Weird problem with a Western Digital 120 Gb Hard Disk

mitteg wrote on 6/23/2003, 5:30 PM
Hello,

I have bought a Western Digital 120 Gb, 7200 rpm, ATA100, 8 Mb buffer hard disk and I have made this configuration:

IDE 1 (Primary)

- MASTER: HD 80 GB (here it is the O.S and all the software)
- SLAVE: HD 120 GB (my new HD)

IDE 2 (Secondary)

- MASTER: CD-RW
- SLAVE: CD

When I boot I can see that BIOS recognizes my new Western Digital HD, it says: "deteting IDE..." and appears the new HD.

But when I enter Windows XP Pro, and I go to "My PC" I can only see my 80Gb HD: unit C:, there is no other disk unit ! There is no 120 Gb HD.

If I go to Hardware administration in the control panel ->system and I hit "disk units" I can see both HD (my old HD and my new 120 GB HD)

What's wrong here ? Why does the Western Digital HD appear everywhere except in MY PC ??

What can I do ? How can I format my new HD ?

Thanks a lot !!

Here are my SPECS:

AMD Athlon XP 1800+
1 Gb DDR SDRAM
HD 80 Gb Seagate Barracuda (working flawlessly)
HD 120 GB (Seems to be ok, but it is not recognized by "MY PC", the BIOS does recognize it)
Matrox Millenium G550
Gigabyte motherboard GA-7DX+
Sound Blaster Audigy 1394
CD and CDRW
O.S.: Windows XP Pro

Do you think that the previous IDE configuration is the best I can do ? Would you change the Primary/Secondary/Master/Slave units ??

Note that this extra HD is only for video/audio.

Thanks again for your help !

Robert.

Comments

filmy wrote on 6/23/2003, 5:41 PM
Did you go into the bios set up at start up and add the HD there? And than save the settings? I know it sounds too simple but I had something like this happen when I moved around a hard drive and put a new one in...it all worked fine at boot up but in windows it did not see the correct HD. I had forgotten to go into the bios set up and change the settings there.
Galeng wrote on 6/23/2003, 5:46 PM
Robert,

Go into administrative tools, computer management and then disk management. You will see the the 120GB HD. Right click on the portion that shows how much drive space and then click on format. You can then format and partition the drive and assign it a drive letter. It will then show up on the list, probably as a simple volume.

Hope this helps.

Galen
BillyBoy wrote on 6/23/2003, 5:50 PM
Sounds more like a Windows problem if the drive is seen in BIOS.

Try this:

start/control panel/performance and maint/administrative tools/computer management/ and finally disk management. Once you get there, you should see your new drive. If you do, you should be able to right click on it then proceed to format. Quck format is fine.
24Peter wrote on 6/23/2003, 5:55 PM
As was previously mentioned, formatting it should do the trick.
mitteg wrote on 6/23/2003, 6:27 PM
You're right, it works now !

thanks for your help ! This forum and all the people who post here are great !

Robert.
kentwolf wrote on 6/23/2003, 7:24 PM
Sometimes, the little free diskettes that come with the hard drives are handy. It takes care of the formatting for you.

Just my $0.02.
jboy wrote on 6/24/2003, 2:04 PM
And, in future, don't forget that WD Master drives are jumpered differently, depending on whether they're a single master drive, or the master drive in a master/slave combo.