new drive won't show up in Vista

R

runLoganrun

Gawd
Joined
Jul 4, 2005
Messages
601
I just added a storage drive to my system. It shows the drive in disk management, but it's greyed out and you can't partition or format it. I tried to install data lifeguard tools, but it wouldn't install in Vista. The disk is a 320G WD Caviar.

Thanks
 
A screenshot would be useful, but it sounds like it's not initialised, you should be able to right click on the left hand side and click initialise.
 
GavinJCD said:
A screenshot would be useful, but it sounds like it's not initialised, you should be able to right click on the left hand side and click initialise.
Click to expand...

It actually isn't showing up in disk mgmt, it was the usb drive space I was looking at. It doesn't show up anywhere.

thanks,
rlr
 
Do you need to format the disk through a bootable disk, or floppy? Not sure if you can do this through windows
 
oboyco said:
Do you need to format the disk through a bootable disk, or floppy? Not sure if you can do this through windows
Click to expand...

it comes with WD data lifeguard tools which is supposed to set up the disk, but that doesn't recognize it either.
 
I struggled to get a drive detected in Vista over Christmas.
It simply would not appear in Disk Manager.

To fix this, I did a hot plug of the drive while in Windows and it detected fine then.
Its safe to hot plug SATA drives if the SATA power connector only is used.
 
Nenu said:
I struggled to get a drive detected in Vista over Christmas.
It simply would not appear in Disk Manager.

To fix this, I did a hot plug of the drive while in Windows and it detected fine then.
Its safe to hot plug SATA drives if the SATA power connector only is used.
Click to expand...

ugh- no, unfortunately that didn't do it. I tried using a different power plug, tried changing the cable. there is no jumper on the drive but it says to leave it that way for desktop applications, there's no master/slave settings just different functions with the jumpers. i really hope this drive isn't dead, it seems like I'm always rma'ing things. will try calling WD later today.
thx,
rlr
 
Der- I had added a sata power plug to that cord, I apparently inadvertently switched the ground wires. I just thought it might be a possibility, tried it, booted up and there was my drive.

thanks,
rlr
 
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