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Chief Longwind Of The North

Chief Longwind Of The North

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I just installed a new Seagate 80 Gog. Ultra-ATA-100/EIDE/OEM hardrive to my computer. I'm running a Pentium P4 on an Asus P4S533 Motherboard. I went into the bios and can see the hardrive with all of its specs. The bios is set to Auto-Detect. Ultra DMA is set to 5. I have an Ultra-ATA cable with the blue end connected to the motherboard, the black connected to the 40 gig Master HDD, and the grey connector hooked onto the 80 gig slave HDD. When I go into system properties/hardware/Hardrives, I see both HDD's under device manager. But when I go into My Computer, I see only the master "C" drive. When I right click on the C-drive option, and look at Properties/Hardware, I can see both drives listed.

I don't understand why I don't see a seperate letter designation for the new drive, and why I can't determine the available storage on it from Windows XP. All the information available to me shows that the drive is being seen, but I can't access it.

Any computer whizards out there who can help would be greatly appreciated.

Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
Did you run FDISK and/or format the drive yet?

It sounds like the Hardware is installed correclty, but until you have a formatted partition, I don't believe XP will see the drive..

-Brad
 
Goodweed of the North said:
I just installed a new Seagate 80 Gog. Ultra-ATA-100/EIDE/OEM hardrive to my computer. I'm running a Pentium P4 on an Asus P4S533 Motherboard. I went into the bios and can see the hardrive with all of its specs. The bios is set to Auto-Detect. Ultra DMA is set to 5. I have an Ultra-ATA cable with the blue end connected to the motherboard, the black connected to the 40 gig Master HDD, and the grey connector hooked onto the 80 gig slave HDD. When I go into system properties/hardware/Hardrives, I see both HDD's under device manager. But when I go into My Computer, I see only the master "C" drive. When I right click on the C-drive option, and look at Properties/Hardware, I can see both drives listed.

I don't understand why I don't see a seperate letter designation for the new drive, and why I can't determine the available storage on it from Windows XP. All the information available to me shows that the drive is being seen, but I can't access it.

Any computer whizards out there who can help would be greatly appreciated.

Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North
Click to expand...
Do you have the pin switch / jumper settings positioned appropriately?
 
You did not mention what version of the Windows Operating System you are using. I'll assume Windows XP Home or Professional.

Can you see the drive if you go to:

(Category View)
Control Panel ... Performance and Maintenance ... Administrative Tools ... Computer Management

(Classic View)
Control Panel ... Computer Management
If Windows can recognize the drive on this screen you have it set up correctly. This screen will tell you how Windows sees the drive, how it's partitioned and formatted. If it's not partitioned and/or formatted you can do that from this screen by selecting the drive and right clicking on it for a drop-down menu of commands.
 
Last edited:
Goodweed of the North said:
HOw do I format the drive when I can't see it? So I need to format it in DOS?

Seeeeya; Goodweed of the North
Click to expand...

If you right click on my computer and select the option that says manage. then when it opens go under one called disk management under the storage tab. in there you should be able to see your new HDD and it should say something like HEALTHY unpartitioned or something like that. Right click on the drive you want to format and click format. That is how i do it in windows. Ill keep looking for more answers. good luck
 
sometimes the drive setting pins (gold pins with a black plastic movable Pip) even when set to slave won`t show up, I`ve found that if you remove all the pips it will then pick up the drive quite nicely :)
note the pip setting, then pull them all out, then try.
if it doesn`t work you can always put them back again :)
 
Like justplainbill and YT2095 say, its probably jumper settings. I would try YT2095s advise and pull the jumpers completely. If that doesn't work, the search the manufacturer's website for both hard drives (by model #). They will have jumper settings. Make sure that the jumpers are set correctly for the slave and master and you should be good to go. Good Luck.
 
Actually, since the Bios can see the drive and the Device Manager in Windows can see it, the jumpers are probably fine. It’s most likely a problem with not being formatted properly. As Aurora said, go through the Administrative tools to Computer Management and then Disc Management and check the file system and partitioning. If you can see the disc there, then the jumpers are fine and the HDD is most likely blank and needs to be formatted. From disc management you can also manually assign a drive letter to the new HDD as well.

BUT.....just to be sure.....you did change the jumper setting on the new drive to Slave right?

HDD.JPG
 
Last edited:
what keltin said.

gw, right click the "my computer" icon, and click on "manage", then on "disk management".

you should see your drives.

right click on the drive you want to format, and select "partitions".

then follow the steps to format it.
 
Thanks everyone. After I make a meal for some visitors (chicken enchilladas, and tamalles), I should be able to get everything up and running with the advice listed. I'll let you know with a whoop and a holler when it's up.

Seeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
Whoop! Holler! Eureka! It works. My 80-gig is up and running, and it's so quiet I can't even hear it over the normal fan noise of the computer. Good job and great advise from everyone. Thanks. And yes, I did have to format the drive.:mrgreen::w00t2:

Seeeeeeeya; Goodweed of the North
 
WHOA WTF how did i miss that. I read that like three times and i even stared at his emoticon thats going crazy but yet i still missed that. hmm

EDIT
CRAP i just spilled oatmeal all over my keyboard. How am i gonna get those peaches out.
 
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