Hard Drive question

[Lucifers_Ghost]

Soooo I got a 250gb Western Digital HD. I have it installed, the bios recognizes it, the device manager says its there, but it wont show up in windows explorer.

Im going to assume one of two things:

a) its not formatted
or
b) its not recognizing because of that drive size limit.

I went to the WD site and I cant find any of the tools. All thats downloadable is a data protection tool or something.

Any ideas on what can be done?
LG

[redwudz]

You likely need to partition and format it first. If XP doesn't offer that automatically, go to 'Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management'. Your drive should show up there. It may start the partition and format process automatically there. If not, select the drive with a right click and then you should be able to do it.

[wulf109]

WD has a program called "Data tools" that formats it's hard drive. It comes with retail HD. It is available on their website. It allows you to install HD's over 137GB's. Aftewr you format the new drive with "Data Tools" it will ask you to enable over 137GB drive support and XP will reboot and recognize your 250Gb HD. It works because I juat installed a 160GB HD this way. It is not required to partition the HD.

[overloaded_ide]

A new drive you normally have to setup and that is probably why it shows up as being there but you can't find it to use. Different systems use differnt formats, even Windows could be Fat32 or NTFS depending what your running so the drives come basically blank.
WIN98 for Example is Fat32 and W2K can be either (your choice), XP is probably only NTFS?

NTFS is the preferred format, unless you may daulboot into 98 also then you need a fat32. W2K can read either but a 98 can not read NTFS. Most people do not need to worry about such things though and NTFS is used for anything newer than Win98.

I preferr the manufactors disk, I'm pretty sure WD has one or it may be included in the diagnostics software. It"s been a long time since I needed WD stuff.

Almost all the manfufactors have a setup disk that you use to partion and format the drive and normally also the option to clone an existing drive to the new drive, like if your replacing an older drive. I preffer to use such a disk as normally it is bootable and does all the work without loading Windows for anything. Less chance of errors ANYTIME you don't have to use M$ crap.

As redwudz said should work fine in windows since it sees the drive in device manager.

One other thing to check is that you have the jumpers set correct.
On a WD drive they are stupid!

Master single drive, master slave drive present?? The two are not the same! One of the reasons I stopped using WD myself. If you set it to Master with Slave present, then remove the slave drive later the WD drive does not work! You have to set the jumper to Master single! And also if you install the slave again, then WD does not work unless you set to master with slave.

For me swapping drives alot that has always been a pain! I like drives like Maxtor, set as Master and who cares if a slave is present or not, it just works!

So check that jumper if Windows does not want to partition and format it.

[Bjs]

Well when you actually have a clue as to what your pc component's are ... let me know , you got two type's mixed and listed which dont help ... either one or the other ... refering to os's and cpu's ?

Now a little bit of knowledge gose a long way ... so let's point a few out , shall we ...

Your existing problem may be due too your current motherboards bios limitation which may not support 48-bit lba needed to access over 137 GB parttition's ... the first thing to do would be to check in your bios and see if this available too start off with ... it may not be , but if it is , it may be disabled ...

Also check that you have not set the jumper's on the hard drive incorrectly ... you may have set it in "max" restricted mode ... 137gig limited .

Confirm the jumper's on the drive are correct with only those specified from within the manufacturer's "new hd install" tool's only ... do not alway's believe what is printed on the drive's .

Bingo ... the penny drop's on those saying "I installed a 160gig without problems" ...

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Ok ... we have an issue with no 48bit lba support ... well : Bios Overlay

I know this sound's dirty in some respect's , but it is the only way beyond to reach and use the full capacity of the drive ...

Most manufacturer's "new hd install" tool's are capable of performing this function should it be required ... but one must read the instruction's on how to setup the hard drive parameter's within the bios ... please read the include instruction's as the tool's will tell you how , and what to set these too and if this need's to be done before continuing on and actually partitioning and formating the drive , or before hand .

This is the only method for complete and full hard drive's capacity access where bios limitation exist's ... no other ingenious method's do ... so ignore those clown's that say otherwise .

This allow's for single / multiple partition's ... which work's well when considering dual boot os system's .

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Restricted partition space access :

Most new drive's allow the jumper's to be set in such manner as to restrict the maximum available partition to 137gig ... the remaining space is non-assessable by the system so as to prevent both conflict and file corruption .

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The clone tool's from the manufacturer's have no issue's with cloning from one drive to another with this enabled ... just remember this may need to be reset in the bios ... as most user's dont use the same drive when cloning , this can require the change's to be reinstated
in the bios .

Should motherboard be replaced with support for 48-bit lba at a later date , you can continue in this state ... but should a system reload be required , it would be time to make the change and remove bios overlay all together .

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Jumper setting's :

These only confuse those who dont understand how too read the documentation printed on top of the unit's ... I personally have noticed there has been some difference's between what is printed on them and those shown within the tool's provided by each manufacturer .

In this case , it is best to follow the setup from the tool's , rather than those printed on the top of the drive's .

Wester digital has a problem with master / slave ... still do ... you will find the drive's perform with less issue's if they are set to cs mode only .

Maxtor's ... use the tool's from the manufacturer to pre-partition and format the drive's ... do not use the xp installation routine to perform this function as it cause's the drive's to run much hotter than normal during operation .

Seagate and samsung appear to work quite well using the same approach as for maxtor , but dont suffer the increase in temperature's should the xp method be used in initial hard drive preparation .

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There is also one very important note why not too use the default hard drive preparation routine from xp ... no fat32 support .

If you dig deep enough on any major gaming or program development website , you'll find information regarding the principle's of design an the intended audience ... with information related to fat32 vs ntfs partition's .

This is why most report possible issue's when using their product's on system's using ntfs formatted partition's ... and if there are any possible sollution's .

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I think that cover's the situation completely ... you now need to make a choice as to which method you will choose to suite your requirement's .

The ddo for large disk support : http://support.wdc.com/download/index.asp?swid=23 ... click the link down in the middle will get you the disk you want .