Installing a new hard drive

Quiet Cannon · Post by **Quiet Cannon** » Mon Sep 22, 2003 11:14 pm

I installed a second hard drive into my computer, and now I am having problems accessing it.

I belive the hardware was installed properly. The computer recognized the new hardware and the device manager says that it is working properly. The problem is that I can't seem to access it the way I would with the 'C drive'. It doesn't show up on "My Computer" or the Windows Explorer. Do I have to manually asign it a drive letter?

I already have a few drives in the computer.
A : Floppy drive
C : Main drive
D : DVD/CDRW drive
E : CD drive

Can anyone tell me how I can access the new drive and get the computer to possibly recognize it as drive F? By the way, I already conacted customer support for my computer, and they didn't seem to help very much, so I was thinking someone here might know what to do.

Castor Troy · Post by **Castor Troy** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 12:47 am

You need to create a partition on the new hard drive, then reformat it.

Best way to do this is make your new drive the master then dos will let you create a partition on it making it able for you to reformat it so it will be recognized.

Quiet Cannon · Post by **Quiet Cannon** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 1:28 am

Damn! I can't believe it was this easy. I set it up using a different method than what you suggested, but thanks for pointing me in the right direction. I have it set on F and it is formating now.

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 1:28 am

How they go about partitioning depends on their version of Windows, really.

With 95/98/ME, they could probably run FDISK in Windows, switch over to the new drive, and partition it that way. It should be noted that Windows ME doesn't have a DOS mode.

On Windows 2000, it's Start/Settings/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management

Windows XP, I'm not sure of. Neither Win2K or XP have a DOS mode.

Quiet Cannon · Post by **Quiet Cannon** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 1:36 am

Well thanks for the advice. I actually have Windows XP, and there were aparently a few things in the Disk Management section I didn't know about (I'm still not entirely sure what the difference is with Primary and Extended partition but I don't think it'll be a problem). Either way, it seems to be fine and maybe now I can get started on my next video.

NicholasDWolfwood · Post by **NicholasDWolfwood** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 10:16 am

Linux:

fdisk /dev/hdd

n
1
t
7
7

post-it · Post by **post-it** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 6:23 pm

kthulhu wrote:How they go about partitioning depends on their version of Windows, really.

With 95/98/ME, they could probably run FDISK in Windows, switch over to the new drive, and partition it that way. It should be noted that Windows ME doesn't have a DOS mode.

On Windows 2000, it's Start/Settings/Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management

Windows XP, I'm not sure of. Neither Win2K or XP have a DOS mode.

ME/2kPRO/XP - for me, all 3 fdisked themselves and formatted while the CD loaded everything.

kthulhu · Post by **kthulhu** » Tue Sep 23, 2003 7:30 pm

Considering that the parent added a second hard drive for storage, not to boot up from, I don't think an OS install is necessary for him to partition it.

It is true that you can partition and install during the Win ME/2K/XP install process.