So, I recently bought an SSD and spent half the day installing it. But now the stationary HDD won't show up as installed.

Is this because the SATA mode is set to AHCI instead of RAID?

I wouldn't think so - did you make sure that the BIOS recognized both hard drives?

Looks like the SATA configuration doesn't recognize the HDD, which is weird since both drives uses the SATA. But when I check the Boot tab, both the HDD and the SSD is recognized.

Edit: Tried to change the Boot order but that didn't work either.

Are you trying to set up a dual boot?
If you disconnect the new SSD drive, does the other drive become bootable again?

Explain what you mean by the HDD doesn't show up as "installed." Which drive are you booting from? Do you have an operating system on both drives? What kind of configuration are you trying to set up? Is the HDD formatted with an active partition? I have an SSD as my boot drive with the HDD used for data. On the last computer I built, I used the HDD as the boot drive and a small 60 GB SSD as a cache drive.

If you have an OS on the SSD and boot it up, can you "see" the HDD when you click on "My Computer?"

The idea is to have the OS on the SSD while using the HDD for everything else. So to see if both drives shows up I have to go into Advanced Mode -> SATA Configuration once BIOS has loaded.

The problem was that only the SSD showed up, while the Boot Menu showed both drives as boot able. But since I moved the SATA cables to SATA ports 3 &4, both the SSD and HDD shows up. So far so god.

Even the installation of the OS asks which disk I want to install to. But the current problem (as of today) is that if I install the OS on the SSD, the HDD doesn't show up in Windows (will add pic later when I'm not on the laptop).

All the drives will show up in the BIOS whether they are bootable or not. So, you're saying the HDD is not showing up in My Computer? As I asked above, is the HDD formatted with an active partition?

One way you can see what is going on with your disks is to go into Disk Management. See if the HDD is listed there.

Disk Management

Also, have you formatted the HDD yet? It's not going to show up in My Computer unless it's formatted. However you'll be able to see it in Disk Management -- and format it if necessary -- if Windows is detecting it.

Obviously thinking alike, Jenny! I'm thinking if the physical drive shows up in the BIOS, but not in "My Computer," that it's not formatted. Hopefully Disk Management will sort it out. The direction I gave above are for Windows 7 - at least that's the OS I assumed he was using.

That's how far a friend and me got yesterday night. The HDD doesn't show at the top window in Disk Management, but under the lower half it's shown as unallocated. Right clicking doesn't give any format option either.

AHA! Herein lies your problem. Only Active partitions will be listed on the top half of the Disk Management screen. When you right click on the disk partition on the lower half of the screen, do you get an option to make the HDD an Active partition? If not, then you can select Create New Simple Volume and assign a drive letter.

This article should help...

Partition a Hard Drive in Windows 7

The options I get when right clicking where it says "Disk 1" is Convert to Dynamic Disk, Convert to MBR Disk, Offline, Properties and Help.

I edited my post to include a link that might help... You haven't said, but are you using Windows 7?

I see another problem with what you are doing - do not click ON Disk 1... right click on the unallocated space over to the right.

Yep, been running with Windows 7 Professional since February 2011 (no plans on upgrading to Windows 8). Well... after following the link, the only thing I can do now is to wait for the formatting to finish. Kinda feels like the old Defrag for Windows 95, lol

Let us know how it works out!