New HDD not showing up in My Computer

[zero koopa]

I just bought a 1 TB Western Digital Black Caviar (WD10002faex) 6.0Gb/s sata hard drive to use as a secondary drive. When I open my computer it does not appear however I can see it when i right click my computer and open the manage tab. It is described as Disk1, unknown, 931.51 gb, not initialized and unallocated.

I have been told not to initialize it as the master boot record since that will mess with my main drive. I also have tossed in a jumper to see if it would help since my motherboard is a 3.0 gb/s board and i have a 6.0 drive (that is backwards compatible). I really dont know what to do right now and any advice would be great.

Thanks

 

[ch33zw1z]

Don't use the jumper unless you HAVE to. Initialize the disk so you can start using it.

 

[zero koopa]

Don't use the jumper unless you HAVE to. Initialize the disk so you can start using it.

but if I initialize the disk as a master boot wont that affect my master drive?

 

[dma0991]

Even if you initialize, the drive that is first in the boot priority in BIOS will boot up. I've installed 2 different OS in 2 separate HDD and I can control which one boots just by changing the boot priority. As long as your current HDD with the OS is set as first in the boot priority, the master drive will not be affected.

Use the jumper to drop it from 6Gb/s to 3.0Gb/s. Follow the instructions of the manual of the HDD.

 

[lowrider69]

You'll be fine. You have to initialize it in order to partition it and then format it. Windows will walk you through that, just pay attention to what it's saying in the wizard.

 

[zero koopa]

You'll be fine. You have to initialize it in order to partition it and then format it. Windows will walk you through that, just pay attention to what it's saying in the wizard.

Do i initialize it as a MBR or GUID?

 

[zero koopa]

http://www.emoface.net/files/1303423882.jpg

What is freaking me out is I dont want my new hard drive to thwart my master with Windows Vista on it. This new drive is just secondary. Should I go ahead and initialize it using the MBR button, or is something else wrong? My BIOS right now says the original HDD is Disk0 Master and this new one is Disk1 Master. Is this right? Should I go into BIOS and move it to a Slave?

 

[ch33zw1z]

Use MBR, GUID is for > 2TB IIRC. It will not affect your windows install. SATA drives are not Master/Slave by design. It's a 1-to-1 connection. When they're operating in IDE mode, the BIOS will still talk to them as Master/Slave. You're doing it right!

 

[zero koopa]

well this was a waste of a post on anandtech but thank you for all your quick responses. I went ahead and initialized it as a MBR and it loaded fine. Thanks!!!!

 

[ch33zw1z]

well this was a waste of a post on anandtech but thank you for all your quick responses. I went ahead and initialized it as a MBR and it loaded fine. Thanks!!!!

no worries, we've all been there.