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SATA drive not recognized by Win Explorer

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by davemarilyn

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It used to work. I wiped my drives and reinstalled XP. The BIOS is working fine, the Device Manager can see it, but the Win Explorer doesn't see it. The system is set up as the DVD is the Master (PATA), the 10GB drive is its slave (PATA), the SATA 160GB drive is separate. What am I missing? I moved the jumper to each position. 3 of the four had the same result. The other would not boot correctly. So I put the jumper back to the original position. Anyway, it worked prior to the reinstall. Can you help? I read the other strings, but they did not really help.

13 replies

by rob miners

Right click on My Computer, select manage, and then click ?Disk Management.? In this window you should see all of your connected physical drives, their format, if they are healthy, and the drive letter.
Change the drive letter of the drive. Right-click on the drive in the list, and from the resulting menu select "Change Drive Letters and Paths"
Click on Change so you can change the drive letter. Click Change.
Select a new drive letter from the drop down list, preferably one that is not normally used for this drive.
Click Yes on the confirmation screen and check the drive.

by davemarilyn

I followed your instructions, but the drive, being unallocated does not show up in the list. How do I make it healthy?

by oh smeg

As you have said that you wiped the drives and reinstalled Windows it sounds as if you have reinstalled Windows to the IDE Drive and not as yet formatted the SATA Drive.

Under those conditions what you are seeing is exactly what you should be seeing.

Go back to the Drive Manager Right Click on the 160 GIG Drive and chose the Format Option. Break the drive up to the number of partitions that you want it to be and format up.

Col

by rob miners

as Disk1 below Disk0. You should be able to right click on it initialise it and then format it. It should then appear as another drive.

by davemarilyn

When I right click on the drive I get Help, Properties and New partition. format is not an option. Niether in the options or anywhere I can see. I also tried through the device manager. any suggestions? Question...the drive is a 160GB the manager says it is a 149GB what happened to the other 10+ GB?

by oh smeg

But as you need to set the Partition/s before you can format it I would suggest left clicking on th Partition Option setting the Partition/s that you want and then formatting the drive up.

Col

by davemarilyn

is to use the new partition option (the format option does not exist) is this correct? how do I format the complete drive? it is a 160GB drive and the disk 1 says it is a 149GB. How do I format the complete drive? Shouldn't this drive have more space?

by rob miners

have forgotten to recreate a Partition on the Drive. ;)
Create your new Partitions to whatever size you like and then you can format them and allocate a Drive Letter.

Weasel Bytes dont quite add up 1000 instead of 1024. Your Drive is close to 160GB.

by davemarilyn

now. Yes, the drive is a primary partition. 152GB in size.

You guys rock! I should be able to reassign the drive letter after the formatting per your previous instructions. Give yourselves a gold STAR! Thanks for all of the help!

by rob miners

TR only deals in Thumbs. Thumb
;)

< I'll eventually get it right > ;)

by brad-tr

I have an EIDE HDD and an EIDE DVD Writer then added a second SATA DVD Writer that was recognized in BIOS but not through Windows Explorer or Disk Manager. After all possible reconfigurations, replacing cables, changing SATA ports, unistalling Burner Software, and no vendor help from the MFG of DVD Writer, I revisited BIOS and took a chance to switch my SATA mode from AHCI to EIDE. This fixed the problem.

The BIOS in reference to AHCI (Automatic Host Controller Interface) needs to be set correctly depending on various factors, such as:
1. Is the OS already installed and have you set up a RAID?
2. Are you using Native or Legacy device drivers?
3. There are many other configurations and considerations that must be thoroughly researched before making changes, or you will boot to the Blue screen and really get frustrated!

One such warning from Intel MB's:

Enabling AHCI or RAID after installing the operating system is not recommended or supported when a Serial ATA hard drive is the boot drive. Enabling AHCI or RAID after installing the operating system may cause an immediate blue screen with an 0x0000007b error code, followed by a reboot. If you wish to use AHCI or RAID, they should be enabled before installing the operating system.

If you are using a SATA hard drive, the best option is to set your BIOS to RAID mode. RAID mode provides the greatest overall flexibility and upgradeability because it allows your system to be RAID-Ready and also enables AHCI.
SATA has some advantages that apply to DVD drives:

It uses slimmer cables, which improve circulation within the PC and keep the insides cooler.
You connect only one device per cable, which eliminates the need for master/slave/cable select jumper settings and simplifies drive installation.
It allows up to 3.3-foot cable lengths as opposed to PATA's 1.5-foot limitation.

Mixing SATA and PATA (IDE) Devices
SATA and PATA devices can work together in a single system. Typically, the SATA connectors would be used for hard drives and the PATA connector would be used for DVD or CD (optical) drives, although hard drives can be installed on both connector types.

Intel?s RAID configuration software offers the ability to create RAID volumes manually. This option should be used if you are using a third bootable device such as an IDE or SCSI hard drive ? in addition to using two SATA hard drives. To create a RAID volume manually, see the section titled "Create Volume Manually" in the User?s Manual.

One benefit of using a third bootable device and creating a RAID volume manually is that the operating system is not located on the RAID volume. Should something happen to the RAID volume, the operating system should not be impacted.

by ic-it

Start a new question, please don't hijack an old answered one.
If it's only the DVD, then you will need to load it's SATA drivers. ;-)

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