New Hard Drive Help Needed

Hi all,

I know this is a notebook forum, but I am in need of help with my desktop. I added a second HDD (Western Digital) to my system and I have been trying to set it up. I am now having some trouble with the setup.

1) When I first booted up my computer after the installation, the wizard popped up and it detected the exact hard drive that I installed. Some automatic configurations were done and, upon rebooting, my computer is no longer detecting the new drive.

2) Its a 500GB HDD, but it was only showing 127GB free space when my computer was detecting it. I formatted and everything, and it was still only showing 127GB free space of 127GB space available.

I'm really confused right now and would appreciate any and all advice right now.

 

what type of desktop do you have..... what CPU,, what is the original HDD size??

the 127gb is usually a BIOS or OS limitation, and there are a few ways around this issue, but some more info on your pc would be helpful

later,
ken

 

Here are the specs:

ORIGINAL:

HP Pavilion a1250n
AMD AthlonX2 Dual Core Processor 3800+
1 GB RAM
250GB HDD (original HDD)
XP Home Media Center

AFTER UPGRADES:

4 GB ram (as it is a 32-bit OS, comp reports 3.2 GB)
NEW HDD is supposed to be 500GB

If any more information is needed, please let me know.

 

There used to be a limitation but not anymore, XP should take care of the partitions. I'm wondering if your HDD is defected.

 

I'm wondering the same thing.

 

go into the BIOS and check to see if the HDD is showing up as 500gig,

make sure it is using LBA addressing and not large or something else...
i suspect it's a bios setting dealing with the HDD addressing method

later, ken

 

Ken,

I'm not sure how to do that exactly. I hate to ask, but can you kinda walk me through it. I really thought I had it down, as I followed the instructions to the letter, but I apparently am not doing something right. I'm concerned that I may end up doing some real damage to my system.

What should I do when I enter BIOS? Is there something I should change or what?

 

Is it seen in the bios? Is it seen in windows drive manager? What file system is formated on it? Is it sata or pata? Did you configure the master slave correctly?

 

It is a SATA drive and it is being seen by Drive Manager. I have not yet gone inito BIOS, so I don't know if it's being seen there or not. Even in drive manager, it's telling me that my 500GB drive only has 127.93GB free space. When I look at the percentage of disk space available, it says 99%.

 

Ah, apparently, there's 337.76 GB of unallocated space. Also, it appears that my computer can see the drive, but the installation disk that came with the drive is saying that it can't find the drive whenever I try to set it up. Does this make any sense?

 

When you boot you can press del or F2 depending on the PC, and check the BIOS data for the HDD.

 

I'll do that now.

 

BIOS has identified the drive. It is, in fact, showing up. I don't understand why the installation software is saying the drive is not there.

 

i'm by no means an expert where SATA drives are concerned,, but if you don't have any valuable data on the new drive, it might be a good idea to go into Computer Managment,,,, right click on MY COMPUTER, click MANAGE, then click on DISK MANAGMENT (near bottom listed under STORAGE).. this should show your hard drives and thier utilization..

if you have no needed data on the second drive (that is the new drive correct?),, from there delete the 137mb partition, and create a partition using the full size of the HDD.

that's the only thing i can think of...

good luck,
ken

 

Thanks, Big. That would solve the size issue. However, that still leaves the other issue. Why is the installation/setup software not reading the drive (the drive that it came with)? I need to be able to set it up through the installation software as another boot disc so that I can reinstall a copy of Vista on it. Until I do that, it won't be it's own independent drive. Does that make sense? Is there some way I can accomplish this without using the installation software?

 

you should be able to use the disk managment to partition and format the drive.... the only reason i've ever seen for using a program to install a hard drive is when the BIOS doesn't support the size of the drive and a DYNAMIC DRIVE OVERLAY program such as easydisk easydrive maxblast ect...

the software that came w/ the drive shouldn't be needed at all... just create a partition and then format.... both of which you should be able to do in DISK MANAGMENT..

btw, what brand of drive is it, and what is the name of the installation software?

ken

 

Okay. Its a Western Digital Caviar GP 500GB internal drive. The name of the installation software is Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools.

 

that DLG software should not be needed, this link has features for partition managment and might be just what you need...
http://www.ntfs.com/boot-disk-win.htm


what exactly are you trying to do? dual boot linux and vista??

 

I actually was able to format it and get the unallocated space. Thanks. Now, I'm going to add the OS to the second one. I thank you all for your help, sincerely.