Discussion
I have installed a second hard drive which the computer has recognised but I am having a nightmare trying to format it so I can actually use it.
When I right click on My Computer - System Management (or something similar) it shows a list of drives and their status. My new hard drive is not in that list. However, it does appear in the box below along with the rest. The info about this drive says it is not initialized, so I try and initialize it but nothing happens.
I had thought I should be able to format my hard drive from here, but it seems I am doing something wrong. Any thoughts?
When I right click on My Computer - System Management (or something similar) it shows a list of drives and their status. My new hard drive is not in that list. However, it does appear in the box below along with the rest. The info about this drive says it is not initialized, so I try and initialize it but nothing happens.
I had thought I should be able to format my hard drive from here, but it seems I am doing something wrong. Any thoughts?
XP?
Right click My Computer and select 'Manage'
In the tree on the left hand side you should see a node called 'Disk Management' if not expand the 'Storage' node and you should see it now.
Click that.
Right click on the new drive (which should be listed in there) and click initialize, when that is finished right click the drive again and click Format.
If you arent using XP ignore the above advice
Right click My Computer and select 'Manage'
In the tree on the left hand side you should see a node called 'Disk Management' if not expand the 'Storage' node and you should see it now.
Click that.
Right click on the new drive (which should be listed in there) and click initialize, when that is finished right click the drive again and click Format.
If you arent using XP ignore the above advice
Plotloss said:
XP?
Right click My Computer and select 'Manage'
In the tree on the left hand side you should see a node called 'Disk Management' if not expand the 'Storage' node and you should see it now.
Click that.
Right click on the new drive (which should be listed in there) and click initialize, when that is finished right click the drive again and click Format.
If you arent using XP ignore the above advice
Aha, that's what I was trying to describe having done. When I click on initialize nothing seems to happen. Does this take ages?
Nevin said:
I have installed a second hard drive which the computer has recognised but I am having a nightmare trying to format it so I can actually use it.
When I right click on My Computer - System Management (or something similar) it shows a list of drives and their status. My new hard drive is not in that list. However, it does appear in the box below along with the rest. The info about this drive says it is not initialized, so I try and initialize it but nothing happens.
I had thought I should be able to format my hard drive from here, but it seems I am doing something wrong. Any thoughts?
The top list is a list of logical volumes. This is distinct from the list of physical drives - there may be more than one volume on a single drive or multiple drives may be chained together into a single volume.
It sounds like you originally had a single drive containing a single volume.
The new drive needs to be partitioned into one or more volumes and then the volumes need to be formatted.
You can indeed do all of this from the disk management view that you've described, but you do need to be logged in with admin priviledges to do this.
pdV6 said:
The top list is a list of logical volumes. This is distinct from the list of physical drives - there may be more than one volume on a single drive or multiple drives may be chained together into a single volume.
It sounds like you originally had a single drive containing a single volume.
The new drive needs to be partitioned into one or more volumes and then the volumes need to be formatted.
You can indeed do all of this from the disk management view that you've described, but you do need to be logged in with admin priviledges to do this.
The top list of logical volumes doesn't show my new drive, the bottom list does. I will try playing around with stuff again tonight to see where I get to
Nevin said:
The top list of logical volumes doesn't show my new drive, the bottom list does. I will try playing around with stuff again tonight to see where I get to
Yeah - that's because there's no volume on that drive as yet, so there's nothing to show in the list.
{edited to add:} Remember that "C:", "D:" etc are volumes as opposed to drives.
>> Edited by pdV6 on Monday 29th November 12:28
pdV6 said:
The top list of logical volumes doesn't show my new drive, the bottom list does. I will try playing around with stuff again tonight to see where I get to
Yeah - that's because there's no volume on that drive as yet, so there's nothing to show in the list.
{edited to add:} Remember that "C:", "D:" etc are volumes as opposed to drives.
>> Edited by pdV6 on Monday 29th November 12:28
Yeah, fair point. Just wondering why initialize isn't working then
pdV6 said:
Might help if you let the collective know some more details about which version of Windows you're using... presumably some flavour of XP or 2000?
>> Edited by pdV6 on Monday 29th November 12:53
Sorry, XP standard home edition (whatever its called).
Start up PC in usual way, go through your steps above and try and initialize drive. Nothing happens for a few seconds and then drive remains unitialized.
Nevin, the drive type as well would also help.
Some you need to format before introducing, then import within the Disk Management window. Can't remember what brand that was. Can't be Seagate because I just added a Barracuda into the home desktop. That just found itself and away I jolly well went.
Greg
Some you need to format before introducing, then import within the Disk Management window. Can't remember what brand that was. Can't be Seagate because I just added a Barracuda into the home desktop. That just found itself and away I jolly well went.
Greg
GregE240 said:
Nevin, the drive type as well would also help.
Some you need to format before introducing, then import within the Disk Management window. Can't remember what brand that was. Can't be Seagate because I just added a Barracuda into the home desktop. That just found itself and away I jolly well went.
Greg
Its a Samsung 120gb jobby
Second hard drives are not normally a problem - most HDD web sites have the instructions or a possible download that you can make a floppy from to get the drive up and running under DOS.
You could double check what you're doing by looking at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=313348
The samsung Support site does allow you to download a DOS Utility file - but you need to know the type and model of your HDD - I tried looking at SpinpointV80 SV1203N and that gave me the file needed for that drive. Look at :
http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/support/b2c_support_search.jsp and try from there.
I've always used Maxtors or IBM and they have setup disks which saves all the trouble of trying to set it up in Windows.
Piccy
You could double check what you're doing by looking at:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=313348
The samsung Support site does allow you to download a DOS Utility file - but you need to know the type and model of your HDD - I tried looking at SpinpointV80 SV1203N and that gave me the file needed for that drive. Look at :
http://product.samsung.com/cgi-bin/nabc/support/b2c_support_search.jsp and try from there.
I've always used Maxtors or IBM and they have setup disks which saves all the trouble of trying to set it up in Windows.
Piccy
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