Microsoft has confirmed that Windows 11 users are also experiencing a strange bug related to SATA hard drives, which has already witnessed plaguing Windows 10 (and indeed Windows 8.1 and 7).
Neovin informs us that Microsoft has informed us that this issue affects Windows 11 through a support document that discusses the vulnerability and advises users on what can be done about it.
The bug causes the internal SATA drive – this can be both hard drives and SSDs installed in the computer via SATA connection – to be detected as removable media in the Windows taskbar, as opposed to a hard-wired drive (which of course is Very).
Microsoft explains: “Whether a device is considered removable depends on the system’s BIOS and how it labels the different SATA ports on the motherboard.
“The inbox driver checks the SATA ports directly and treats devices connected to those ports marked “external” as removable devices. Not all storage drivers do this, which can be a potential cause of data corruption or loss.”
Analysis: Fortunately, a fix is available
The good news is that the bug won’t affect many modern systems, as most SSDs these days are not SATA – and hard drives are a technology that is dying out and disappearing very quickly.
However, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a lot of SATA drive PCs out there, even if, say, just an old hard drive is recruiting into the media storage mix.
The good news is that Microsoft provides details of the fix in a support document. As Microsoft advises, the first thing to do is check for a BIOS update for your motherboard. If you don’t have the latest version, update it and keep your fingers crossed that this resolves the issue.
If that doesn’t happen, or you already have the latest BIOS – don’t flirt with installing a beta BIOS, by the way, it’s just not worth the risk – then Microsoft provides manual troubleshooting instructions Here.
Note that you will have to enter a long command (which looks like gobbledegook), so make sure you get it right. It’s a bit of a hassle and involves fiddling with the registry, so a misspelled error can be bad news – just be very careful about typing exactly what Microsoft says in the last step (for Windows 8 or later, which of course includes OS users Windows 11) .