Hard drive "off"?

[tshoe]

I have a dell dimension 3000 with XP and have installed a new drive. When I booted the hardware wizard said new drive found, however there is no drive shown in my computer and the bios says it is "off" in the drive configuration with no way to turn it on. I have the original set to master and the new to slave. I am very new to XP. Is there something I don't know?

 

[ohnnyj]

Have you tried to set both hard drives to Cable Select?

 

[daveshel]

Does it appear in the disk management node of the Computer Management MMC? You may just have to partition and format it. (This does not explain the OFF setting, but that is not something I have ever seen.)

 

[tshoe]

The drive is listed in the device manager as working properly. Disk management console has it as unallocated? what is that? Oh and I set both drives to cable select. "My Computer" doesn't list it.

 

[duke2106]

You need to partition and format it from Disk Management. My Computer won't list it until you have it partitioned and formatted.

 

[tshoe]

how do I do that? Actually I found the console but it won't let me partition or format. I know all about it it 98 but this is a new breed. I believe the problem might be that this disk was formatted on a 98 machine and needs to be done in ntfs or whatever it is. how can I do this out of windows?

 

[airfoil]

Right click the drive in Disk Manager and select Format

 

[tshoe]

I have no right click options and the drive is not shown above but is listed below as drive 1

 

[ohnnyj]

Can you give us a screenshot?

 

[airfoil]

Sorry, you'll need to create partitions on the drive first, before you format.

Are you saying there is no menu that pops up when you right click on the drive area where it says Unallocated or something similar?

 

[tshoe]

yes, the only options are properties and help.

 

[airfoil]

Thats really weird. There should be an option to create a partition.

What options do you see when you right-click the other, existing drive in that rig?

Also, what is the make/model/size of the HDD you're trying to install?

Reread your posts - as for the BIOS, I'm not sure what you mean by saying it shows up as 'off'. Can you exapnd on that? Set it to Auto perhaps?

 

[tshoe]

Yes, I have open, explore, change drive letter, properties and help on the other. p.s. the new partition option is there but greyed out on the problem drive.

 

[daveshel]

In the lower right area of the disk management console, the graphical part of disk 1 should say 'unallocated.' Right-click that, then click New Partition... That will launch a wizard that will help you partition and format the drive. It is a pretty good utility actually.

 

[ohnnyj]

Is this XP Home?

 

[tshoe]

yes

 

[Rock Hydra]

This might help
Text

 

[daveshel]

Originally posted by: tshoe
Yes, I have open, explore, change drive letter, properties and help on the other. p.s. the new partition option is there but greyed out on the problem drive.

Oh, if it is greyed out, the problem is in the cabling or jumper, or maybe your new drive is too large for your BIOS to deal with. Is there a disk utility that came with the drive?

 

[ohnnyj]

I'm not sure if XP Home can do this through the DM MMC, I believe it is a Pro only utility. I could be wrong, however.

 

[ohnnyj]

BTW here is Microsoft's article on DM -> click me.

 

[tshoe]

OK, I got it! I yanked it took it downstairs and put it in my old machine which has xp pro on it and the drive was recognized right away. So I changed the ribbon cable on the dimension and "voila" it worked. Apparently dell owes me a refund on a brand spankin new ribbon cable. Thanks very muchfor all your help. Great site!