Formatting this HDD

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Guest

Ok heres an unusual one for ya. Im trying to fix an old computer for my
mother. She just uses it for surfing the internet and a little word
processing. The hard drive has failed and just so happens I have an old DVR
with a Nice 40gig Seagate drive. Can I use this drive in the computer? When I
hook it up Windows recognizes the new hardware, tells me its ready to use,
but it doesnt show up under My Computer so I can format it. Any ideas?
 
FLATLINE said:
Ok heres an unusual one for ya. Im trying to fix an old computer for my
mother. She just uses it for surfing the internet and a little word
processing. The hard drive has failed and just so happens I have an old
DVR
with a Nice 40gig Seagate drive. Can I use this drive in the computer?
When I
hook it up Windows recognizes the new hardware, tells me its ready to use,
but it doesnt show up under My Computer so I can format it. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

Don't quite understand. The HDD failed in the computer - you replaced it
with this 40GB Seagate, so how can Windows not see it unless you have
installed Windows on it, in which case Windows CAN see it? I'm confused.
More detail please....
 
Im not an expert but i might be able to help

on the back of each harddrive there int a block of eight pins and two of
them have a little piece of plastic covering them. This is tells the
computer weather or not the hard drive is a primary drive or a slave drive
must likely you have to pull the little plastic thing and figure out wat two
pins to cover to make your hard drive a slave and try it again

you can always count on Google for help with choosing the right pin set for
your hard drive

like i said im not an expert and i could be completely wrong

hope i might be able to help

Led
 
FLATLINE said:
Ok heres an unusual one for ya. Im trying to fix an old computer for my
mother. She just uses it for surfing the internet and a little word
processing. The hard drive has failed and just so happens I have an old
DVR
with a Nice 40gig Seagate drive. Can I use this drive in the computer?
When I
hook it up Windows recognizes the new hardware, tells me its ready to use,
but it doesnt show up under My Computer so I can format it. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

I'm guessing here, but it sounds like you installed this drive as a slave in
another computer. It doesn't show up in "My Computer" because it is not
partitioned or formatted. Right click on My Computer, select Manage and the
in the Computer Management screen left click on Disk Management. You should
find the disk there and you can right click on it and partition and then
format it.
 
Ok lemme see if I can explain this better and add some new info. I have this
old Digital Video Recorder from when i had Direct TV. Theres a 40 gig Seagate
HDD in there that I pulled out and installed in the computer. Im wondering if
anyone has done or heard of using a DVR HDD in a computer. Looks to me like a
standard HDD so I figured it should work.

First off if I try to Install windows on it it errors. I dont know what the
error was but im sure it has to do with what I found out later.

I then took it out of that computer and installed it in my other computer as
a slave drive. When i boot up that computer the little bubble pops up telling
me Windows found new hardware. I right clicked on My Computer and clicked
manage. It shows my OS drive but not this drive. So obviously I have no
option to format it.

I then went to Seagates website and downloaded a bootable Dos tool for
testing Harddrives. The tool is telling me the drive is security locked. Is
there anything I can do to format this disk. i want to put it back in the
other computer to install Windows XP on it.
 
I appreciate all the resonses but the key to my question is the fact that
this hard drive in question is from a Sony Digital Video Recorder. There is
some kind of security lock on it and this needs to be by passed. I dont want
and of the data on the drive i just want to wipe it clean and use it to
install XP.
 
Does it identify the drive manufacture, if so download the manufacture's
disk drive tools, this may get rid if the lock.

JS
 
JS said:
Does it identify the drive manufacture, if so download the manufacture's
disk drive tools, this may get rid if the lock.
Click to expand...

If not, drives are really cheap. You can get half a terabyte for under $100,
so don't spend a ton of time on this.

Your DVR drive might be a nice challenge, however. :-)

-John O
 
Yeah i went to Seagates website and downloaded a few tools but nothing
worked. I talked to their tech support on what seemed like Mars but I can
understand what they are saying. I just found a Dos utility that does a low
level format. Ill see it this works. Supposed to take upwards of 3 hours.
Wish me luck.
 
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