New SATA Harddrive unrecognizable

I just bought a new Western Digital SATA hard drive, and i wanted to set it up as a salve to my IDE hard drive. Since the switch over (to a new tower) everything (eventually) is working fine, but my computer won't recognize my hard drive.
I know that it's working and has power.
I was wondering if someone could "simpley" walk me throught what to do to set up my new hard drive.
i've never done anything like this before, but i understand the inner physical workings of a computer, but not all this programming stuff.
thanks for all the wonderful help


Dez:cool

 

If it's a brand new hard drive, it needs to be initialized, partitioned, and formatted in order for Windows to recognize and use it. If you're sure it's hooked up correctly, boot into Windows like you normally would. Right click My Computer, select Manage. Double click Storage, double click Disk Management. Now, in the lower right pane, you'll have a list of all drives connected to the PC. This includes hard drives and CD drives, USB drives, everything. Scroll thru the list until you see the new drive, it should say "Unallocated". I attached a screenshot, it'll say Unallocated in the area circled in blue. Right click on the bold print (circled in red) and select "Initialize". Follow the on screen prompts. Then right click in the area where the red X is, and select "Format" and follow the on screen prompts. Be sure to assign a drive letter. Using quick format is OK; the regular format is OK, but will take a VERY long time... post again if you have more questions or problems. If your new drive doesn't appear in the list, you'll probably need to enable the on board SATA in the PC BIOS....
Good luck!
and Welcome to MajorGeeks! :major

 

Is your board SATA1 only, and is the drive SATA2? Check on the back of that drive, and it might have jumpers that let you restrict the drive to SATA1 only. (Had the same problem before)

 

i'm not too sure what you are refering to and how exactly to figure out which one it is.
but i'm having another problem right now.
Some how my BIOS were changed when i had the SATA drive plugged in and when i rebooted (removing the SATA before turning it back on) the IDE drive now is recognized as a secondary slave and it keeps saying "boot disk error, replace disk and press enter" and won't let me get any further then that.
I got a boot disk from the Microsoft website but it didnt work
can anyone walk me through how to change my bios?
I have only ever looked at them, but i'm too scared to change anything
REALLY SIMPLE INSTRUCTIONS PLEASE
thank you tons! i hope i can get this up and running SoON!
dez

 

Most BIOSes have a key for "fail safe defaults". Use this. It's usually F5, but different PCs use a different key. It should be listed at the bottom of the BIOS screen. You'll also need to make sure that your IDE hard drive is jumpered for Master. If your PC is a prebuilt (like a Dell, HP, etc) then the hard drive is probably jumpered for Cable Select. When the SATA drive was plugged in, it may have sent the PC into a state of confusion, now it sees the IDE drive as a secondary drive because of this. Different hard drive makers use different jumper settings for their drives. Luckily, there is usually a schematic or label on the drive that shows how to set the jumpers for Master or Slave or Cable Select. You need to set the IDE hard drive as Master; if it shares a cable, the other drive must be jumpered for slave. Also, be sure that the IDE drive is plugged into the first IDE port. It may labeled as IDE0 or IDE1. Look at both IDE ports to be sure you're plugged into the correct port. IDE1 may actually be the 2nd port, depending on how it's labeled on the main board. There's also a jumper (usually) on the motherboard that you can change temporarily to clear the BIOS to factory defaults. This will also erase the date and time, so be sure to set the date and time right away after clearing the BIOS with the jumper. Refer to your PC or motherboard manual for the location and settings for the reset jumper. It may be labeled CLRCMOS or RESBIOS or CLRTC, or maybe just J19 (or J2 or J5 or Jxx). It varies widely from PC to PC, so check the manual.... or you can pop out the little battery for a minute or two. Just be sure to remember how it goes back in, and don't put it in upside-down or backward, and be careful not to damage the socket when removing or replacing the battery.

 

thanks for the info on getting my computer to turn on, i realized that i had taken the "jumpers" (i think (the small plastic things that go onto the pegs in the back of the hard drive)) off and never replaced them.
so now that i got my computer running, i still need help in getting my hard drive to work.
i didn't understand what the first post was about.
can someone walk me through this please and thank you
Dez:major