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[Mtx]

So how do I go about partitioning a drive I can not access?

[Marsman]

If you are dealing with 9x/ME - you need to run FDISK and select physical drive #2 and see what the partition looks like or create it as necessacy. The partition is the part responsible for creating the drive letter. If you are dealing with NT/2k/XP - you have to do this from the Drive Manager.

[Zatrais]

Your problem to me sounds like your bios isn't set up for 2HD's.. You need to go into your bios and set it up to autodetect primary master and slave and secondary master and slave. If the bios on your rig has been set to a preconfigured configuration whit only 1 HD then this is most likely your prob.

[Mtx]

My bios is showing a Primary and Slave HD. I have a few peripherals (Cameras) but other than that I can't think of anything that could be conflicting with a HD.

[Zatrais]

Does your PC find it during the bootup? does it say this after the RAM has been counted:

Primary Master somethinHD
Primary Slave somethingHD

[Unregistered]

MTX - There are 3 jumpers on the back of an IDE hard drive. In order to have multiple hard drives one must be set to Master, and the Other to slave. If you have the Master set to "Primary" or what ever they call the 3rd option it will not recognise the slave drive.

That's what happened to me the first time I added an extra HD to a comp.

[Mtx]

Sure does

[mistled]

So, is it fixed now??

[Mtx]

Master and slave are set correctly on the jumpers. The Device manager says everything is running fine. Strange huh? I always get the strange stuff.

[Zatrais]

Your device manager finds both HD's in windows?

[mistled]

Originally posted by Zatrais
Your device manager finds both HD's in windows?

but Explorer can only see the master (which is the old one), right??

[mistled]

Checj this out... I got it from http://www.cnet.com/software/0-429669-8-8236843-1.html

Q: I just installed a new hard drive under Windows XP Home. Upon booting, the little XP bubble kindly informed me that Windows had detected the new hard drive and installed the necessary files for it. But when I open the My Computer window, the new drive doesn't show up. The device manager says the drive is working properly, but it's not. Help!

A: While Device Manager correctly identifies that new hardware exists, the new hard drive probably isn't partitioned or formatted with a file system that My Computer can recognize. You still have one more step to complete.

Click Start > Control Panel, then select "Switch to classic view" from the Control Panel menu at the left side of the window (which offers access to many more items). From there, double-click Administrative Tools in the main portion of the Control Panel window, then double-click Computer Management. Click Disk Management (listed in the left pane)--this provides the tools to partition and format your disk drives. Right-click the icon for the new drive and select Format.

In the Format dialog, select the type of partition you want the drive to use once it's formatted--either FAT32 or NTFS--then, type a volume label (a friendly name for the drive) and click OK to format the drive. After formatting, which takes just a few minutes, your new drive will be immediately ready to use--no restart required. You can use the Disk Management process for NT and 2000 to prepare a new drive, too, but for Windows 95, 98, or Me, you must use the built-in DOS FDisk or third-party partitioning software.

I dont know what OS you're running, but hope that helps.

mistled

*edit* I know this is what Marsman said earlier, but this actually tells you how to do it.