250 GB hard drive?

Question

I shall re-phrase the question.
I have installed a 250GB hard drive onto my computer, leaving the 80GB hard drive as the master. My OS is windows XP home ed. The only way to find the new hard drive is going into my computer then the C drive properties. No icon appears on the main screen of my computer when clicked. When trying to format the new drive, i can only format the C from the menu.

Answer 1

If this is a new unformatted drive, you'll need to go into disk manager before it's accessible with a drive letter....

Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Disk Management

Then you can create a partition, format etc.

Answer 2

On the back of the drive, there are a number of pins.

[ : : : : : : : : : . : : : : : : : : : : ] [ : : : : .] [ o o o o ]

The left hand side is the data connection.
The middle is the drive select.
The right hand side is the power connection.

Somewhere on your drive, there will be a graphic of the 'drive select' pins.

It usually shows the pin layout with a black rectangle covering two or four pins with a corresponding legend. Thus :

[ | : : : . ] CS
[ : | : : . ] MA (or single drive)
[ : : | : . ] SL

Or something similar to this.

The plastic jumper needs to be moved to the correct set of pins as the legend shows.

MA = MAster, SL = SLave, CS = Cable Select.

You could try accessing the drive manufacturer's website as they usually give great instructions on how to install a new drive.

Generally computer systems have TWO IDE sockets. (Some modern motherboards may have two SATA sockets in addition to the IDE sockets, some m'boards have a single IDE socket and two SATA sockets).

For systems with the IDE sockets, each IDE socket can handle TWO devices. Either a hard drive, a CD-ROM, a DVD-ROM, a DVD-ROM/CD Rewriter or a DVD-Rewriter.

Each IDE socket is a single channel, IDE1 and IDE2, sometimes called the PRIMARY IDE and the SECONDARY IDE. Each channel can accommodate TWO devices, the MASTER and the SLAVE. Thus

M'Board --[IDE(1)]--[MASTER]--[SLAVE]
M'Board --[IDE(2)]--[MASTER]--[SLAVE]

Where only one device is present on any channel, a HDD or an optical drive such as a CD or DVD drive, they are usually set to MASTER.

Where there are two devices on a single channel, they must be set to MASTER and SLAVE. With the MASTER status given to the HDD that carries the bootable Operating System.

Hope this helps...

Answer 3

What menu? You see your new drive in your C drive properties? Yank your C drive and hook just your new drive up then boot up partition and format it that way. Then shut system down, hook your C drive back up and make sure if your drives are IDE that your C is the master and your new drive a slave ONLY if they are one the same cable. If you have your new drive on its own cable it should be the master. If you hook a drive up by itself on an IDE cable as a slave youre not going to see it! You definately have something hooked up wrong! You should actually be playing with your new drive in disk management. If you don't see it there something is wrong!

Answer 4

If we assume you are safe on the hardware level, I have even an easier solution for you ;)

Acronis Disk Director
http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/

Get the trial and create and format your partitions in a much more user friendly way than the windows computer management tool

Answer 5

I agree with the other answers.. it worked for me follwoing the same advice. Right click on My Computer, Manage,left click on Disc Management. You will probably need to format the disc, which for 250GB may take some time. Trust us, it works.
Alex

Answer 6

Go to Start / and right click my computert and go to Manage

Then go to "disk Management"
this should show you all disks that are available to the machine.
You should be able to create a partition and format it from there.

Answer 7

it actual relies upon on what number video games ur downloading, and if u are going to shop it in a exterior gadget. And actual relies upon on what number initiatives you will shop on your laptop. 250GB is truly suitable, 320GB is right. There can in no way be too lots area in a HDD. The greater area a HDD have the greater document it could carry.

Answer 8

And you set the new HD jumpers on the backs. to slave, and old HD to master and then booted up? And then formatted the new HD.

Answer 9

if its SATA then you want to check that you have the transfer rate right (jumpers will control this) it can screw things up

if its IDE then check that it is slave and C is master. if so go into BIOS and check to see if it is configured proparly (if the drive has it make sure SMART is enabled)

Answer 10

So have i ,Mine works,Set the jumper on your 250 to slave and try again.