HDD installing problem

mrbagrat

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I'm trying to install a second hard drive (IDE). I already have a SATA HDD, and an IDE CD drive.

Since I only have 1 IDE port on the mobo. I bought an IDE cable with two ends. I plugged the master end into the CD and the Slave into the HDD.

I also set the jumpers accordingly.

The HDD is recognized in the Device Manager, but I'm not sure how to make it appear as a useable drive.

Since this is my first time, take it slow.

EDIT: Got to Computer management, then to disk management. There is no option to format the drive. Should I use Western Digital Lifeguard Tools?

EDIT: Used lifeguard, got it to work. I feel stupid.

Lock this or something.
 
Last edited:
When installing an ide hard drive along with a cd drive the hard drive is connected with the connector on the end of the ide cable and assigned as master. The cd drive is then set as the slave. If you are currently using the SATA as a boot drive for Windows remember that the ide controller will override the SATA by default.

All the above was step #1. For step #2 you can easily boot from the Windows installation disk to create one or more partitions. The installer will then format the primary if you plan to install Windows there. If you using this as a storage the best tool is the Linux free partitioning tool known as GPart.

That is the Gnome Partition Editor that works quite well with creating the one partitions as well as selecting what type of partition it will be used for. After creating the partition(s) the tools for the operating system are then used to format the one or more there.

GPart can be downloaded direct from: http://tucows.com/preview/8292

If you get stuck on something jsut let me know.
For general information on the use of GPart go to http://www.math.ucla.edu/computing/docindex/gpart-man-1.html

Once you have installed the drive correctly on the ide cable along with the cd rom drive. You can usually save time by then booting from the host drive if you are currently running XP. You then go into the Control Panel and on to the Adminstrative Tools. Once in there look for the Computer Management icon and open this up.

In this section you now look to the left side column for the Disk Management there and double click on it to open up the drive utility. You should see both the host drive as well as the now installed ide drive listed in the top window. Simply right click on the ide drive to select the create new partition option and later the drive letter assignment once the drive is formatted. The option for that is oncluded in the right click menu.
 
I'm trying to install a second hard drive (IDE). I already have a SATA HDD, and an IDE CD drive.

Since I only have 1 IDE port on the mobo. I bought an IDE cable with two ends. I plugged the master end into the CD and the Slave into the HDD.

I also set the jumpers accordingly.

The HDD is recognized in the Device Manager, but I'm not sure how to make it appear as a useable drive.

Since this is my first time, take it slow.

EDIT: Got to Computer management, then to disk management. There is no option to format the drive. Should I use Western Digital Lifeguard Tools?

EDIT: Used lifeguard, got it to work. I feel stupid.

Lock this or something.

Yea you could of booted to your XP cd and partitioned it
 
I'm trying to install a second hard drive (IDE). I already have a SATA HDD, and an IDE CD drive.

Since I only have 1 IDE port on the mobo. I bought an IDE cable with two ends. I plugged the master end into the CD and the Slave into the HDD.

I also set the jumpers accordingly.

The HDD is recognized in the Device Manager, but I'm not sure how to make it appear as a useable drive.

Since this is my first time, take it slow.

EDIT: Got to Computer management, then to disk management. There is no option to format the drive. Should I use Western Digital Lifeguard Tools?

EDIT: Used lifeguard, got it to work. I feel stupid.

Lock this or something.

You can't format a partition that doesn't exist yet. You use the disk management to first create the one or more partitions on a drive. You then can right click on the partition then listed to choose the format option. The GPart method for creating a new partition allows you to set the type it will be used for like NTFS or FAT32 if you are not going to install a Linux distro. Sorry only a mod can lock a thread.
 
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