Nigel, I can understand what you are trying to do. Basically you want to
take out your old 40GB hard drive and relpace it with the 200GB (then at a
later date add another 200GB hard drive). Your problem is you can't format
the current 200GB hard drive installed in your machine. Have i got what you
are trying to say correct so far?
Ok first have you removed the 40GB hard drive? If so have you installed the
200GB hard drive as 'master'? Before you can format you have to create a
partition or series of partitions. The software supplied by seagate should
contain an application that can effectively partition the hard drive.
Without a partition, you cannot format.
When you installed the drive and powered up your pc does the hard drive
light on your pc case stay on, or does it ficker or not come on at all? Can
you hear the hard drive whirring when you boot the pc? Most importantly are
the cable leads round the right way. there is usually a pink stripe down the
one end of the IDE cable, this must go to pin one on both the motherboard
IDE socket and the drive socket on your disk drive.
While installing a new hard drive is relatively simple, it isn't something
that should be attempted by someone who isn't sure how to go about it. This
is where problems occur. But anyway lets get the answers to my questions
first and we'll take it from there.
--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
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