cant install harddisk

[bigdan]

Hello

I'm trying to install a second hard disk into my 5 year old
Pentium 3 550 MHz. My original disk is 30 Gigs, and I'm trying to add a Maxtor 120 Gig harddisk as the secondary one. I dont have the full details right now because my friend tried the installtion for me. However the gist of the problem is this: Both hard disks are appearing on the bootup screen (the screen that first shows up when one restarts), the Maxtor 120 Gig as the slave, and the original 30 Gig as the master. However its not appearing under My Computer. To my knowledge the jumper settings are fine.

FYI I'm using Windows XP so the hard disk should be plug n play.

Can anyone advise?

Thanks
Dan

 

[daappleby]

you need a special program for windows to recognise that size of drive. The drive should have come with a cd, otherwise go to maxtor.com and see if you can download it.

 

[DJ-CHRIS]

XP will recognize that drive

Do this

Start > Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Storage > Disk Management

Either you will know what to do at that screen, or you can take a printscreen and post it up here

 

[bigdan]

OK I've done that but cant figure out what to do next. If I right-click on the "Disk 1" field I get 3 options: Convert to Dynamic Disk, Properties, and Help. If I rightclick on the white field next to it I also get 3 options in which the first is different: New Partition.

When I first went to this menu a few mins ago, I dont quite remmber what I did now, but I somehow started a wizard which initialized my new disk. I think it gave an option to "covert" it as well, but since the default for convert wasnt checked I didnt do so either.

Any ideas?

 

[hkfnstang]

you need to make a new partition on your new hard drive to make it work, after that, it will ask you if you need to format, do that too.

btw, you need adminstrator right too

 

[smileygladhands]

Yep, hkfnstang is correct. Bootup with your WinXP disk, create a partition and then format. Then yer done.

 

[bigdan]

alrighty partitioning is done. after that i tried moving about 500 megs to my 120 Gig and that took about 10 mins. is that normal? (its 5400 rpm btw not 7200).

should i now format it, or is partitioning it good enough? if i goto computer management next to disk1 it says

New Volume (E
114.49 GB NTFS
Healthy (Active)

Does this mean everything's done? Let me repeat it took 10 mins to transfer 500 megs between the 2 disks.


Btw it never asked me if i want to format it as was mentioned it would. also, i dont quite get the last post where it was said "bootup with your XP CD". the disk im trying to install is my secondary disk btw. is that still relevant?

 

[killians45]

you're fine. you don't need to boot up to the cd. 10 minutes to transfer 500 megs is awhile, or are you inflating that number a bit One thing to remember, the slower drive will hinder you a bit because it will read the data from the 30GB at its slower speed.

 

[hkfnstang]

about puting the XP CD, that is another way to format your hard drive if you don't have an OS already installed... you mention after you make the partition, the system never ask you to format and it takes 10 minutes to do the data transfer, I will guess that 10 minutes include the format also??

if I were you, I will format your slave drive afterward, then move the 500M from the primary back to the slave, clock it and see

 

[bigdan]

cool, im not home right now, but i'll do so when i get back. when i said 10 minutes, i didnt actually check the time, but when it was doing the transfer it said "10 minutes remaining".