Added 2nd HD to a new Studio 17....

and Vista is telling me its only 10 gb! Its a NIB western digital 320 gb 5400 rpm ATA (WDC WD3200BEVS-VATO). When I go to BIOS it shows its a WD 320 but of course it wont let you monkey with anything. Thru Vista's disc management thingie and thru explorer it only shows that its a 10 gb drive. I've already formatted it twice thru vista but to no avail. What am I doing wrong?

 

Are you sure that the drive is showing up at all? You may be looking at the recovery partition which is usually 10GB.
A new drive will not show up in "my computer" until you go to computer management (right click on my computer, select manage) then click "disk management"
Once it loads up the disk information, right click the disk label on the right pane and select "initialize"
Then right click on the "unallocated space" to the right of the disk label and select "format."

 

I stand corrected. It shows in computer management as Disc 1 Basic 298.09 GB online. It's also labelled as Unallocated. You are correct about the recovery partition. When I right click on the "unallocated space" the only options available are New Simple Volume, Properties, and Help.

 

Select "New Simple Volume."
Sorry I just had to go from memory so I was a bit off.
You'll choose a quick format as NTFS, compression disabled for best results.

 

Is this what you bought to do this? http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/...us&l=en&dgc=SS&cid=39888&lid=1022058#Overview

Just making sure, before I get my Dad to order it for his Studio. Wanting to make sure it has the "Interposer" (lol, what a name...I would have called it a SATA adapter, or something similar. Then again, that's why I am not an engineer...logic).

Thanks a bill...