Hard Drive problems

[LiamWilliams1990]

I have two Hard Drives, a 320gb Western Digital Caviar SATA and a 164gb Hitachi IDE which was given to me.
Both hard drives show up in the boot process but the Hitachi shows as 30gb for some reason, I don't know whats happened to the 130gb that has disappeared.
I began to install Windows XP but it wouldn't let me install it on the 320gb HD so I installed it on the Hitachi, after the installation the Hitachi was still 30gb and the Western Digital was nowhere to be seen.

I formatted both Hard Drives before installation so I don't know what the problem is. If anyone can help me I'd be really grateful. Thanks alot,
Liam.

 

[CrazeD]

Why couldn't you install XP on the Caviar?

It is likely the Caviar doesn't show up because it isn't formatted, but you said you did format it. I would look in Control Panel>Administrative Tools>Computer Management>Disk Management and see if it shows up there. If so, just right click and hit format.

As for the Hitachi saying it's only 30GB, that is indeed odd. It could be that there were multiple partitions that you didn't notice, or perhaps the partition table is damaged.

 

[LiamWilliams1990]

It says:

"This disk does not contain a Windows XP compatible partion"

Anyone have any ideas?

 

[hrlow2]

You say you formatted this disk? You did make it NTFS,didn't you? And be sure to do the full format,not the quick one.

 

[LiamWilliams1990]

Yeah, I done NTFS and full.

 

[CrazeD]

Sounds like you may have to load the SATA drivers while you boot from the XP cd. Did your motherboard come with a floppy disk containing the SATA drivers?

 

[LiamWilliams1990]

Nope just a cd, would I be able to install the drivers from the other hard drive?

 

[DesoShade]

.
I began to install Windows XP but it wouldn't let me install it on the 320gb HD

I noticed your WD is a SATA and your Hitachi is an IDE. In order to install Windows on a SATA, you will have to most likely load the SATA RAID drivers for it from a floppy. With IDE, you don't need sata raid drivers. Go to the manufacturer website for your mobo and get the raid/sata drivers. Put them on a 3.5 floppy and when you first beging the Windows XP install, if you watch the bottom of the screen, it will prompt you to press F6 for third party raid drivers. Press F6 and then later during your installation, you will be prompted for teh floppy.

Additionally, from bios (varies depending on your mobo), make sure you go into your raid setup and set your SATA drive as Bootable/Active. If you don't, you won't be able to install windows on it.

Also, like the others have said, Make sure you properly format the disk (not a quick). You 30 g hitachi... hmm. you don't have it partitioned do you? When you first boot your computer, go into bios and see if it recognizes the drive properly.

 

[LiamWilliams1990]

I noticed your WD is a SATA and your Hitachi is an IDE. In order to install Windows on a SATA, you will have to most likely load the SATA RAID drivers for it from a floppy. With IDE, you don't need sata raid drivers. Go to the manufacturer website for your mobo and get the raid/sata drivers. Put them on a 3.5 floppy and when you first beging the Windows XP install, if you watch the bottom of the screen, it will prompt you to press F6 for third party raid drivers. Press F6 and then later during your installation, you will be prompted for teh floppy.

Additionally, from bios (varies depending on your mobo), make sure you go into your raid setup and set your SATA drive as Bootable/Active. If you don't, you won't be able to install windows on it.

Also, like the others have said, Make sure you properly format the disk (not a quick). You 30 g hitachi... hmm. you don't have it partitioned do you? When you first boot your computer, go into bios and see if it recognizes the drive properly.

If I setup SATA Raid will my SATA optical drive work? I've read that it won't.

 

[CrazeD]

Also, like the others have said, Make sure you properly format the disk (not a quick).

The only difference between quick format and full format, is that full format does chkdisk and quick does not.