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All Forums > Tech Talk > Tech Talk Forum Page 21 > Hard drive recognized by device manager, but not

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Gentleman Jon All-Star Member 1881 Posts 6/05	Posted - Oct 26 2009 : 3:40PM by Windows? I have a new computer, with Windows 7, and I have an external dock for internal hard drives. The device manager recognizes the drive in the dock now, and says it is functioning normally and has the latest driver, but as far as Windows Explorer is concerned, there is no such drive connected to my system, so I can't actually use it. What do I do? [Link]
ninja1 Senior Member 2939 Posts 1/08	Posted - Oct 26 2009 : 6:48PM Within Device Manager, go to that dock-->rightclick-->properties-->settings and make sure the "Removable" box is checkmarked. I don't have Windows 7 but solution is probably something close to this. [Link]
Proxy Member 38 Posts 5/09	Posted - Oct 26 2009 : 8:55PM New drive, has the drive been initialized? [Link]
Bob All-Star Member 5516 Posts 3/03	Posted - Oct 26 2009 : 11:05PM ^^^ In other words, has the HD been formatted and assigned a drive letter? To do that in Vista, you'd go to Control Panel --> System and Maintenance --> Administrative Tools --> Create and Format Hard Disk Partitions. I don't know what the path is in Windows 7. [Link]
Proxy Member 38 Posts 5/09	Posted - Oct 28 2009 : 3:39PM Actually the drive initialization takes place prior to all that stuff...(formatting and assigned a drive letter). Check here for the step by step... http://www.brighthub.com/computing/hardware/articles/22069.aspx Windows 7...same sort of dance... [Link]

Bob All-Star Member 5516 Posts 3/03	Posted - Oct 28 2009 : 10:09PM ^^^ Talk about nit-picking . . . -------------------------- Anyway, here's the text of the article and a clickable link: How to Install an Unformatted Hard Drive in Windows Vista by Bill Fulks Before you can use an unformatted hard drive in Windows Vista, there are a few extra steps you need to take in order for your PC to recognize the new hardware. This article tells you everything you need to do. Connecting the Hard Drive I recently bought a brand new unformatted OEM hard drive and installed it in my Windows Vista PC. The drive is connected to the motherboard via a SATA (serial ATA) cable, just like my original hard drive. This new drive was for data/backup. When I turned on the computer, the BIOS picked it right up. However, when I got into Vista, it did not detect any new hardware. I even went into the Control Panel and chose Add Hardware and let it scan for changes, but it didn't find anything new. Windows Plug and Play If your drive isn't detected, there is no need to panic. Windows Vista is a little funny about this sort of thing, but it is quite easy to fix. The problem is that the drive is not initialized, so the standard plug-and-play procedure for adding a drive does not apply. First, you must initialize the drive, then it will allow you to format it. After the drive has been formatted, it will be ready to use. The first thing you need to do is go into the Control Panel, then double click on Administrative Tools. After that, open up Computer Management, then go to Storage, then Disk Management. This is where you will see all of your drives listed. Be extremely careful in this section because you don't want to screw up your main hard drive. What you are looking for in the Disk Management area is your new hard drive. If you only have one hard drive, it should show up as Disk 0. Therefore, your new drive should most likely be Disk 1. Underneath the name Disk 1 it should say Unknown, the size of the disk, and Not Initialized. Right click in this area and you should get a pop-up window. Click Initialize Disk and it should only take a couple of seconds. Your hard drive is now ready to be formatted. Formatting Your Drive Once your new hard drive is initialized, you will still have to format the drive before you can use it. To format, right-click in the column to the right of the Disk 1 label and then click New Simple Volume in the menu that pops up. From here, you can allocate how much of the drive you want for a new volume, what drive letter you want to call it, give it a name, and finally format the hard disk. Formatting the hard drive may take a while, depending on the size. My 500 gigabyte drive took nearly an hour to format, so don’t be alarmed if your's takes a while. Once the format completes, your new hard drive will now show up in My Computer and you can start putting files on it. Click to expand [Link]
Gentleman Jon All-Star Member 1881 Posts 6/05	Posted - Oct 29 2009 : 9:55AM Thanks, Bob. Everything is as it should be now. I guess I kind of expected Windows to launch a wizard when it detected a new, unformatted hard drive. [Link]
Bob All-Star Member 5516 Posts 3/03	Posted - Oct 29 2009 : 10:27AM The first time I installed a new HD, I had the same confusing experience as you did. Glad to hear that you're up and running! [Link]
Gentleman Jon All-Star Member 1881 Posts 6/05	Posted - Oct 31 2009 : 12:32PM And my system is now the way I want it, hard drive wise. I still need to remove some of the bloatware that PC Decrapifier may have missed, and download some free programs that I want, but I have all of my old files where I want them now. I was planning on getting a new computer in 2010, anyway, but I saw that 2TB internals could now be had for $200, and I thought I'd put a second hard disk in my old computer, and just transfer it when I got my new system. Well, HP doesn't make it quick and easy to slide new hard drives into the hard drive cage, and somehow I killed my old system. It won't POST anymore. So I got a new computer ahead of schedule. But I didn't back up my old system to an external immediately before attempting the hard drive upgrade. [o\\|] What was I thinking? So I had files that I had added to the old internal since the last time I had backed it up, and I had to figure out what to do about that. It didn't look like I was going to be able to get the old hard drive out of the old computer without dismantling the old system more than I wanted to, and there wasn't room in the old case to slide the external hard drive dock in over the old HDD horizontally, so I ended up setting the opened cases side by side. Luckily, the systems do open on opposite sides, and I ran power and SATA cables from my new system over to the hard drive still installed in the old computer. The power cable wasn't long enough to reach with them both on the same level, so I sat the old computer on top of a college dictionary and a Complete Works of Shakespeare. Once connected, I had to figure out how to take ownership of my old files on the new system, so that I could view and copy the files over to my new system, and that took some time, but I figured it out. Then my old HDD was so full and fragmented that copying took forever. But it'd done now. Anyone know if there is a charity that accepts old hardware? It would recycle the hardware that's completely broken or obsolete, and use components that do still work and that people would still want to build systems for low income families. In fact, it would also teach teenaged members of low income families the skills of computer repair. If that charity doesn't already exist, someone should found it. [Link]
Hardware All-Star Member Your other left 14594 Posts 3/02	Posted - Oct 31 2009 : 1:20PM Gentleman Jon wrote: ...hardware that's completely broken or obsolete Click to expand I resemble that remark. [Link]

All Forums > Tech Talk > Tech Talk Forum Page 21Hard drive recognized by device manager, but not

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