quick help with second HD

OK so I just installed some new addtions to my pc and I seem to be stuck. I'm running XP on a Dell Dimension 4500. I just put in 512 megs of Ram, and new Lite-on DVD-R, and an extra Maxtor 80 gig HD. I'm 99% sure (pretty much 100%) that I installed everything correctly but I have no clue as to how to set up the HD. I've got a book that came with the DVD-R so I won't have a problem with that one... heck the computer already lists it under "my computer." I haven't checked the Ram yet but I'm pretty sure it doesn't need anything done for it.

As for the HD??? What do I do? When I first turned on my PC it detected that it was there. I went to "add new hardware" and it said that "the device is working properly." I'm guessing what I need to do is give it a drive letter but I don't know how to do that? I'm sure I could stumble around and figure this out but I don't want to risk screwing this up real bad!!!

Both of my hard drives are set to "cable select" and the original drive is at the end of the cable which is the "master." I want to keep that drive as is and use the second drive to back up the first and allow me to save my movie files to burned onto dvd.

If anybody has any suggestions as to where to seek advice on this I'd be glad to know where to look. I thought that there would have been some instructions with the drive but there was nothing.

Thanks!

Brent

 

My Dell book said that my computer uses "cable select" drive cables so it taold me to set both the drives to "cable select" and to just put my primary drive at the end of the cable. I'm sure it would work exactly the same doing it the way you stated.

I found some information on the web that goes through the "new partition wizard" so I'll try to get it done with that... if not I'll post again.

Thanks!

 

hello. if the hard drive is brand new you need to format (fat 32 or nfts) and create a partition in order to winxp recognize the new hdd.

if you all ready did discard this..

 

Dr. XP,

It's been done... everything working flawlessly... except for my burning technique!!! I'm glad I bought RW dvd's!!!

Thanks