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Second HDD Help Needed


Paul_D

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Hi all,

 

I've been trying to install a second internal hard drive on my XP Pro running PC. I needed to re-format my PC anyhow, so decided to uprgrade to a second drive at the same time. All seemed to go well but on completion 'My Computer' only saw a 32 Gbyte HDD (It is a new 80 Gbyte Samsung drive). Then, somehow, I did something and 'My Computer' couldn't see or recognise it at all - although Device Manager told me it was working correctly, albeit a 32 Gb unit.

 

Tonight, I disconnected my main (120Gb drive which is working correctly), changed the link on the 80Gb drive to 'master' and re-formatted it with my Windows XP Pro drive running. All seemed to go well and an 80Gb drive was shown as being formatted in the FAT system. Once finished, I reconnected my main drive, changed the links on the 80Gb drive back to slave and re-started the PC.......'My Computer' now, once again, sees a 32 Gb second drive but tells me it's not formatted and would I want to format it......What's going on? How do I get the machine to see the second drive at 80Gb, anyone any ideas?

 

Cheers

Paul

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if you go to (classic view) settings.....control panel.....administrative tools....computer management.....disc management ,you can play with the drive till your hearts content ,if theres unallocated space on the drive you can allocate it and set partitions and drive letters etc ,enjoy

you have to ofcourse use your new drive as slave again, ntfs is probably the best to format it in nowadays.

remember if you need to run software from a cd (or it looks for one on firing up) then allot the drive letters "above" the cd or dvd otherwise it will grab the cd's drive letter (or used too) and bung the cd drive letter above your new disks ones.

IE if you have your main drive as say 3 partitions ,it will be C D E and the CD F ,software will look for F as the CD not knowing its gone up a few (depending on how you partition your new drive) drive letters.

making the new drive starting from G will keep the CD where it was

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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Thanks for that Chesters1, I had a go. Initially, I formatted in NFTS but once again could only format a 32Gb partition. I then deleted the partition and attempted various configurations i.e. extended or single partition, but the blessed thing would only allow me a maximum of approx. 32Gb.......I'm starting to wonder if it's a physical thing i.e. the link settings (currently set to what I though was the slave setting) not allowing the system to see the whole drive....???

Paul

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hmmm thats strange does the bios identify the drive correctly? ,check it is the slave setting (written on label) and make sure the master is on the end of the cable and the slave nearer the motherboard.

you maybe using the wrong pins to jumper on either drives so check them carefully.

the help files in disk management should have a step by step guide ,and maybe theres a bit on the drives website

Edited by chesters1

Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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It sounds to me that the drive hasn't been formatted to allow the whole drive to be seen!!

 

I think you can do this via the safe mode. Someone with more knowledge of this will probably be along shortly.

 

I always try to make sure any new drive or drives are formatted before installing any OS.

 

Colin

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That's what is really confusing me Chesters1. BIOS checks out fine with regards to Master and Slave drives. Ribbon cables are clearly marked so that even a numpty like me can't get it wrong. As I say, as a stand alone master format with Windows XP CD-ROM controlling stuff it all works (strangely it allocated the drive as D: even though it was the only HDD connected up mind). Once finished and all apparently well as a 80Gb drive when I come to connect it up in a master and slave configuration and it all goes to pot.

 

I've had a look at the Samsung website, even downloaded a utility and created a disk manager floppy disk from there, but get an error message something along the lines of 'DLL files cannot handle this'(It's a DOS program). It's all getting too complicated for me.

Paul

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Believe NOTHING anyones says or writes unless you witness it yourself and even then your eyes can deceive you

None of this "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" crap it just means i have at least two enemies!

 

There is only one opinion i listen to ,its mine and its ALWAYS right even when its wrong

 

Its far easier to curse the darkness than light one candle

 

Mathew 4:19

Grangers law : anything i say will  turn out the opposite or not happen at all!

Life insurance? you wont enjoy a penny!

"To compel a man to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and tyrannical." Thomas Jefferson

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I've just had a look at 'My Computer' at the properties of my newly formatted second drive. Apparently, it has a capacity of 31.4Gb and available space of 31.4Gb but it has used capacity of 65.4Gb. Hmmmm!

Paul

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Chesters, that's the same document I've come across but the hard drive supplied only came with one link.

 

Slap, I'm assuming that because my main drive is a 120Gb Samsung unit BIOS should be able to handle it......Just trying to suss out how to post a screen shot on here now. I've got it onto a word document so far...

 

Cheers

Paul

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