Windows 7 still can't find the second hard drive...

[SubliminalX7]

Have you tried formatting the drive on the other usable machine with GPT? You said that it just counts it as unallocated disk space. It's worth a shot

Edit:

Have you upgraded the BIOS?

 

[fonebone]

That's what I was trying to do earlier today... That is a Vista x64 machine and I couldn't see an option anywhere to do that

 

[fonebone]

The BIOS, by the way, is the original BIOS... there is one more available but it is only a beta.. no thanks.

 

[SubliminalX7]

Hm.. Have you tried plugging it in without the primary drive? Have you done that and put it in IDE mode instead of AHCI?

I will be gone for a bit, but let me know how it went, hopefully if that doesn't work Carnage can shed some new light on the situation

 

[fonebone]

Ah, ding dong... good idea. I've unplugged the primary, I'm going to install Windows 7 on the secondary and it should format it in the installation... I can then re-format it at my leisure....... in theory

 

[fonebone]

Right boys, we're in... up to a point...

I have now got both disks in the computer with Windows 7 booting from the main 1TB hardrive. In the Disk Management Console they are, at last, BOTH visible:

Disk 0
Basic
931.39 GB
Online

Disk 1
Basic
237.76 GB
Online

CD-ROM 0
DVD
No Media


Now then, at the beginning of BOTH hard drives there is a 100 MB Healthy (EFI System Partition)... So..

Question: Can I now simply format the 232.66 GB Primary Partition on the 250 GB disk..? The r/click option to 'Format' is there, indeed I can Format it, Shrink it, Delete it... And, if so, what is then going to happen to the 100 MB EFI System Partition at the beginning of that drive that currently has no useable r/click options?

This is not boring... I certainly had to fiddle and tweak around the BIOS to even get it to boot into the 1TB drive where I am now... It's a bit like walking the plank...

 

[fonebone]

.. A Very Big Bingo... I sat and stared at the screen for a while and then gave it a quick format... Windows Explorer is now how I always wanted it... It boots up just fine and the BIOS has changed all of the parameters back to how they were before I started this earlier today..! I don't know how that happened, makes saving BIOS Profiles a bit daft when it just goes and loads the profile it thinks you might like... Anyway, thanks to the good people over at Gigabyte, I suppose... I still have a 100MB EFI System Partition at the beginning of each drive but what the hell, what's a 100 MB at 2 o'clock in the morning..?

Thanks fellas, couldn't have done it without you.

 

[SubliminalX7]

.. A Very Big Bingo... I sat and stared at the screen for a while and then gave it a quick format... Windows Explorer is now how I always wanted it... It boots up just fine and the BIOS has changed all of the parameters back to how they were before I started this earlier today..! I don't know how that happened, makes saving BIOS Profiles a bit daft when it just goes and loads the profile it thinks you might like... Anyway, thanks to the good people over at Gigabyte, I suppose... I still have a 100MB EFI System Partition at the beginning of each drive but what the hell, what's a 100 MB at 2 o'clock in the morning..?

Thanks fellas, couldn't have done it without you.

Anytime man! I'm glad it worked out for you!