Second Hard Drive

  • Thread starter Thread starter Casey
  • Start date Start date
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Casey

Ok, yesterday my second hard drive came in the mail from
Dell. I properly installed it, but it doesnt show up as a
drive when I started my computer up. I called Dell and
the guy told me that I had to install an operating system
onto it--like XP which I'm using--in order for it to
work. Is this true?? Is there a setting I can go to in
order to "turn it on" ??? Im lost and Dell hung up on me
twice.
 
That is a typical response especially from Dell. Do this make sure your hard
drive is set to slave, (if you are using it with another drive on the same
IDE cable, or on an IDE cable with a cd-rom) unless your using this 'second'
hard drive all alone on its own IDE channel (it's own IDE cable) then it be
should set to master. Now having made sure of all that, reboot your machine
and enter the BIOS setup, you should have a drive set up page make sure you
set the 'drive detection to auto' after you do that your bios should show
'C', 'D' and any cd-rom drives. Then your set, hit button 'usually F10' and
make sure you save and exit, when it reboots as your POST screen comes up
(read quick) you should see the drive.
The other choice is to use an install utility that came with the hard drive
or download it from the manufacture. You have to be careful when using those
utilities though, you could wipe your system. good luck
 
Hi,

Dell are talking a load of cr@p. Simply plug your second
hdd into a spare IDE connector and then tweak the jumper
settings on the drive.

All hdd have small jumpers (little black bobbles of platic
covering pins) at the back of them. By altering the
settings you can make the drive either a Master (i.e. main
device) or a slave (secondary device). There is usually an
Auto option as well which lets your machine decide.

I would set your old hdd to Master and the new one to
slave (if it is on the same IDE connector as your original
hdd) and then boot into XP.

XP should recognise the new device.

Good luck,

Tim
 
You've got to partition/format the 2nd hard drive to allow it to be used. Go
to "disk management" and right click on the new drive. Format from there.

--
Regards:

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard :-)
 
Ok, I like what you said. I did as you said and went into
BIOS by hitting F2 on my computer. There, I have a
Primary Device 0 which was already on and a Primary Device
1 which I set to Auto. I eventually went back into it
again and for Primary Device 1 it reads 120 GB which is
what I bought. Thus, I know I have it installed
correctly. I guess the thing that I dont understand is
that its not showing up as a drive. I'll have to go into
fdisk (as im told) when I get home and partition it. I
had no idea that was part of the process. All Dell sent
was the hard drive--no instructions, no install guide,
NOTHING.
 
Hi,

Dell are talking a load of cr@p. Simply plug your second
hdd into a spare IDE connector and then tweak the jumper
settings on the drive.

All hdd have small jumpers (little black bobbles of platic
covering pins) at the back of them. By altering the
settings you can make the drive either a Master (i.e. main
device) or a slave (secondary device). There is usually an
Auto option as well which lets your machine decide.

I would set your old hdd to Master and the new one to
slave (if it is on the same IDE connector as your original
hdd) and then boot into XP.

XP should recognise the new device.
Click to expand...

Not until one initializes and formats the drive.
 
Casey you shouldn't have to format the drive via FDISK, but I have run into
that problem more than once. Then if you need to do that you have to be very
careful. Can you boot your computer to the command prompt? (use a start up
disk) and boot into the command prompt, at the (A:) prompt type in the words
fdisk
and follow the bouncing ball from there. Make sure you reboot everytime you
even think about farting (when your in fdisk, until your done) and the last
thing you do in fdisk is format hence boot to dos prompt and at A: type in
oformat(space) D: (whatever your new hard drive is) and then follow the
bouncing ball from there, make sure you label the drive something easy like
pain in the ass. Mac
 
Your previous response (Richard Urban) is correct, you can
go from there if the second drive is showing up in disk
management.

However and also if it is not showing up in disk manager,
see if it shows up in your computer's BIOS. You should see
each IDE device detected as a HD, CD drive, or ATAPI
device. "Secondary drive" should be set to "auto" if
currently set to "None".

You said "installed correctly", so I will presume that you
know "master / slave" (or CS) jumper settings. If you
installed it on your second IDE controller, it may be
conflicting with CDROM Drive.

If DELL really told you that it needs an OS, that is wrong.
 
Greetings --

The hard drive cannot appear in Windows Explorer or My Computer
until it has been partitioned and formatted. Right-click My Computer
Manage > Disk Management. Create and format partition(s) on the
Click to expand...
second hard drive as desired.


Bruce Chambers

--
Help us help you:



You can have peace. Or you can have freedom. Don't ever count on
having both at once. -- RAH
 
Casey said:
Ok, yesterday my second hard drive came in the mail from
Dell. I properly installed it, but it doesnt show up as a
drive when I started my computer up. I called Dell and
the guy told me that I had to install an operating system
onto it--like XP which I'm using--in order for it to
work. Is this true?
Click to expand...

Typical *dreadful* tech support.. You have to partition and format it,
yes, but *not* install an OS if it is a second drive.

First consider whether you want it as a single partition. The answer
may be yes - but there can be benefits in splitting a big one, and now
is the time to think.

Then Control Panel - Admin Tools - Computer Management, select Disk
Management and look lower right for the graphic of the drive. Right
click in the Unallocated space, and take 'Create Partition' to make a
Primary one (you could have up to four of these). Specify the size,
carry on, and it will format it for use. If you decide to split,
repeat, to make the second one.
 
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