New hard drive shows up in device manager but not windows explorer

  • Thread starter Thread starter Lakesidezx
  • Start date Start date
L

Lakesidezx

Hello,
I've added a new sata II hard drive to my windows vista home premium
installation. When I started up vista, I got the little bubble in the lower
right portion of the screen telling me that new hardware was detected and
that drivers were beign installed.

All went fine.

When I go to device manager, the new hard drive shows up there, but in
windows explorer it's nowhere to be found.

What do I need to do to be able to see this drive and use it in windows
vista.

Thanks,
 
Partition and format the drive!

Right click on My Computer, select Manage. On the following screen, click
on Disk Management. It will show up on the right hand side of the screen
from where you can partition it, format it and assign it a drive letter.
Now it will show up in Windows Explorer. No version of Windows can 'see' an
unformatted drive.
 
Hi Cari.

Your solution would work fine for a 'new' HDD, but what about an exisiting
HDD that has gigabytes of archived data? I am in this position, but I am NOT
going to delete the information just to get Vista to recognize this secondary
SATA HDD. I am using removeable aluminum racks, and I have a full working OS
in another rack (Windows XP Professional) and it recognizes this 200 Gig SATA
drive perfectly. Any ideas?
 
Thanks,
I completely forgot that new hard drives don't come pre formated. Works
like a champ now.
 
Just right click the drive in HD manager and assign a driveletter and DON'T
let it format after a refresh it should be visible.
Could also be it is set "Offline" change that to online same console HD
management.
Ko.
 
If you mean; right-click "My Computer", "Manage", "Storage", "Disk
Management", right-click on the drive in question...the only selections
available in the drop-down menu is 'Delete' and 'Help'.

Now what?
 
I found the problem (by accident).

When I was in a Windows XP session, I decided to do a Norton Disk Doctor
check on the drives (C: and D:). With the D: drive being the one in question
here!

I couldn't perform this check, until I disabled Norton's GoBack. Well, I
haven't "enabled" Norton GoBack yet. I plugged in the removeable SATA HDD
rack containing Windows Vista Ultimate and booted up. I wanted to find
something on the C: drive, so I went into Windows Explorer. Lo and
behold....the D: drive is now showing!

Why? I am assuming that the Norton GoBack has specific descriptors that
only it (GoBack app) would recognize --- effectively hiding this drive from
Windows Vista. I think that if I installed Norton GoBack here (in Vista) and
had it set for both drives (C: and D:) that I WOULD be able to see it here.

Anyways, thanks for the help, everybody.
 
PROBLEM RESOLVED :)

I found the problem (by accident).

When I was in a Windows XP session, I decided to do a Norton Disk Doctor
check on the drives (C: and D:). With the D: drive being the one in question
here!

I couldn't perform this check, until I disabled Norton's GoBack. Well, I
haven't "enabled" Norton GoBack yet. I plugged in the removeable SATA HDD
rack containing Windows Vista Ultimate and booted up. I wanted to find
something on the C: drive, so I went into Windows Explorer. Lo and
behold....the D: drive is now showing!

Why? I am assuming that the Norton GoBack has specific descriptors that
only it (GoBack app) would recognize --- effectively hiding this drive from
Windows Vista. I think that if I installed Norton GoBack here (in Vista) and
had it set for both drives (C: and D:) that I WOULD be able to see it here.

Anyways, thanks for the help, everybody.
 
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