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I can't get my HDD to appear in My Computer...

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by bbalzer, May 18, 2004.

  1. bbalzer

    bbalzer Guest

    I got a 160 GB HDD and i installed it and in the setup when you boot it says it reads it and it has the 160GB and i did the my computer properties and it reads the HDD but I can't get it to appear in the my computer screen with next to my old HDD. is there something I need to do still to get it to work properly?
     
  2. bbalzer

    bbalzer Guest

    i have the jumper on the back of the HDD how it came in the package. my HDD has like 6 seperate jumpers and none of them labeled.
     
  3. Jerry746

    Jerry746 Senior member

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    If your OS is still on the OLD HD, then the new one has to be set as SLAVE. You need to set the jumpers properly. Should be a sticker or label on the drive. If its missing then check the paperwork that came with the drive. If both drives are set to master its not going to work.

    Jerry
     
  4. cozza1987

    cozza1987 Guest

    Well if its showing up when u first turn the computer on, the jumpers are fine.
    Usually when u buy a new HDD they are not formatted. Therefore Windows will no show them as being there.
    What you will have to do is get a Windows Startup Disk...
    [bold] THIS WILL ERASE ANYTHING ON THE HDD, SO MAKE SURE YOU FORMAT THE 2ND DRIVE, NOT THE MASTER C:) [/bold]
    Boot into DOS then at the A:/> type Format Z:/u (Z being the drive you want to format) It will then come up, are you sure... Click Y and it will format. That might take 1/2hr or so to do that.
    Usually if you have two HDD, the first 1 will b C: and the 2nd will be D:

    Regards
    CoZZa
     
  5. bbalzer

    bbalzer Guest

    i never got any information with my HDD. It came in a plastic container. I bought it from tigerdirect.com and it just came in a box, in a plastic container that was wrapped in plastic. There are no label on the back of the drive by the jumpers, but I can right click on "My Computer" and click properties and check my device manager and see that there is the label of my new HDD. I will try and see if I can format it and hopefully that will work and it will show up. But I don't know what letter the drive is, so what do I do? I already have a D: and E: drive, so how do I check to see what letter the new HDD is? Is that in the device manager?
     
  6. Buik

    Buik Regular member

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    I am not going to pretend to be an expert. If formatting the drive does the trick, your OS should assign a drive letter.

    Darn, maybe that is why my twin 30gb maxtors don't show up on my raid channel.

    TC
     
  7. bbalzer

    bbalzer Guest

    i don't know what to do because I don't know the letter to the drive and i can't format the drive without knowing the letter of it. I look in my device manager and under disk drives I have 2 drives but I need to partiton and initialize the new HDD. I know the CPU reads that the HDD is there but I can't do anything to make it work?
     
  8. cozza1987

    cozza1987 Guest

    You have to boot into DOS with a windows Start-up disk.

    If you have 2 HDDz and 2 Optical Drives (CD-Romz etc), in DOS C: will be the master HDD, D: will b the 2nd HDD, E: will be a RAM Drive (temp drive for DOS) F: will be CD-ROM1, and G: will be CD-ROM2....

    Regards
    CoZZa


     
  9. Sophocles

    Sophocles Senior member

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    Go into your CMOS (bios) and check to see if it's listed there. If it's listed then disable all your drives except for your CD-rom and the new hard disk. The boot order should have your CD=rom first. Put your operating system disc in the CD-rom and reboot. If that doesn't work then disable all disc except for your CD-rom and try it again. If it works follow directions and format the disc. You will be given a choice choose the one that matches your disc size. Do not install windows only format. It would be helpful if you were to give us your systems OS and other specs.
     
  10. bbalzer

    bbalzer Guest

    no no no... I figured it out last night. The formatting was the closest hint I got. But I couldn't format it in the command prompt without a letter and it never had a letter. what I had to do is right click on my computer and click "Manage." After that I could click on Disk Drives and see the 160 GB new HDD but it hadn't been formatted, so I right clicked on the and click format and waaaaa laaaa... It was ready to go in an hour. Thanks for helping everyone, I really appreciate it!
     
  11. bird1234

    bird1234 Member

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    bblazer

    If your OS is Win XP or Win 2000, right click on My Computer, select manage. From there look down under Storage for Disk Management. Inside of there you will see a list of harddrives that windows sees formated or not. Obvisously select the drive that's not your system drive, right click on it and choose format.
     
  12. bird1234

    bird1234 Member

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    I forgot the rest of the process, so i had to put another drive in so i can explain the rest.

    After selecting format, you might get a screen that says you will lose any data on the drive. Well if it's new, there's nothing to lose. Next screen, you can give your harddrive volume name thats optional, for file system, select NTFS, leave allocation unit size alone, and check the box "perform a quick format" unless you want to wait awhile for it to format. Don't check the other box. After clicking OK, you will get another popup box warning you will lose all data. Just click OK. Wait about a minute or two or until the status of the drive changes to active. After it is changed, exit out of there and your drive is ready to use.
     

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