'New' HD recognised ?

I have just tried some new stuff - a hard disk that I acquired (SATA, WD5000AADS) and a USB <-> SATA/ATA bridge to enable me to connect internal HDs to the USB port on my PC. So I've just tried it out for the first time....

I connected it all up. My PC gave me bubble messages saying it had found new hardware, separately saying it had found the bridge, and then the HD, and then then it had installed the HD, if I remember (I think was a fourth, but it wasn't en error, just a variation on found new hardware)

So I thought everything was good...

so I opened an explorer, but neither the bridge or the disk showed (they are connected serially to the USB port). Next I opened 'AVG>scan options>scan selected files or folders' and it wasn't there either. I then looked at device manager, USB controllers and under one (USB Mass storage) them it listed under location 'Location 0 (USB to ATA/ATAPI bridge)' so I assume it's recognising that. Left-clicking on 'safely remove hardware' I see 'safely remove mass storage device' so it appears the disk has been found (I have only the one storage medium connected to my PC at this time).

What do I need to do ? Install something ? Is either the HD or (USB <-> SATA/ATA adapter) not working ?

Dumb_question
28.August.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK (DT261) - Celeron 2.7GHz RK80532RC068128 - m/b MSI MS-6577 v2.1 - 1.5GB RAM - Wndows XP/SP3

 

Control panel-Admin tools-computer management-disk management.

If the drive is new you may have to format it to get it to be recognised in windows so right click and format the raw partition. If you have files on the drive in an fat32 or ntfs file system you wish to explore right click the drive in disk management and mark partition as active, it should be now visible in windows explorer.

 

It's been a while since I did this in XP, however I think the procedure is similar to that used in Windows 7:

Go to CONTROL PANEL and look for "Computer Management." In the menu on the left, there should be an option for "Disk Management."

When you open Disk Management, you should see a bar graph of each disc installed (WARNING: Be sure you don't select the wrong hard drive or you could end up wiping out your Windows install and files!).

The disc you mentioned will likely not have a drive letter assigned to it. Right-click on the disc's bar graph and choose "new volume." If given a choice, quick format it as NTFS (not FAT32). This should then assign a drive letter and make the disc ready for use.

If this doesn't work, reply and other forum members may have a different solution.

Hope this helps.

 

OK, I tried it with another disk (320GB SATA Seagate via the USB bridge), and everything worked.
I got about 6 messages about the new hardware, including the one 'This device can work faster if it's connected to a USB 2.0 port....' which I always get on connecting anything to any USB port on this PC now (see another of my posts).

The disk appeared empty, disk cleanup reported 0 bytes, and when I looked at the files there were none (including hidden files, but there 2 folders in O/S files, one of which showed 85bytes, the other 0 bytes), but disk properties showed 103MB used - not a lot compared 320GB but enough to fit in program of significant capability - is this normal ? What is in the 103MB ?

-> gman - my CP doesn't lead you straight to "Computer Management" - but there is shortcut to it in "Administrative Tools"

Further report on WD 500GB disk WD5000AADS) to follow

Dumb_question
28.August.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK (DT261) - Celeron 2.7GHz RK80532RC068128 - m/b MSI MS-6577 v2.1 - 1.5GB RAM - Wndows XP/SP3

 

Report on WD5000AADS

Ok, it's pretty much as gman863 suggested.
In detail, on right clicking on the area where there's a no-entry sign on the unallocated disk (Disk 1 in my case), brings up a little menu where the only reasonable thing to choose is 'Initialize' so I did that A window came up with one disk checked - disk 1 so I accepted that (hoping I wasn't about to do something horrible to C: and D. Afterwards, the display in Disk manager changed from 'unallocated' to 'Basic' and the no entry symbol went away, but the disk still didn't show in 'My Computer'. Then I right clicked on the black bar above where the disk usage is shown, and this gave me other options - the only reasonable one to choose was to 'Partition', so I did that and the Windows (XP) Partition Wizard came up; I selected that, went through the procedure and created one logical partition 465GB in size (the whole disk) [I thought 465GB was significantly less than 500GB :confused but I've seen that before]. I then chose format into NTFS. It's doing that right now. (That's what I remember, I might have got some small points wrong)

Thanks gman863 and rikky

Dumb_question
29.August.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK (DT261) - Celeron 2.7GHz RK80532RC068128 - m/b MSI MS-6577 v2.1 - 1.5GB RAM - Wndows XP/SP3

 

When a drive is partitioned, the usable space is less than the unformatted capacity.

465GB usable on a 500GB drive sounds about right for NTFS.

 

HD manufacturers tend to base the size on 1000 bytes = 1 kilobyte, 1000 kilobytes = 1 megabyte etc, when in fact is 1024 bytes = 1 kilobyte etc.
So the actual size will be 500/(1.024^3) = 465.66 GB

 

-> gman863

I remember it saying 465GB even while the disk was unallocated, well before I created the single partition and did the NTFS format...

which leads nicely on to

-> _nullptr

The thought did occur to me that it might have something to do with the confusion between 1024 and 1000, but I hadn't checked the numbers. Thank you for explaining that in detail and putting at least that doubt out of mind.

Dumb_question
29.August.2013
Compaq Presario S5160UK (DT261) - Celeron 2.7GHz RK80532RC068128 - m/b MSI MS-6577 v2.1 - 1.5GB RAM - Wndows XP/SP3

 

I think at one time or another, we have all had this issue.