Where are hard drives drivers stored on a PC?

Have 2 motherboards & 2 hard droves.

Motherboard A.

Hard drive A.

Motherboard B.

Hard drive B.

Had motherboard A & hard drive A set up in my PC and had power on. There was a burst and a smell. The hard drive had been burnt, literally.

Then I had motherboard B & hard drive B set up in my PC and tried to install OS on this hard drive. Windows installer said it cound not find any drivers. At the same time, there was no any information of any hard drive in the window that asking where you want to install Windows onto.

Hard drive A was burnt on motherboard A. I changed motherboard, motherboard B, and changed hard drive, hard drive B, and tried to install Windows on hard drive B, and there had been not any accident happened on motherboard B or hard drive B, but Windows installer said it cound not find any drivers.

Where are the drivers stored? On motherboard? Or in the folder of BIOS? Why in the case as said aboe Windows installer found no any drivers on motherboard B and/or hard drive B?

Help, please.

Accepted answers

All comments

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/674862/where-are-hard-drives-drivers-stored-on-a-pc

First, we need to know what model laptop or desktop PC you have, and what model specs your Motherboards and HDDs are, when you say, Motherboard A and HDD A or Motherboard B and HDD B? What is the model number of the PC and the Motherboard A & B and the HDD A&B? As we can't give you any exact answer to your problems if we don't know this information. There are allot of guides on the web for "How To Fix “No Bootable Device” Error" so look at this guide as you have this problem.

Larryodie

Go to device manager, right click on your your driver and then properties and driver details then the drivers detail tag, it'll show the locations as mine show C:\Windows\*****

Kuen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1161984#Comment_1161984

Thanks.

Are you talking about the drivers in Windows32?

Yes, I know those drivers. But what confuses me is that the HDD and/or MB was burnt. How did the accident happen on hardware damage the drivers in Windows?

Larryodie

Have you checked your hard drives on another computer with an adapter like this one. NOTICE THAQT THIS IS NOT FOR 3.5" HARD DRIVES.

https://www.amazon.com/Sabrent-2-5-Inch-Adapter-Optimized-EC-SSHD/dp/B011M8YACM/ref=sr_1_2_sspa?crid=2ROZ126RXCT71&keywords=hard%2Bdrive%2Badapter&qid=1669215269&sprefix=hard%2Bdrive%2Badapter%2Caps%2C81&sr=8-2-spons&sp_csd=d2lkZ2V0TmFtZT1zcF9hdGY&smid=A29Y8OP2GPR7PE&th=1

Kuen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1161982#Comment_1161982

Thanks.

Any model.

Kuen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162075#Comment_1162075

Thank you.

The burnt hard drive, Hard drive A, was the hard drive used to run the same Windows 7 on the same PC before it was burnt. The hard drive now, Hard drive B, was a standby like a spare tire and temporary storage hard drive, and often used now and then with assistance of USB3.02.0 to SATA/IDE cable, for temporary storing my RAW images a day or two before I process them. It is a sound hard drive, no doubt.

Something I don't understand. At my first test, the MB was A and the HDD was A and the accident happened on MB A to HDD A. My second test, MB used was B and HDD used was B, and Windows installer found no any drivers on Motherboard B. Why is that something happened on Motherboard A and it affects Motherboard B. What carries the accident from Motherboard A to Motherboard B?

StevenGen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162213#Comment_1162213

If motherboard B is the same as motherboard B and the same with the HDDs then all the peripherals from Motherboard A should work like ram and cpu but, it could be that the ram was shorted and damaged and the cpu also or a gpu if you had that connected. Its very hard to advise you on anything if you don't give us model number and even photos as its very hard to figure out what is damaged and going on with your PC.

Kuen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162244#Comment_1162244

Thank you.

My question here as this post is not I want to solve the problem. It is next to impossible to solve it. This post is concerning a "mystery" so to speak, at least to me, that why an accident happened on Motherboard A & Hard drive A and the damage of that accident affects Motherboard B & Hard drive B. What carries the damage of that accident from A to B?

Kuen

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1162075#Comment_1162075

Thank you.

As you have mentioned hard drive adapters, I have not used the type you have mentioned but have been using something similar, the name on the box, USB3.02.0 to SATA/IDE cable. With this device, all my IDE & SATA hard drives make as far as 17 years back can be used on my PCs with SSD and SATA3 and Win 10 and on Win XP. But it does not work on this PC have the drivers problems.

I have a USB stick, 8 GB, stores Bob Omb WinPE which is a Win 10 PE. I tried this USB stick, just out of my curiosity, and it starts the PC and runs the OS of that WinPE.

Based on the idea that the PC allows PE run on it, I'll try to make a Windows 7 PE and try on this PC.

Larryodie

You used the adapter on another computer to verify that your hard drives are good or bad.

billsey

We really need more details as to just what hardware you are working with, both motherboards and both drives. It sounds like the first drive failed catastrophically, burning out components on the drive. Luckily it also looks like that didn't end up harming the motherboard. On the second motherboard it is likely using something like Intel Rapid Storage Technology, where the drivers aren't included in the base Windows installation. If that's the case you need to download the appropriate missing drivers from the motherboard manufacturer, extract them to your install flash drive, then when you get to that place in the install ask it to load the driver from the flash drive. It will then recognize the drive and allow the install to complete, including the needed drivers as part of the install.

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