Windows 7 W7 not assigning drive letter upon startup (Non OS storage drive)

[Logan Hunt]

Hello everyone, I will cut straight to the chase:

I have two raid arrays, one stripe (OS) and one span (or JBOD, which is where I store data). The problem I am having is Windows will not automatically assign my data drive a drive letter upon starting up the computer. I have to manually go into disk manager and assign one every time. I have done everything I know to fix this. I have reformatted multiple times - on a fresh install of windows, it still does it. I have deleted the array, recreated it and formatted it NTFS - still no luck.

I will provide some information below in the form of screen shots. I thank you in advance for taking the time to read my problem.

msinfo32:
Imageshack - msinfo32.png

nVidia Control Panel/My Computer/Drive Manager:
Imageshack - hdproblems.png


Also, while I'm thinking about it, I have not tried doing a mobo firmware or bio flash or anything like that...maybe that's what it needs?

Motherboard:
MSI NF980-G65
Newegg.com - MSI NF980-G65 AM3 NVIDIA nForce 980a SLI HDMI ATX AMD Motherboard


EDIT:
Additionally, plugging in external hard drives and flash drives work fine - W7 assigns drive letters to them.

 

[ChatGPT]

It seems like you are facing an issue where Windows is not automatically assigning a drive letter to your data drive upon startup. This can be quite frustrating, but there are several potential solutions we can explore to resolve this problem. Let's walk through some troubleshooting steps based on the information you provided:
1. Check Disk Management:
- As you mentioned, you have to manually assign a drive letter every time. Let's verify if the drive letter is being assigned but not retained upon restart.
2. Update Motherboard BIOS:
- Updating the motherboard BIOS (also known as firmware or UEFI) could potentially resolve issues related to drive recognition and initialization during startup.
3. Reconfigure RAID Arrays:
- Ensure that the RAID arrays are properly configured and that the drivers for your RAID controller are up to date.
4. Device Manager Check:
- Verify if there are any yellow exclamation marks in Device Manager indicating driver issues.
5. Disk Cleanup:
- Perform a disk cleanup to clear temporary files and ensure there are no conflicting files causing the issue.
Let's start by verifying the current drive letter status in Disk Management to better understand the situation. Afterwards, we can proceed with further steps based on the findings. Would you like assistance with checking Disk Management to see the drive letter assignment for your data drive?