So I buy W7 pro 64 bit version with my student discount, upgraded from 32 bit vista so I had to buy an external hard drive to backup my files. Thing is my PC recognized the HD when it was running Vista, now it won't. This is not what I was expecting from my Microsoft, they never seem to get it right. So what do I do now? I checked it on my sisters PC and it is recognized. This was the sole reason why I bought this HD now I find I can't even put the files and programs back on my comp. Also, since I did a clean install, and everyone was telling me I will lose all my files, programs and such, but than once W7 is running I open the Computer screen, I look at my 2 internal hard drives and I see that they still have the exact same amount of space left as they did before the installation (I installed it on C, the other HD was left as if nothing had happened, like it was before the installation). Only thing is all the Programs are gone from the programs list -which I expected- I just thought everything would be wiped out. What can I erase to free up space? Can I erase the Windows.old folder? Is their any use for it? ( It's 204 GB!!) After all I did backup my files on it, that's the reason I bought the HD. But I can't use it cuz W7 won't recognize it. My HD is a HP 1TB SimpleSave. Also, after looking at my C drive there are some files and folders that I put pre-install and are still there. Why do people say it's a clean install if old files are still there?
Type "computer management" in the "search" box under the start menu. Under storage click "disk management" and see if the drive shows up under that. If it doesn't there may be a problem with the drive. And also make sure your BIOS have the necessary SATA ports enabled that the drive is connected to.
