Windows – Kingston SSD toolbox doesn’t see new SSD

firmwaressdwindows 7

I just installed a new Kingston 300V 120GB SSD. Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 (on a Lenovo CIH61M v1.0 MB from 2011'ish) sees it and I can copy files to/from it.

But the Kingston SSD Toolbox reports:

No disks connected to system

I also discovered on the Kingston support site this:

The toolbox will not see my drive. It states "No SandForce drives
found" or "No Kingston drives found". How do I resolve this?

If your computer has an Intel based system, you may need to disable
the Intel RST driver and revert back to the Microsoft default AHCI
driver and then run the toolbox. On an AMD based system, the AMD AHCI
driver may be blocking the toolbox.

The Windows AHCI driver must be loaded. To do this, right click on
Computer and choose manage. Go to IDE ATA/ATAPI controllers>AMD SATA
Controller or Intel SATA Controller. Right click on this and choose
Update Driver software. Select Browse>Let me pick. Choose "Standard
AHCI" from the list. Then reboot the computer. Then you should be able
to run the toolbox.

FAQ: KSD-100812-LSI-02

I followed these instructions and the SSD toolbox still doesn't see my drive.

Is there anything special I should be doing to get the software to see the drive? Without this software it seems you can't update the drives firmware.

EDIT July 30th

As per a comment below from @Hastur it should also be possible to update the firmware through the USB port of an OS X system (SV300S37A – Solid-State Drive SSDNow V300). The steps involved are basically:

  1. Copy the Kingston Linux image onto the SSD drive
  2. Boot from the said same drive
  3. Update the firmware using the Kingston tools.

I did steps 1 and 2 on my El Capitan system. It boots from the SSD. It runs Linux. But the tools still don't see the drive and I still can't update the firmware.

Edit July 31st

The comment from @harrymc reminded me that I have also tried the Kingston SSD Manager and that also does not see my SSD. However when scanning for the drives I see this from the SSD Manager:

Querying devices...
\\.PHYISICALDRIVE0: Detected as a secondary drive
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE1: Detected as the primary drive
Scanning SCSI Adapters...
Device scan complete. Updating views...
Device 0 [phy=0] not available with reason code 2
Device 1 [phy=1] not available with reason code 2
\\.\PHYSICALDRIVE0: Not supported - Identify unrecognized 
\\.\PHYISICALDRIVE1: Detected as the primary drive

The Spinning disk boot drive is plugged into the SATA1 port of the mother board, and the SSD is plugged into the SATA2 port.

The Windows Device Manager reports that the 

Spinning Disk - Location 0(Channel 0, Target 0, Lun 0)
Kingston SSD -  Location 0(Channel 1, Target 0, Lun 0)

Best Answer

  • Make sure your SATA drives are not set as legacy/IDE-compatible in the BIOS (OnChip SATA Type must be set to AHCI)
  • Make sure you allow UAC permissions for the toolbox when/if asked

If those conditions are met and it is not detected, it may be your SATA controller at fault. Try putting it on the primary SATA controller, not the secondary one.

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