Help with Sata Drive Install

Lyrrad

Hi

I've run into a problem and I guess I need help.

I have a Dell machine and have 2 SATA drives already installed. I purchased a SATA2 drive 500gb and have bought a SATA controller card. I have left jumper on drive as I know I need to as I'm only going to get SATA rather than SATA 2. This is as Seagate suggest. The controller card apperas in Device Manager, and the drivers seem to be okay. At start up it seems as if the drive is recognized as I'm given the chance to press f4 and set up RIAD, but I don't need this option. The drive is detected though and it's size is shown. From Seagate website I get this

'Save the settings and exit the setup program. When your computer restarts, it should recognize your new drive. If your system still doesn't recognize your new drive, see the troubleshooting section on the back of this sheet.
Note: Serial ATA is a new interface type. Some older systems may see the drive and classify it as a SCSI device if you are using a Serial ATA host adapter. This is normal even though this is not a SCSI disc drive. Many systems’ BIOS will not identify a Serial ATA drive connected to a PCI SATA host adapter. This is because a PCI SATA Host Adapter has its own BIOS which is used to identify hard drives connected to it which is separate from the BIOS of the computer. To determine whether or not the SATA Host Adapter is detecting the Serial ATA hard drive, please consult the documentation provided by the Serial ATA Host Adapter’s manufacturer. This does not affect drive performance or capacity.'

Yet when windows XP runs, my computer shows nothing. I am at a loss on whom to contact or what to do. Any experts out there that can help me please?

everythingblogcast

What is the model of your dell system?

Lyrrad

Dimension 8300. I see in device manager/ SCSI & RAID controller card, the controller card and I even see the drive in device info from properties within this controller card.


I get Device Location:

Channel 0 Target 0 - drop down menu nothing to choose
Type: Disk Drive (capacity 500.11GB) - note it shows up on boot up at about 465GB
Model: ST3500641AS
Firmware Revision: 3.AAJ
Serial Number: ********
ATA Version: ATA/ATAPI-7
Look Ahead: Enabled
Write Cache: Enabled
Current Transfer Mode: Ultra DMA mode 6
Host Link Speed: Generation 1(1.5GB/s)
Device Link Speed: Generation 1(1.5GB/s)



It looks like it should show up to me

odowdchr

Does it show up in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management ?

If so, has it got a Drive Letter next to it ? If so, is the letter duplicating another device already attached to the machine, like a card reader?

Lyrrad

odowdchr wrote: »

Does it show up in Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management > Disk Management ?

If so, has it got a Drive Letter next to it ? If so, is the letter duplicating another device already attached to the machine, like a card reader?

It's there but unallocated so no drive letter. Is this something you can help me with further?


Well thank you very much. I don't like keystrokes when I don't know what I'm doing, but I partitioned the drive and all is okay. Thank you so much for the info

odowdchr

Right click on it, and see if you can "Change Drive Letter or Path" or "Mark Partition as Active"
Pick a letter, like P.

Jzpop

I had a very similar problem with my Dell, when I uninstalled my old RAID controller with 2 PATA drives and installed two additional SATA drives (as well as the original SATA).

In the end, I used the DISKPART command to create a partition on the drive, then went back into Disk Management (which had previously been unable to detect the drives), and setup standard NTFS partitions as I wished.

See http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/diskpart.mspx?mfr=true for more info on the DISKPART command.

My advice is to tread carefully, and make sure that you have set the new drive as the active drive before partitioning.

odowdchr

Lyrrad wrote: »

Well thank you very much. I don't like keystrokes when I don't know what I'm doing, but I partitioned the drive and all is okay. Thank you so much for the info

No probs, glad to help.

Gavin57

Has the disk been formatted - If the drive shows up in disk management - right click on drive to format - then right click again on drive and make partition active.