Hard drive shows in device manager and at at boot

[adrian7886]

I have two identical Western Digital SATA hard drives both 250GB. The
PC knows both devices are there in the bios and device manager but
when viewed from my computer it only shows a single SATA drive with
250gb storage ??


Vista was installed as a new install not upgrade.

 

[P. Di Stolfo]

Hello,

could it be that your hard drives are built in a RAID? This would mean that
your data is mirrored onto the second drive for data security and therefore
there are only 250 GB available.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo

 

[adrian7886]

Hello,

could it be that your hard drives are built in a RAID? This would mean that
your data is mirrored onto the second drive for data security and therefore
there are only 250 GB available.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo






- Show quoted text -

Hello

If it is I didnt tell it to and dont want it !!

How do I tell the PC not to use RAID?

 

[P. Di Stolfo]

Hello,

if it is being used, you can switch it off in BIOS.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo

 

[adrian7886]

Hello,

if it is being used, you can switch it off in BIOS.

Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo






- Show quoted text -

Been messing around with that and cant see where to turn it off

Out with the manual I guess.

Just for info MB is a MSI 975X Platinum power up edition

 

[Duncan]

I know for Intel motherboards, there's a setting in the BIOS that reads
something like: "Show SATA as:" and then the options are IDE or RAID. You
should have it set for IDE if you don't want to use RAID.

Cheers

 

[Steve Easton]

Is the second drive formatted?
The OS won't display it if it isn't

 

[Frank]

I have two identical Western Digital SATA hard drives both 250GB. The
PC knows both devices are there in the bios and device manager but
when viewed from my computer it only shows a single SATA drive with
250gb storage ??


Vista was installed as a new install not upgrade.

In computer management/disk management, right click and mark the disk as
"active".
Reboot.
Frank

 

[Andy]

Been messing around with that and cant see where to turn it off

Out with the manual I guess.

Just for info MB is a MSI 975X Platinum power up edition

Manual says...

BIOS > Integrated Peripherals > SATA Devices Configuration

Your settings should be something like:

SATA Mode: IDE or AHCI (AHCI should be faster, IDE used to install Windows
that doesn't have SATA controller drivers like XP)

On-Chip Serial ATA: Auto or Enhanced Mode should work.

That should be all ya need. If that fails then could be something wrong with
your second HD or the SATA controller. Try a different SATA port like SATA3
or 4.

Good luck,
A.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello,

could it be that your hard drives are built in a RAID? This would mean that
your data is mirrored onto the second drive for data security and therefore
there are only 250 GB available.

Lest this confuse anybody, that is *not* strictly correct. There is
more than one kind of RAID. What you are describing is called RAID1,
or mirroring. RAID0, on the other hand, or striping, is not redundant,
and does not work the way you describe.

 

[P. Di Stolfo]

Hello,
yes, sorry, I was just thinking into this sole direction that I left out all
the other possibilities.

But I'm interested in what the problem finally was...
Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo

 

[adrian7886]

Hello,
yes, sorry, I was just thinking into this sole direction that I left out all
the other possibilities.

But I'm interested in what the problem finally was...
Greetings,
P. Di Stolfo






- Show quoted text -

Well thank you all for your help its solved and I cant believe how
stupid I was that something so basic solved the problem.

Computer management, disk mangement, format etc etc.

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Hello,
yes, sorry, I was just thinking into this sole direction that I left out all
the other possibilities.

Yes, it sounded like you understood. I just wanted to set the record
straight, lest anyone be confused.