows 10 to fix the problem.
Second, if your Samsung 850 EVO is connected to a RAID/SCSI storage device controller, Samsung Magician may fail to detect it properly. You can install the Microsoft default driver which is automatically installed with Microsoft operating system installation.

Some users tried to replace their second storage drive with Samsung SSD 850 EVO using Samsung Magician, however, that software cannot detect 850 EVO SSD. Under such circumstances, the suggestion would be to try another disk cloning software. Qiling Disk Master Standard, as one of the best free disk partition manager, could do an excellent work.

The steps of using this freeware are also as simple as ABC. That would be: connect Samsung 850 EVO SSD to Windows 10, open Qiling Disk Master Standard, select source hard drive you want to clone from, select Samsung 850 EVO SSD you want to clone to, click Apply and Proceed to execute pending operations, replace the old disk with Samsung SSD, and done.

│Case 4: Samsung SSD 850 EVO M.2 not detected

As covered before, 850 EVO has three Form Factors and M.2 is one of them. It is a little different from other 850 EVOs in BIOS setup. When you install Windows 10 on 850 EVO M.2 SSD and cannot let computer detect it, you can do this change in BIOS.

1. Press F5 to open Default settings.

2. Press F7 to open Advanced settings.

3. Under the Advanced tab, choose Onboard Device Configuration and then change SATA Mode Configuration to M.2.

│Case 5: Samsung 850 EVO not showing up in “This PC”

Another case of Samsung SSD not detected in Windows 10 is that it cannot show up in Windows File Explorer “This PC”. This problem can be solved by the following fixes. Please first make sure this SSD can be detected by Windows device manager, BIOS, or Samsung Magician.

● Change drive letter. Give partition on 850 EVO another drive letter, for example, from E to F.

● Format the SSD in Disk Management. Right-click partition on the SSD and select Format... Alternatively, you can try the aforementioned tool to quick format it or secure erase the SSD.

● If you find “write protected” error becomes the obstacle of formatting 850 EVO, you can remove it by the steps below. First, bring up Command Prompt and type the following commands in order: diskpart>list volume>select volume #>attributes volume>attributes volume clear readonly. Please note that # stands for the protected volume.

● Sometimes the Samsung 850 SSD will represent as DVD-ROM type in Command Prompt which is a kind of type you cannot modify. In that case, to change it back to normal, you can try this method. First, go to Disk Management to convert it to a dynamic disk. Then run Diskpart>list disk>select disk #>clean. Note that # is the 850 EVO disk. Finally, go back to Disk Management to initialize it. Then, you should have solved Samsung EVO 850 not recognized in Windows 10 conundrum.

Summary

The above situations and corresponding solutions also apply to Samsung 850 EVO not detected in Windows 7 and Windows 8 as well as Samsung SSD 850 PRO not recognized in Windows 10 and 11. Covered partition manager Qiling Disk Master is an all-around and reliable utility for Samsung SSD as well. For instance, you can move OS to a new Samsung SSD without reinstalling Windows by using Qiling Disk Master professional.

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