I wasn't aware of the Disk Management utility and checked it out.
That's a good thing to know. I have one free connector, I'll keep
that in mind if I decide to go for a fourth drive. Not that I need it.
I can't really justify the 500gb. drive, it's just that it was so cheap
for $100 new I couldn't pass it up.
Thanks for the tips.
"Anna" <myname@myisp.net> wrote in message
news:uVSAsayvHHA.4544@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>
>>> "Ron Stone" <rstone@yahooo.com> wrote in message
>>> news:u%23AH7ixvHHA.3500@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>>>I am running XP MCE with a ASUS motherboard that supports 4 SATAII hard
>>>>drives.
>>>> I currently have drives C, and D.
>>>> I purchased a new Western Digital 500gb. SATAII hard drive and
>>>> installed it as my third drive.
>>>> The BIOS shows the new drive correctly, and when XP comes up, I see it
>>>> in Device Manager.
>>>> However, the new drive is not visible in My Computer of in Windows
>>>> Explorer.
>>>> After much putzing around, I swapped out my original 'D' drive with my
>>>> new drive, and I have the same problem. It's in the BIOS and Device
>>>> Manager, but not visible in Explorer.
>>>> The motherboard does support SATAII with the 3gb/s transfer rate, but
>>>> after reading a tip on the WD site about older mother boards, I did
>>>> apply a jumper that brought it down to 1.5gb/s to no avail.
>>>> I'm stumped as to why BIOS sees this drive but not Explorer.
>>>> I have the latest XP fixes as well as the latest BIOS and other updates
>>>> for the motherboard.
>>>>
>>>> I would appreciate any tips/pointers/suggestions etc.
>>>>
>>>> p.s.
>>>> I did submit a question to the WD support site, but as yet, have to
>>>> hear back.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks.
>
>
>> "Anna" <myname@myisp.net> wrote in message
>> news:OK8lzzxvHHA.4332@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
>>> Ron:
>>> And you've partitioned/formatted the new HDD, yes?
>>> If you've done that, and the drive is still not recognized, have you
>>> accessed Disk Management to see if you can assign a drive letter to that
>>> drive?
>>> If still no go, what's the model of the ASUS motherboard you're using?
>>> Anna
>
>
>
> "Ron Stone" <rstone@yahooo.com> wrote in message
> news:eJl9EKyvHHA.4228@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
>> Since I can't see the HDD anywere except in Device Manager and BIOS, how
>> would I format/partition it?
>>
>> That being said, I did some more poking around the WD support site and
>> came across their LifeGuard utility. I downloaded it, and ran it, and it
>> reported it found a drive that was not prepared and should it do it. I
>> clicked OK, and I now have a new 500gb. hard drive!
>>
>> I am still curious though about the formatting question. How would I
>> have done that?
>> For what it's worth it is an ASUS P5WD2 Premium with Dual Core Intel.
>>
>> Also, I'm curious why Device Manager shows both my 'C' drive and my new
>> 'K' drive as being at Location 1(1). Is that normal?
>>
>> Thanks for the reply.
>
>
> Ron:
> I should have been clearer about that. I should have indicated that after
> you installed the new HDD you would access Disk Management and that
> utility would indicate that the new HDD had to be "initialized" before you
> could partition & format the disk using the DM utility. Ordinarily the
> "Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard" would automatically display when you
> accessed Disk Management after installing a new unpartitioned/unformatted
> disk, but that's not always the case.
>
> Presumably the disk would have been reflected in the lower pane area of DM
> (that reflects the Disk # of the new disk) and a red dot incorporating a
> white bar would be present in that area indicating a disk that is not
> initialized. Clicking on that would trigger the initialization process had
> the "Initialize..Wizard" not appeared. I don't know if you did try to
> access DM immediately following the installation of the new drive.
>
> In any event, since you apparently were successful in
> partitioning/formatting the drive with the WD utility, I take it all is
> well at this point.
>
> As to the DM Location of the disks, you can safely disregard those
> entries. It's of no consequence. All that's really of consequence in this
> area is that the OS detects the drive and assigns it a drive letter so
> that you can work with the drive. I assume you're aware that you can
> assign a different drive letter to that new secondary HDD through DM.
> Anna
>