200gb hard drive not recognised in 'my comp'

[Guest]

have recently purchased a western digital 200gb hard drive to use as a slave.
Bios recognises it (only as 136gb?) but when i go into 'my computer' it does
not show that hard drive at all. It is found under the device manager tab but
still not in my computer!!! PLease help as i really need to get this hard
drive working asap!!!

 

[Rodger_B]

Do you have TweakUI installed (Microsoft PowerToys)?

If so, open TweakUI and go to My Computer>Drives and put a check opposite
the drive.
Windows Explorer should then be able to see it.

 

[Cari \(MS-MVP\)]

Right click on My Computer and select Manage. On the following screen click
on Disk Management. It should appear on the right hand side of the screen.

Partition and format it. No version of Windows can 'see' an unformatted
drive.

 

[ByTor]

have recently purchased a western digital 200gb hard drive to use as a slave.
Bios recognises it (only as 136gb?) but when i go into 'my computer' it does
not show that hard drive at all. It is found under the device manager tab but
still not in my computer!!! PLease help as i really need to get this hard
drive working asap!!!

Check your motherboards BIOS version....Appears that a flash upgrade may
be in order.....Check the revision version to see if it addresses a
change in drives over 136 barrier....If not you will need a controller
card......

 

[David H. Lipman]

From: "duckstar" <[email protected]>

| have recently purchased a western digital 200gb hard drive to use as a slave.
| Bios recognises it (only as 136gb?) but when i go into 'my computer' it does
| not show that hard drive at all. It is found under the device manager tab but
| still not in my computer!!! PLease help as i really need to get this hard
| drive working asap!!!

Besides the fact that the BIOS must support 48bit LBA, the OS has to meet the requirements
in the following URL
48bit LBA in WinXP -
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;303013

The first thing you have to do is update the platform's motherboard BIOS or as ByTor
indicated, get a PCI Controller card.

 

[Richard Urban]

Wrong - he has to partition/format drive!

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[ByTor]

Wrong - he has to partition/format drive!

And the first clue was????

He mentioned his "BIOS" only seen the drive as 136
also.....Heeeeeellllllloooooo!
What good is formatting 136gig and losing the rest of the 200.....

Have another cup of coffee there buddy..........

 

[Richard Urban]

Whether, or not, the bios sees the full amount, without partition/format -
Windows Explorer WILL NOT see it, or any part of it. It will be unusable,
any portion of it, until he does.

He didn't say he that he did.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[ByTor]

Whether, or not, the bios sees the full amount, without partition/format -
Windows Explorer WILL NOT see it, or any part of it. It will be unusable,
any portion of it, until he does.

He didn't say he that he did.

True....You are correct formatting it will solve the windows dilemma, I
never denied that.........
But formatting it won't solve the issue that I noticed/pointed out in
his post about his BIOS. If he flashes the BIOS afterwards(formatting),
sees the 200, will windows see the rest unallocated??? I sure would hope
so or he wasted his time formatting it in the first place.......I've
never had a scenario like that before, I would hope it sees the rest,
because I always check BIOS's first before committing
partitions..........

Aaaaaaanyway..................

 

[Ken Blake]

In

have recently purchased a western digital 200gb hard drive to
use as
a slave. Bios recognises it (only as 136gb?)

You need two things to support a drive that large:

1. A motherboard with a BIOS and controller that supports 48-bit
LBA (or alternatively, an add-in controller card that does).

2. At least SP1 of Windows XP.

but when i go into 'my
computer' it does not show that hard drive at all.

That sounds like you haven't partitioned and formatted it.

 

[Admiral Q]

By Tor,
you are correct, he needs to fix the BIOS issue first, as flashing the
BIOS to recognize the full drive capacity after formatting a partition at
the lower capacity will result in data loss, as the drive geometry changes,
not physically, but virtually as in how the BIOS understands it. Let me
say, "been there, done that" as windows just said the drive was not
formatted.

Richard,
I too made the assumption you have, part/format at present capacity, so
I could make use of it, then when I get the time to study/flash the BIOS in
a non-emergency situation. But oh was I wrong, windows (WinXP with SP2),
just kept saying the drive was not formatted or unrecognized format - after
using my service call to Maxtor, they explained it was perfectly normal, as
the BIOS had used a drive geometry the best fit for its (BIOS') current
information, afterwards, flashing the BIOS giving it 48-LBA capability (the
IO controller and XP already had it), Maxtor tech said the BIOS used the
correct geometry, which rendered any data, partitions, etc unreadable and
unavailable.

P.S. I did get my data back, to save off, by reflashing with the old BIOS
(as most flash programs let you save the old before loading new), saved my
data, reflashed with new BIOS, partitioned and formatted at full capacity
and restored my files.


--
Star Fleet Admiral Q @ your service!
"Google is your Friend!"
www.google.com

***********************************************

 

[ByTor]

By Tor,
you are correct, he needs to fix the BIOS issue first, as flashing the
BIOS to recognize the full drive capacity after formatting a partition at
the lower capacity will result in data loss, as the drive geometry changes,
not physically, but virtually as in how the BIOS understands it. Let me
say, "been there, done that" as windows just said the drive was not
formatted.

Richard,
I too made the assumption you have, part/format at present capacity, so
I could make use of it, then when I get the time to study/flash the BIOS in
a non-emergency situation. But oh was I wrong, windows (WinXP with SP2),
just kept saying the drive was not formatted or unrecognized format - after
using my service call to Maxtor, they explained it was perfectly normal, as
the BIOS had used a drive geometry the best fit for its (BIOS') current
information, afterwards, flashing the BIOS giving it 48-LBA capability (the
IO controller and XP already had it), Maxtor tech said the BIOS used the
correct geometry, which rendered any data, partitions, etc unreadable and
unavailable.

P.S. I did get my data back, to save off, by reflashing with the old BIOS
(as most flash programs let you save the old before loading new), saved my
data, reflashed with new BIOS, partitioned and formatted at full capacity
and restored my files.

Thanks for confirming that for me....I have never had that scenario
before so I was not sure but assumed it could definately be an
issue......I allllllllllways check peoples BIOS first... ;0)

Thanks again. preciate it.....