having problems with my new internal hard drive

i just got a Western Digital Caviar SE WD3200JB 320GB 7200 RPM IDE Ultra ATA100 Hard Drive - OEM and it is not working

i think it has something to do with the device driver

can anyone help me find the device driver or give me some ideas why it is not working?

thanks

 

Hi,
Well Step1 is recognized in PC BIOS (hardware).
If it is, then you must get Windows to recognize it.
Or, install Windows - which are you doing, do you have another HD already?
These large HDs in WinXP are actually supported only under SP1 or SP2. If attempting to install from an old WinXP disk, you must make a partition less than ~133GB.
What else? Oh yeah, WD HDs are weird with the jumpers: if it is the master on its own controller, with no slave, and you jumper it 'master' it won't work. Won't even detect in BIOS!
You must use no jumper (or 'cable select').
Check this stuff out, then look for the HD in Disk Management. It is there you will partition it, and format it and welcome it into Windows.
Regards

 

ok i have service pack 2

i also have another hard drive which is the master

i want this one to be the slave and the jumper is in the right pins

what do you mean by partitioning it and formating it?

how do i do that?


thanks soooo much

ps

i guess the main problem is that the hard drive doesnt show up in the my computer folder :/

 

No worries, go into Disk Management!
Go to Administrative Tools > Computer Management. Maximize that sucker, full-screen. Select Disk Management in the left panel.
Behold! Your physical devices are listed at the bottom.
These may be highlighted and Windows will examine them, and will offer to 'partition' them - the term comes from before, in the old days the maximum partition was 2GB, so a big harddisk had 2 or 3 or maybe more of them.
These days, if you ask Windows for the 'maximum' size partition it will do your whole HD in one, just one giant partition ie. 250GB
The term partition implies that there are more than one of them, so it's misleading but Windows must claim the space and partition it into a giant space that is defined. This defined space can now be mapped (formatted) using the NTFS filesystem.
Each partition that you make will be assigned a logical drive letter (ie. E:\ or whatever's next) and will then appear as a Logical Drive in the top window of Disk Management, after being formatted, all ready to go.
Anything appearing as a logical drive, with its own drive letter, will now also appear in your Windows Explorer :^)
I dunno if it will make one 320GB partition - if it offers you anything less, you should maybe go 50:50 (160MB/160MB or whatever).
Good luck!

 

you are god