Two hard drives not recognised in ACER Aspire 3-A315-C8R1

intrigued · November 2022

I have just bought a used ACER Aspire 3-A315-c8R1 for my disabled daughter.

The laptop had no hard drive in it so I installed two: an HGST 256GB SSD and an SKHynix HFS512GB NVMe M.2

Neither disk is recognised (please see screen shot).

I've spent today reading about how to get the laptop to recognise either hard drive but without success.

Anyone any ideas? Thanks in advance.

[Edited the thread to add model name to the title]

brummyfan2 · November 2022

Hi,

Could you please confirm that the model name of the laptop is A315-31, if it is, you can not use NVMe SSD in this model, so try removing the M.2 SSD and see what happens, you need M.2 SATA SSD for this laptop.

intrigued · November 2022

Thank you for your reply.

I've already tried your suggestion. I put in a SATA SSD (which I already had) but it wasn't recognised, so I bought the M.2 SSD instead.

Regards.

brummyfan2 · November 2022

No problem, does the SATA SSD has any Operating system on it? How are you trying to install Windows on them? Do you have a bootable installation USB prepared?

intrigued · November 2022

Thank you again for replying. It's very good of you.

No... I'm using either a 'used' SSD with nothing on, or a brand new SSD (which I bought new last week). They are 256GB, 512GB and 960GB drives
I prepared a Windows 10 bootable USB drive (using YUKI, as I've used that before on another PC) and it works well right up to the point when the installation stops as it says that it can't find a hard drive. I also used EaseUS to help 'find' the fitted hard drive(s) but again without success.

Zooklast204 · November 2022

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intrigued · November 2022

Can Angel 444 help me sort out my broken Acer laptop for my disabled daughter ?

brummyfan2 · November 2022

https://community.acer.com/en/discussion/comment/1159273#Comment_1159273

Hi,

Could you please go to BIOS screen and click SATA configuration and see whether there are any other options apart from AHCI, also try disabling Secure boot and try the installation.

intrigued · November 2022

The Secure Boot I had to disable as soon as I got it as the laptop wouldn't let me do anything until I'd done so.

The device shown here is the Windows 10-loaded USB drive, all ready to go !

brummyfan2 · November 2022

All the drivers needed should have been in the installation media you have created but for some reason the HDD/SSD drivers are missing, anyway, you could try creating another installation USB using Windows 10 iso with Rufus or microsoft tool.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

Rufus - Create bootable USB drives the easy way (8tags.com)

intrigued · November 2022

I tried Rufus but for some reason the HP laptop which I used to prepare the Win10 installation just didn't want to know. I've used Rufus with success before but on this occasion it took seven attempts (yes, seven) but it made no difference getting the installation up & running. The reason being, of course, is that a hard drive could not be found.

I did a search for any additional drivers that may be needed (got these from the Acer site) but again the installation didn't pick up on them (i.e. said that they weren't needed).

There were drivers that were not suitable for the A315 model, it said. Either way, I didn't know whether these were for a hard drive or not. I didn't put them on as it may have messed up other components on the A315, which are all working fine.