Intalling WD 160G Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Paul Filion
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Paul Filion

I just purchased a WD 160G hard drive which came with a with
a controller card but I'm not sure if I have to install it.

My system is a Dell Dimension 4550 2.66Ghz with 30G and 80G
installed on IDE1 and a DVD writer on IDE2.

There is a note which came with the new drive which state that XP does
not have native support for hard drives larger than 137GB. I've done some
searching
but it is still not clear if windows XP with all the updates supports drives
greater
than 137GB or not.

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Paul
 
Paul

If you have a free connecting point on your existing system (or if you're
replacing one of the smaller drives) and your current mainboard supports
large drives then you shouldn't need the controller card.

*If* your system has a problem seeing the full drive then you should find
the information and steps needed to let XP see the full drive here

How to Enable 48-bit Logical Block Addressing Support for ATAPI Disk Drives
in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

Hope that helps
Pete
 
No. 1. Since you already have two drives on your primary controller and a
DVD on the second, I would recommend that you install the card and place the
drive on it anyway. This will absolutely give you the best of all worlds,
keeping the original configuration you have and not "slowing down" a good
drive by placing it on an interface with a DVD drive.

No. 2. If you intend to replace one of the other drives in your system, I
think the Dell's bios will access the drive OK. You can install it in the
machine to see if it does in fact recognize the full size of the drive at
bootup. If not, you will need the controller.

XP originally did not recognize drives over 137 GB but see this KB article
to enable 48 bit LBA support in XP with SP1 installed.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013
 
Thanks Pete, I want to keep the existing hard drives at least for now but
the cable connected to
the DVD Writer would not reach the place where I have to install the new
hard drive so I am
installing the new controller card.

Paul
 
I now have installed the controller card and the drive shows up in the
Device Manager but
it does not show up in the Explorer window or My Computer.

My system does not have a floppy drive so I could not load the Data
Lifeguard Tools floppy.

I must be missing a step.

Thanks,
Paul
 
Paul

No problem. As LV pointed out, you're better to keep the DVD away from any
hard drives anyway.

I see from your response to LV that you still need to format. I think LV's
advice will be the same as mine (although it'll be more complete and easier
to follow :o) ).

Use XP's 'disk management' to partition and format. Right-click 'My
Computer' and select 'manage'. Then click on Disk Management and select the
drive (which should be visible). You should be able to take it from
there...

Hope that helps
Pete
 
Thanks again Pete. At first there was still a problem as I had left the
jumper on the
drive to the default "Cable Select". I then changed the jumper to "Single"
and was
then able to proceed. It is now in the process of formatting. I was not sure
if I
should have single partition or two for this 160G drive.

Your response was very helpful and thanks again.

Paul
 
Go into XP administration/computer management and disk management. You
should see the new drive there but it will be "grayed" out with no partition
on it and no option to install one. I think if you right click on the drive
in the disk management window or possibly select properties you will see an
option to "initialize" new disk. Choose yes and the disk will be activated,
now you should have the option to format the disk and install one or more
partitions. Once a partition is installed you will see the drive in
explorer. If the above does not work or if no disk appears in disk
management you may need to check your controller card documentation for
settings, although if the drive is showing up in device manager I would
think that is not the case.
 
Paul, with all the help given here I hope everything is working OK.
Boxdan476's info on setting up the new drive to be partitioned and formatted
is correct. If you can't figure out how to get into the disk management,
Click Start, Settings, Control Panel, double click on Administrative Tools
and follow on from there.

Let us all know if all is well.
 
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