Not finding hard drive

[tsaw7]

I have an external hard drive, but it would never show up on my computer. So, I took it out of the case, installed into my computer, it showed that it was downloading the drive, said it was ready to be used, and I still can't see it. Any suggestions?

 

[johnb35]

You may have to go into disk management, partition and format it before you can actually see it in "my computer". Right click on my computer, click on manage, click on disk management on left and the go from there.

 

[gamerman4]

With the drive connected to your computer follow these instructions.
Windows XP:
Right Click "my computer" (XP) or "Computer (Vista/7)
click manage
select "Disk Management"
wait a minute for it to load.
You should see 2 rows of information
top will be a list of drives
bottom will be a visual representation of these drives.
on the top row where you see the drive letter and name, look for your external drive.
check to see if it has a drive letter, if not right click it
select "Change drive letter and paths"
click "Add"
Make sure "assign the following drive letter" is selected
choose the drive letter you want it to be
hit OK, OK again, and check to see if you can see your drive.
If so, close the disk management window, you're done. If not, report back here.

 

[tsaw7]

With the drive connected to your computer follow these instructions.
Windows XP:
Right Click "my computer" (XP) or "Computer (Vista/7)
click manage
select "Disk Management"
wait a minute for it to load.
You should see 2 rows of information
top will be a list of drives
bottom will be a visual representation of these drives.
on the top row where you see the drive letter and name, look for your external drive.
check to see if it has a drive letter, if not right click it
select "Change drive letter and paths"
click "Add"
Make sure "assign the following drive letter" is selected
choose the drive letter you want it to be
hit OK, OK again, and check to see if you can see your drive.
If so, close the disk management window, you're done. If not, report back here.

I did that, and I only see 2 out of the 3. The one I just installed is not there.

 

[gamerman4]

Is the drive SATA or IDE?
I assume you still have it inside your computer right now. After you plug it in go into your BIOS (usually by pressing the Del or F12 key on startup) and see if you have any indication of it being detected.

 

[tsaw7]

is the drive sata or ide?
I assume you still have it inside your computer right now. After you plug it in go into your bios (usually by pressing the del or f12 key on startup) and see if you have any indication of it being detected.

ide.

 

[tsaw7]

I just went into the bios, and there was nothing detected for my IDE.

 

[tsaw7]

But like I said, after installing it, when I turned my computer on, it was installing the new drive, and said it was installed correctly and ready to use.

 

[johnb35]

Can you give us a screen shot of disk management?

 

[tsaw7]

 

[tsaw7]

^^ The (E) is the first one I installed. I have 3 hd in there.

 

[gamerman4]

Alright is the HDD set to master or slave?

 

[tsaw7]

Alright is the HDD set to master or slave?

I am not sure. I saw both options in my bios, and both were on auto.

 

[gamerman4]

Alright, by that answer I assume you are misunderstood by the Master/Slave setting.

Alright look at where your HDD is connected to.

This setting depends on where on the cable your HDD is connected. (if only 1 drive is on that cable, then it should always be at the end and set to master. If two HDDs are on a cable then one is always master and one is always slave (look at the diagram to figure out which)

Alright now after you figure out if your HDD needs to be master or slave, look at the back of it, there should be a jumper (or multiple jumpers) that correspond to a different settings.

There should be a diagram on your HDD to help you figure out which pin is master and which is slave

Now make sure your HDD is set right.

 

[tsaw7]

Ok,. well I have it hooked up with the slave one.

 

[gamerman4]

Alright, as a diagnostic procedure, try unplugging your CD-ROM drive (which will probably also be IDE/PATA) and plug the Master end into that hard drive, also take some pliers and change your HDD to master. If your HDD is detected then, it means there is a jumper set wrong somewhere. If your 3rd HDD is set as a slave then just un-plug it for now (make sure not to unplug your OS drive obviously). You don't even have to boot into Windows, if your BIOS detects it, that's progress.

 

[tsaw7]

Ok, I am not using the master slot on the IDE cable, and moved the jumper to master. Still nothing.

 

[gamerman4]

Hmm.... put the drive back in the external enclosure and see if you can see it in Disk Management. Plug it in and power it up before turning on the computer though.

 

[tsaw7]

Hmm.... put the drive back in the external enclosure and see if you can see it in Disk Management. Plug it in and power it up before turning on the computer though.

LoL, I threw it all away. It is still saying not detected in my bios. Shouldn't it at least be detected in my bios?

 

[gamerman4]

LoL, I threw it all away. It is still saying not detected in my bios. Shouldn't it at least be detected in my bios?

If you hard drive is connected to the Master end of a cable, and set to the master setting in the jumper, there should be no problem at all.

Try unplugging all of your HDDs (and your floppy if you have one) and just put that HDD in and see if it works. Your computer won't boot to Windows but it should at the very least see a hard drive on POST.

If you do this though, take note which cable and port your OS drive is connected to, Windows doesn't like it when you move its' HDD around.