Cannot see my 2nd Harddisk in MyComputer

[neske 0]

Hope somebody can help me.

Got a new system

ASUS P4P800E deluxe mobo,

Intel P4 3.0Ghz

1024 Mb Ram MDT

NEC DV5800B dvd-rom

NEC ND3500A dvd-rw,

floppy,

Maxtor HD 6Y080MO (80GB S-ata),

Maxtor HD 6Y160MO (160GB S-ata).

 

 

All is well connected and recognized, and I've installed Windows XP and working fine, except that I cannot get my 2nd HD fully recognized by XP.

The HD is recognized in my hardware profile, and without error, but in MyComputer, it only gives the primary HD.

 

Any suggestions ?

(noticed in a help file that system can only recognise 4 IDE or ESDI systems. Can it be that this 160GB HD is the 5th ? ( 2DVD + floppy + 2HD = 5)

 

Neske

[teqguy 0]

The only dependant factor on how many drives you can run simultaneously is the motherboard/controller card, despite whether they're IDE, SCSI, or SATA.

 

A typical desktop board supports 2 drives per IDE channel. With the introduction of SATA, most SATA host controllers can support up to about 16 devices per channel... but because one of the primary goals of SATA was to reduce latency between the hard drive and other components, only one device per channel is allocated.

 

Windows 2k and higher support as many drives as available.

 

As for fixing your problem, try going to Device Manager (Control Panel >> Performance and Maintenance >> System >> Hardware >> Device Manager... or a quicker way is the Windows Logo Key + Pause/Break >> Hardware >> Device Manager).

 

In device manager, expand the tree that says "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers". Right click the Primary IDE Channel and click Uninstall. Do the same for the Secondary and [Your Host Controller Name Here] IDE Controller. Then go up to "Disk Drives" and uninstall the hard drive in question.

 

This should make both drives appear in My Computer... but not only that, it'll guarantee the fastest DMA mode available for your hard drives is enabled, which will improve performance significantly.

[teqguy 0]

I'd assume he has the competence to set the jumpers properly, but maybe he'll prove me wrong.

[ross_aveling 0]

JUMPERS... what are you guys talking about? Serial ATA doesn't use jumpers anymore! .

 

This may sound stupid, but if it's a new drive, have you initialised and partitioned it in 'Disk Management'?

[teqguy 0]

I know that... but hypothetically had they had jumpers, I doubt that they wouldn't recieve any attention.

 

Look guys:

 

Quote:

The HD is recognized in my hardware profile, and without error, but in MyComputer, it only gives the primary HD.

 

Both of you are straying off track. His only problem is that the icon for the drive isn't appearing in Windows Explorer. The only solution for this is to reinstall the drive, because I have yet to find a registry key fix like the one for CD/DVD drives.

[teqguy 0]

You guys are still disregarding the fact that the drive is already active!

 

PnP automatically initializes hardware and makes it ready for use upon installation.

 

His hard drive is already mounted and available. If it wasn't it would still appear in My Computer as an unpartitioned, unformatted drive... unless appropriate Policies were set or a registry entry was missing.

 

The drive just needs to be reinstalled via Device Manager to repair a missing registry entry.

[ross_aveling 0]

teqguy,

 

Quote:

You guys are still disregarding the fact that the drive is already active!

 

And you're disregarding the fact that neske states that this machine is 'new', so having a blank unformatted drive is a distinct possibility.

 

Quote:

PnP automatically initializes hardware and makes it ready for use upon installation.

 

True to a certain extent. But with new disks, they remain un-initialised until you specifically initialise and partition them in 'Disk Management'. Windows doesn't know how you'd like the disk partitioned and which drive letters to assign.

 

Quote:

His hard drive is already mounted and available. If it wasn't it would still appear in My Computer as an unpartitioned, unformatted drive... unless appropriate Policies were set or a registry entry was missing.

 

This isn't true. Only active hard drive partitions (be them basic or dynamic) and removable storage appear in 'My Computer'.

 

Quote:

The drive just needs to be reinstalled via Device Manager to repair a missing registry entry.

 

neske has said that the drive appears in in his 'hardware profile', so Window has recognised the hardware.

 

As far as I can see, all evidence points to what I have already suggested. Every person can give their two cents can't they?

 

 

Hi Alec,

 

Yeah it's a bit of change not to have jumpers anymore, it takes away a bit of the 'fun'. I'll suspect we'll miss them eventually, lol!!

 

I've just jumped onto the SATA wagon myself, having bought a shiney new Seagate Barracuda 160gb disk (pretty good kit, I bet it pales into significance compared to your Raptors tho ). And why, oh why, did they have to change the power connector from the standard molex? There must be a reason!

 

R

[Charnel 0]

Yeah... screw you guys... I've only got a seagate 40 gigger. But hey, it runs at DMA mode 5 :-/... but then again, I'm only 17 and haven't bothered getting a job :-D. Anyhows, for some people have this happen because they use a boot disk for another operating system when formatting their drive, and formatting it with a different type of file system (Fat32, NTFS). But that really shouldn't be the case here... because Windows XP recognizes all of them. Now, this may seem like a really stupid question... but try a different power cable. I've had a friend who had something like this happen. A pin was severed on the power cable. The system's BIOS recognized the new driver, and he could use it in DOS for one reason or another... but in windows it wouldn't work. He tried a different cable and it fixed his err right away.

[KibblesandBits2u 0]

WELL I DECIDED TO REGISTER AS I MIGHT BE ABLE TO HELP...IF THE HARD DRIVE APPEARS IN THE DEVICE MANAGER WITHOUT ERROR, IS IT MOUNTED WITH A DRIVE POINT IN "COMPUTER MANAGEMENT" BECAUSE I HAD THE SAME PROBLEM SETTING UP DRIVES BEFORE.

 

YOU CAN TRY GOING TO START-CONTROL PANEL-ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS-

OPEN COMPUTER MANAGEMENT

CLICK DISK MANAGEMENT ON LEFT HAND SIDE

SEE IF YOU SEE THE HARD DRIVE THAT DOESNT APPEAR IN MY COMPUTER

RIGHT CLICK ON IT WHERE I WOULD ASSUME DISK 1 FREESPACE WHICH WILL PROBILITY SAYS HEALTHY, CHANGE DRIVE LETTERS AND PATHS, AND ADD A NEW MOUNT POINT.

 

HOPE THAT HELPS.

[neske 0]

Finally got the time to answer back.

Problem was indeed that the disk was not formatted in disk management.

Thanks for all suggestions and pointing out my stupidity in this one.

 

Thanks again.

 

[neske 0]

Problem got solved thanks to you guys.

It was indeed the 2nd disk that wasn't formatted yet.

But as I could not find it, I couldn't format it.

(used to have only 1 disk in all my former PC's)

Thanks for pointing this out to me.

 

Neske

[adamvjackson 0]

Glad to hear you got the problem solved, and as always, thanks for providing the feedback that it's fixed.

 

Hopefully you can remember to come back any time you have any questions, overall, I think this is a great online community!

 

[ross_aveling 0]

Glad to hear it's all sorted.

 

Quote:

Hopefully you can remember to come back any time you have any questions, overall, I think this is a great online community!

 

Here, here! I may not post that much (you guys seem to have things under control ) but this is possibly the best message board I've visited.

[seeheng 0]

Originally posted by neske:

Quote:

Problem got solved thanks to you guys.

It was indeed the 2nd disk that wasn't formatted yet.

But as I could not find it, I couldn't format it.

(used to have only 1 disk in all my former PC's)

Thanks for pointing this out to me.

 

Neske

 

Hi, I have the same problem as you. May I know how do you format the 2nd hard drive without seeing it in My Computer?

 

[ross_aveling 0]

Hi seeheng,

 

What is the status of the drive in 'Disk Management' (Start Menu, Run, diskmgmt.msc)?