how do i activate my second hard drive

[some newb need to learn]

I put it in my computer and xp knows it's there it shows up in the device manager but i can't use it. My friend who knows alot about computers tells me i gotta activate it and i need a boot disk with some program called fdisk on it. what exactly am i supposed to do with it i need some instructions i don't wanna screw around and mess the whole thing up

[InYearsToCome]

your friend is partially correct--the drive needs to be formatted--however this can be done easily through windows.

go to your control panel and open Administrative Tools. from there, open Computer Management on the left, and under that, Disk Management (Alternatively, go to start>run and type Diskmgmt.msc )

in Disk Management, you can right click the new drive, create a partition, and format it (use NTFS if possible--in Windows 2000/XP it should be default)

once windows completes this, you will be able to use the drive.

[kadavill]

Is your logical disk management service turned on?
Control panel>administrative tolos>services>Rightclick logical disk management and properties>ensure its set ot automatic.
Also try control panel>administrative tools>computer management>storage>try to format it from there.

(Use the classical view of control panel to get administative tools or you can go via performence and maintenence)

[kadavill]

Originally Posted by kadavill

Also try control panel>administrative tools>computer management>storage>try to format it from there.

InYearsToCome beat me to it,dint mean to repeat it.

[some newb need to learn]

sweet it worked thanks