Hard drives not recognized by windows

[Vertigo0176]

Last night I installed 2 additional HD's onto my Asus Rampage Formula MB, a 1TB Seagate and the Intel 80GB SSD. Both are there in the BIOS(latest revision), but Windows XP doesn't show either. Do I need to reinstall windows or is there a simpler solution?

Thanks in advance.

 

[RebateMonger]

Did you intitialize, partiition, and format them in Disk Management?

 

[alcoholbob]

What mode are the 80GB Intel and 1TB Seagate set as? If its in AHCI mode you will need change all your SATA ports to AHCI and reinstall Windows. Typcilly there are two SATA controllers on your mobo one may be automatically set to SATA-IDE.

That's probably a better idea anyway, performance is up with almost all drives in AHCI mode (you get Native Command Queuing), and the Intel drive runs at only about 2/3 the speed if you're in SATA IDE mode.

 

[Vertigo0176]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Did you intitialize, partiition, and format them in Disk Management?

Hmm, now that you mention it, kinda forgot about that part. Thanks for the tip, I hope it works.

Also thanks for the tip on AHCI, I didn't know you need to have the drives set like that to get NCQ.

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: Vertigo0176

Originally posted by: RebateMonger
Did you intitialize, partiition, and format them in Disk Management?

Hmm, now that you mention it, kinda forgot about that part. Thanks for the tip, I hope it works.

It's easy to forget. Also, I always forget that factory USB drives are usually formatted FAT32, which doesn't work for what I use USB drives for. Then I try to copy a 100 GB backup file to a FAT32 disk and wonder why it won't copy.

 

[alcoholbob]

If XP is installed in a hard drive under SATA IDE mode, it won't detect any hard disks that are in AHCI mode. If Vista is installed in IDE mode, it WILL detect drives under AHCI mode.

Your OS drive should be running in AHCI mode for maximum performance though, so I think a reinstall is in order. If you simply switch SATA modes in the BIOS, your OS won't boot. You have to switch to AHCI and then boot-install from DVD.

 

[Vertigo0176]

Originally posted by: Astrallite
If XP is installed in a hard drive under SATA IDE mode, it won't detect any hard disks that are in AHCI mode. If Vista is installed in IDE mode, it WILL detect drives under AHCI mode.

Your OS drive should be running in AHCI mode for maximum performance though, so I think a reinstall is in order. If you simply switch SATA modes in the BIOS, your OS won't boot. You have to switch to AHCI and then boot-install from DVD.

Thanks. I think I'll do that when I get back from work.