Solved! Dell Inspiron 15 (3878) with hd problem.

[verontier]

I have a Dell Inspiron 15 (3878) running Win10 with a Toshiba 160GB hdd. The problem started with the laptop constantly shutting down after restarting from a recent update. I decided to format and doa fresh instal with the latest Win10 download. Everything went fine until windows tried to load. . . it doesn't detect a hdd now. I have reinstalled 10,7,and Linux Mint twice each with the same results. My desktop has no problems reading it and chkdsk, wmic, and BIOS show the hdd is there and healthy with 0 errors. Even tried moving files to and from it with success.

 

[Prostar Computer]

Might be an issue with the HDD port or the SATA controller (I'm assuming it's SATA) on the board. Not much you can do for those other than replace the board, if that's the issue.

 

[verontier]

Might be an issue with the HDD port or the SATA controller (I'm assuming it's SATA) on the board. Not much you can do for those other than replace the board, if that's the issue.

Then wouldn't it NOT show in BIOS Boot Order or install an OS? It is detected in/on everything except when it needs to load an OS on the laptop (just after the Dell splash screen).

 

[Prostar Computer]

It might if it's intermittent. If the drive is working otherwise on another PC, the common denominator would be the laptop in question. Electrical or electronic failures aren't always consistent.

 

[smorizio]

use diskpart tools run the clean command on the drive. also wipe the mbr on the drive if it damaged windows cant boot from a drive with a damaged mbr.