Windows 10 Treats My Hard Drive as Removable

"Windows 10 Treats My Hard Drive as Removable"

"For some reason, both my internal drives, one being an SSD and the other an HDD, are appearing as removable under 'Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media' in Windows 10. I'm baffled as to why Windows 10 perceives my hard drives as removable. Can this issue be resolved?"

Aside from the issue of internal drives being recognized as removable, there are instances when external USB flash drives appear as Disk Drives in Windows 10. What causes this? Some users might find that simply restarting their computer resolves the problem; however, many others encounter difficulties and become stuck while trying to alter the drive properties correctly.

• Fix HDD Recognized as Removable Drive by Modifying in Device Manager
• Backup Registry and System Before Troubleshooting
• Resolve Hard Drive Appearing as Removable in Registry

"Why Does My Hard Drive Appear as Removable?"

First, let us explain why your internal hard drive might appear as a removable disk. Whether a device is classified as removable depends on the system's BIOS and how the various SATA ports on the motherboard are labeled. The inbox driver directly checks the SATA port and treats any device connected to a port marked "external" as a removable device. Not all storage drivers follow this behavior, which can potentially lead to corruption or data loss issues.

How to Solve the Issue of Internal Hard Drive Being Recognized as Removable in Windows 10

On this page, we present 2 most practical solutions to help you seamlessly resolve the issue. Let's start with the simpler approach, as it often proves effective.

Solution 1: Modify in Device Manager

Step 1. In Windows 10, type Control Panel in the search box adjacent to the Windows menu, and then open the Control Panel.

Step 2. Go to "Device Manager."

Step 3. In the Device Manager window, double-click on "Disk drives".

Step 4. Right-click on the internal hard drive (HDD or SSD) and choose "Properties."

Step 5. Under the Policies tab, ensure that "write caching on the device" is enabled, and "optimize for quick removal" is disabled. This directly relates to how Windows treats the drive as removable or not.

Step 6. Update to the latest chipset and AHCI/RAID driver.

Solution 2: Modify the Registry

Since the issue cannot be ideally resolved by the simple method, you have to resort to the last option that ensures a high success rate. One important note, however: this involves modifying the Registry, which can be somewhat risky. It is crucial to BACKUP the Registry before making any changes.

Backup the registry and system beforehand

How to back up the registry in Windows 10? This process can be completed within seconds. However, with years of experience, we strongly advise against backing up individual registry files, as any issues that arise could necessitate a complete reinstallation of the Windows operating system.

Download backup software tools, with a one-click system backup feature, you can effortlessly back up the entire system, including registry files, in just a few clicks.

Step 1. Launch Todo Backup on your computer, and click Create Backup on the home screen. Then, hit the big question mark to select backup contents.

Step 2. To back up your Windows operating system, click "OS" to start the backup task.

Step 3. Your Windows operating system information and all system-related files and partitions will be selected automatically, so you don't need to make any manual selections here. Next, you need to choose a location to save the system image backup by clicking on the indicated area.

Step 4. The backup location can be another local drive on your computer, an external hard drive, a network, cloud, or NAS. Generally, we recommend using an external physical drive or cloud to store the system backup files.

Step 5. If interested, you can access customization settings such as enabling an automatic backup schedule for daily, weekly, monthly intervals, or upon specific events, as well as options for differential and incremental backups by clicking on the Options button. Once ready, click "Backup Now". The Windows system backup process will commence. Upon completion, the finished backup task will be displayed on the left side in a card format.

Windows system backup (including the registry) can be done in seconds. Should anything go wrong during registry modification, you can restore the system from the backup using tools like Todo Backup.

Fix Windows 10 Internal Hard Drive Showing as Removable in Registry:

Step 1. In Windows 10, right-click the "Start" button. From the Power User menu, select "Command Prompt (Admin)" to open a command prompt with administrator rights.

Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type devmgmt.msc and press "Enter".

Step 3. Under Disk Drives, locate the SATA device that you want the inbox driver to recognize as internal. Right-click on the device and select "Properties" to open its properties.

Step 4. Note the bus number from the properties overview (in this example, it is "1").

Enter the following command in the previously opened command prompt and press "Enter":

`reg.exe add "HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\storahci\Parameters\Device" /f /v TreatAsInternalPort /t REG_MULTI_SZ /d x`

Where "x" corresponds to the Bus Number you noted in step 4.

Again, modifying the registry to fix the hard drive showing as removable in Windows carries some risk. Don't overlook the advice at the start of this section to back up your system and registry beforehand – it's crucial.