AnimeSuki Forums

guest · 2007-07-18, 21:28

I bought a new hard drive (maxtor, 160GB) with SATA connection. I think my computer can detect it because under BIOS it is shown as "this drive is under controlled of BIOS." But it does not show up under "computer" under start menu. The computer did not ask to partition this brand new drive, either. Strange. How can I make this work?

I can't access this drive. I am running windows vista and this is not my boot drive.

grey_moon · 2007-07-18, 23:31

Hiya I don't have Vista access on me (it's too slow on my vmware), but if it was XP I would ask if you have initialised the drive and formatted it!

Normally with XP after plugging in a virgin drive, if XP doesn't inform you of it. You need to goto control panel, Performance and Maintainance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management (Local), then scroll down to your new disk right click on the far left section which says Disk X and select initialise (Section 1 in my picture). The you can create a partition in section 2.

Note your current drives already in use should have the disks names in them. You can't initialise disks already in use.

The above picture is of my hard drives, note they all are in use so if they all have names and file systems in them then they are not the new drive. The new drive should be Disk 1 if you initially had 1 disk in and if this is your 3rd disk it would be disk 2.

If this deviates in anyway from Vista, STOP and wait for someone else to answer.

guest · 2007-07-19, 08:51

Thanks. Do I have to shrink the volume? What does this "shrinking" do exactly? I would like to have the use of full volume of the new drive.

Jinto · 2007-07-19, 09:58

If you have made a partition. And later you decide to shrink that partition a favour of another partition that instead needs the space, then you will need the shrinking feature to do this.

arcadeplayer987 · 2007-07-19, 14:07

Formatt the new HDD and it will be detected after that

guest · 2007-07-20, 01:58

What if I just put this hd (have some data, not boot drive) from one computer (windows XP) into another computer (vista)? It's seagate, 160GB. All I can find under BIOS is "160GB." No seagate, no "this drive is under the control of BIOS." Am I doing it right?

I thought that this was an used drive and I don't need to partition it. When it shows up under BIOS, even if no "this is under the control of BIOS," it would show up under "computer" because it is already partitioned. That extra step, going into "disk management" is only for brand new drive, isn't it?

grey_moon · 2007-07-20, 05:03

Quote:

Originally Posted by guest

What if I just put this hd (have some data, not boot drive) from one computer (windows XP) into another computer (vista)? It's seagate, 160GB. All I can find under BIOS is "160GB." No seagate, no "this drive is under the control of BIOS." Am I doing it right?

I thought that this was an used drive and I don't need to partition it. When it shows up under BIOS, even if no "this is under the control of BIOS," it would show up under "computer" because it is already partitioned. That extra step, going into "disk management" is only for brand new drive, isn't it?

Yah the extra steps are for a brand new unformatted drive (virgin drive).

It depends on your BIOS and on your hard drive on how much information is displayed.

Is your system drive sata as well? Even if the BIOS correctly identifies the hard drive, windows will need to have a driver for it too. If your system drive is SATA and running off the same controller then there is the correct driver available.

guest · 2007-07-20, 08:16

Quote:

Originally Posted by grey_moon

It depends on your BIOS and on your hard drive on how much information is displayed.

Is your system drive sata as well? Even if the BIOS correctly identifies the hard drive, windows will need to have a driver for it too. If your system drive is SATA and running off the same controller then there is the correct driver available.

Yes, they are all SATA. I am not sure what you try to say about the same controller. I think I have connected the SATA data cable and power cable correctly because they are the same as the boot drive. The boot drive is working fine so that indicates it is the correct way to connect, I think.

The problem is, for both of my working hard drive, boot drive and the brand new one, they are all shown as like "maxtor, 160GB, this drive is under control of BIOS." "samsung, 320 GB, this drive is under control of BIOS." Only this used one that is not boot drive but has some data is shown as only "160GB." That is it.

I thought I would find it under "computer" since this one is partitioned already but I can't. I thought for this one, I only need to install it, make sure it showed up under BIOS, and it would automatically show up under "computer." It does show under BIOS but strangely, only as "160GB." If this is like the rest of my working drives, it would be shown as "seagate, 160GB, this drive is under control of BIOS." But it is not. I don't know if this is the problem but I can't access it.

This is the drive that holds the data so I would like to retrieve it if possible. Thanks.

Jinto · 2007-07-20, 11:01

Maybe your PC is using an SATA raid and you will have to configure it before it does utilize the hard drive. Maybe you can find some helpful advice in the manual of your motherboard regarding this issue.

grey_moon · 2007-07-20, 11:13

To be honest I'm kinda stumped... Your disk sounds like it is working as you say you have taken it from another machine. I am assuming it was working then and hasn't broke on the way to your other PC.

I hesitate to suggest a BIOS update as your drive is the same size as the working ones (you might want to take a gander on your mobo's website to see if there are any readmes). BIOS updates to fix hard drives are normally for drives that are bigger then what your BIOS can understand. I would recommend against doing a BIOS update unless you are sure of what you are doing as it can lobotomise your PC, defiantly a do at your own peril thing

*EDIT*
Jinto Lin's suggestion sounds pretty good

and if that doesn't work you can try downloading and booting to a live cd to see if another OS will pick it up. Damn Small Linux is a good choice for this as its small to download.

http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/

guest · 2007-07-20, 17:48

Quote:

Originally Posted by grey_moon

To be honest I'm kinda stumped... Your disk sounds like it is working as you say you have taken it from another machine. I am assuming it was working then and hasn't broke on the way to your other PC.

That is part of the problem.

It was working in my old computer but it doesn't work in the new one (vista). I don't know why. Sorry I must have forgot to mention this. I can't test it in the old computer again to see if it is working because the boot drive of the old one is dead.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jinto Lin

Maybe your PC is using an SATA raid and you will have to configure it before it does utilize the hard drive. Maybe you can find some helpful advice in the manual of your motherboard regarding this issue.

Under BIOS, the boot drive is only "On." There is one other option says something like "raid on" but it is not selected and the boot drive is working fine. I assume I don't need to do this because if boot drive is doing fine without it, the rest of the drives should work, right? Or is it just me?

WanderingKnight · 2007-07-20, 18:29

What about leaving only the non-recognizable drive and booting from a Linux Live CD? At least you might be assured it's still working properly.

guest · 2007-07-20, 20:19

Ok, can you tell me which file to download if I want to boot from a DVD drive?

The current version dsl 3.4. I figure if I want to boot from within windows, that would be the "embeded" version. But I would like to boot from the dvd drive. It would be less confusing to me.

grey_moon · 2007-07-21, 05:11

dsl-3.4.iso

Jinto · 2007-07-21, 05:13

Quote:

Originally Posted by guest

Under BIOS, the boot drive is only "On." There is one other option says something like "raid on" but it is not selected and the boot drive is working fine. I assume I don't need to do this because if boot drive is doing fine without it, the rest of the drives should work, right? Or is it just me?

Unfortunately your deduction is wrong. Just because the boot drive is recognised and under control of the BIOS doesn't mean all additional drives are too. Especially if you have an SATA raid. I suggest to consult the manual to clearify which of the SATA plugs are Raid and which not. If the additional SATA plugs belong to a Raid, then it is likely that they are meant to be under control of the Raidcontroler (not the BIOS). Thus when the Raid is not on... the 3rd drive is installed correctly but could have no controller assigned and therefore won't work no matter what you do on the OS and software layers.

SeijiSensei · 2007-07-21, 10:54

Quote:

Originally Posted by guest

Ok, can you tell me which file to download if I want to boot from a DVD drive?

If you're going to burn a "live-CD" Linux distribution for diagnostics, I'd suggest using Knoppix. It's very chatty as it performs device identification, and it boots up into a nice KDE desktop with lots of useful disk and file management applications already installed. It also mounts all the drives it discovers on the desktop so you can analyze them easily.

Gundam Master · 2007-07-21, 18:10

Quote:

Originally Posted by guest

What if I just put this hd (have some data, not boot drive) from one computer (windows XP) into another computer (vista)? It's seagate, 160GB. All I can find under BIOS is "160GB." No seagate, no "this drive is under the control of BIOS." Am I doing it right?

I thought that this was an used drive and I don't need to partition it. When it shows up under BIOS, even if no "this is under the control of BIOS," it would show up under "computer" because it is already partitioned. That extra step, going into "disk management" is only for brand new drive, isn't it?

Actually even if it is a used drive you still might want to go to disc management just to make sure that windows can detect that the drive is connected to the computer. Basically just right-click on "My Computer" then click "Manage" and then when Computer Management comes up click on "Disc Management". If you see the 160 Seagate hard drive there right-click on it and then click "Mark Partition as Active"

This should work if windows is able to detect the drive. If windows can't detect the drive from here then you can say that the problem lies with the hardware configuration and not the software or OS. If it's not a hardware problem then this should make your hard drive come up. I know this should work because at one point I had the same problem until I did this.

guest · 2007-07-26, 14:35

Just a follow up. It turns out that my drive was set as dynamics (I have used it before) and I just need to import it.

Sorry for all this.

I am new. Thank you very much for all your help. Now I am hopping to other threads to see if I can set up a dual boot system for XP and Vista.

2007-07-18, 21:28	Link #1
guest guess Join Date: Nov 2003	hard drive not detected? I bought a new hard drive (maxtor, 160GB) with SATA connection. I think my computer can detect it because under BIOS it is shown as "this drive is under controlled of BIOS." But it does not show up under "computer" under start menu. The computer did not ask to partition this brand new drive, either. Strange. How can I make this work? I can't access this drive. I am running windows vista and this is not my boot drive. __________________

2007-07-18, 23:31	Link #2
grey_moon Yummy, sweet and unyuu!!! Join Date: Dec 2004	Hiya I don't have Vista access on me (it's too slow on my vmware), but if it was XP I would ask if you have initialised the drive and formatted it! Normally with XP after plugging in a virgin drive, if XP doesn't inform you of it. You need to goto control panel, Performance and Maintainance, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management (Local), then scroll down to your new disk right click on the far left section which says Disk X and select initialise (Section 1 in my picture). The you can create a partition in section 2. Note your current drives already in use should have the disks names in them. You can't initialise disks already in use. The above picture is of my hard drives, note they all are in use so if they all have names and file systems in them then they are not the new drive. The new drive should be Disk 1 if you initially had 1 disk in and if this is your 3rd disk it would be disk 2. If this deviates in anyway from Vista, STOP and wait for someone else to answer. __________________ Last edited by grey_moon; 2007-07-18 at 23:44.

2007-07-19, 08:51	Link #3
guest guess Join Date: Nov 2003	Thanks. Do I have to shrink the volume? What does this "shrinking" do exactly? I would like to have the use of full volume of the new drive. __________________

2007-07-19, 09:58	Link #4
Jinto Asuki-tan Kairin ↓ Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Fürth (GER) Age: 43	If you have made a partition. And later you decide to shrink that partition a favour of another partition that instead needs the space, then you will need the shrinking feature to do this. __________________ Folding@Home, Team Animesuki

2007-07-20, 01:58	Link #6
guest guess Join Date: Nov 2003	What if I just put this hd (have some data, not boot drive) from one computer (windows XP) into another computer (vista)? It's seagate, 160GB. All I can find under BIOS is "160GB." No seagate, no "this drive is under the control of BIOS." Am I doing it right? I thought that this was an used drive and I don't need to partition it. When it shows up under BIOS, even if no "this is under the control of BIOS," it would show up under "computer" because it is already partitioned. That extra step, going into "disk management" is only for brand new drive, isn't it? __________________ Last edited by guest; 2007-07-20 at 02:13.

2007-07-19, 14:07	Link #5
arcadeplayer987 Senior Member Join Date: Apr 2007	Formatt the new HDD and it will be detected after that

2007-07-20, 11:01	Link #9
Jinto Asuki-tan Kairin ↓ Join Date: Feb 2004 Location: Fürth (GER) Age: 43	Maybe your PC is using an SATA raid and you will have to configure it before it does utilize the hard drive. Maybe you can find some helpful advice in the manual of your motherboard regarding this issue. __________________ Folding@Home, Team Animesuki

2007-07-20, 11:13	Link #10
grey_moon Yummy, sweet and unyuu!!! Join Date: Dec 2004	To be honest I'm kinda stumped... Your disk sounds like it is working as you say you have taken it from another machine. I am assuming it was working then and hasn't broke on the way to your other PC. I hesitate to suggest a BIOS update as your drive is the same size as the working ones (you might want to take a gander on your mobo's website to see if there are any readmes). BIOS updates to fix hard drives are normally for drives that are bigger then what your BIOS can understand. I would recommend against doing a BIOS update unless you are sure of what you are doing as it can lobotomise your PC, defiantly a do at your own peril thing EDIT Jinto Lin's suggestion sounds pretty good and if that doesn't work you can try downloading and booting to a live cd to see if another OS will pick it up. Damn Small Linux is a good choice for this as its small to download. http://www.damnsmalllinux.org/ __________________

2007-07-20, 18:29	Link #12
WanderingKnight Gregory House IT Support Join Date: Jun 2006 Location: Buenos Aires, Argentina Age: 35	What about leaving only the non-recognizable drive and booting from a Linux Live CD? At least you might be assured it's still working properly. __________________ Place them in a box until a quieter time \| Lights down, you up and die.

2007-07-20, 20:19	Link #13
guest guess Join Date: Nov 2003	Ok, can you tell me which file to download if I want to boot from a DVD drive? The current version dsl 3.4. I figure if I want to boot from within windows, that would be the "embeded" version. But I would like to boot from the dvd drive. It would be less confusing to me. __________________

2007-07-21, 05:11	Link #14
grey_moon Yummy, sweet and unyuu!!! Join Date: Dec 2004	dsl-3.4.iso __________________

2007-07-26, 14:35	Link #18
guest guess Join Date: Nov 2003	Just a follow up. It turns out that my drive was set as dynamics (I have used it before) and I just need to import it. Sorry for all this. I am new. Thank you very much for all your help. Now I am hopping to other threads to see if I can set up a dual boot system for XP and Vista. __________________