XP not recognising my 2nd HD

[MattE]

I have windows XP installed on my pc - with 2 hard drives
working. I have some windows errors occurring etc, tho, so
decide to reinstall windows as an easy solution (sorry,
I'm a bit new to this).

I reinstall windows, and although the bios shows my 2nd
hard drive is there, and if i go into administrative
tools / computer management / disk management, it shows
that i have a second disk but it is not assigned a drive
letter. In My Computer, I only show one hard disk. I
can't access the second disk, can't do anything with it at
all....

Firstly I thought it was because the second disk was too
full, (disk management was showing only 1GB of free space)
so I put it back in my old pc and deleted a load of stuff -
its a 20gb HD and now has over 5gb free - but again,
according to administrative tools / computer management,
its showing what it first showed us - that there's only
just over 1GB spare... and rescanning won't update etc...

Anyone seen this before, or have a clue why its happened?
Possible solutions, other than re-installing windows yet
again?

All I can think of is that when I first installed XP, I
did it with only one HD installed and put the HD in
afterwards. Should I do the same again?

Thanks for any help that could be offered...

[chris]

it sounds to me like you have either a. not set it as a secondary drive. or
b. the partition table on this drive is corrupted, explaining why it has no
drive letter.
let me know



--
for any further problems please feel free to contact me

or visit my site @ http://www.ct8ball.com


"MattE" > wrote in message
...
> I have windows XP installed on my pc - with 2 hard drives
> working. I have some windows errors occurring etc, tho, so
> decide to reinstall windows as an easy solution (sorry,
> I'm a bit new to this).
>
> I reinstall windows, and although the bios shows my 2nd
> hard drive is there, and if i go into administrative
> tools / computer management / disk management, it shows
> that i have a second disk but it is not assigned a drive
> letter. In My Computer, I only show one hard disk. I
> can't access the second disk, can't do anything with it at
> all....
>
> Firstly I thought it was because the second disk was too
> full, (disk management was showing only 1GB of free space)
> so I put it back in my old pc and deleted a load of stuff -
> its a 20gb HD and now has over 5gb free - but again,
> according to administrative tools / computer management,
> its showing what it first showed us - that there's only
> just over 1GB spare... and rescanning won't update etc...
>
> Anyone seen this before, or have a clue why its happened?
> Possible solutions, other than re-installing windows yet
> again?
>
> All I can think of is that when I first installed XP, I
> did it with only one HD installed and put the HD in
> afterwards. Should I do the same again?
>
> Thanks for any help that could be offered...
>

[MattE]

its set to primary slave, bios finds it and even device
manager finds and identifies it correctly. The partition
table should be fine as it works perfectly as the main HD
in my older pc (although that is using WinME rather than
XP)....

If I have to set it as a secondary drive in windows, I
haven't done that (didn't know that was necessary, I
hadn't done it before when it was working...:))

The bizarre thing is, it was working perfectly as the
second drive in my new PC, even tho that has XP as the
operating system. It was only when i re-installed that it
decided not to work.

I just need to gain access to copy files over to my main
drive - is there likely to be any chance of doing that?

>-----Original Message-----
>it sounds to me like you have either a. not set it as a
secondary drive. or
>b. the partition table on this drive is corrupted,
explaining why it has no
>drive letter.
>let me know
>
>
>
>--
>for any further problems please feel free to contact me

>or visit my site @ http://www.ct8ball.com
>
>
>"MattE" > wrote in message
...
>> I have windows XP installed on my pc - with 2 hard
drives
>> working. I have some windows errors occurring etc, tho,
so
>> decide to reinstall windows as an easy solution (sorry,
>> I'm a bit new to this).
>>
>> I reinstall windows, and although the bios shows my 2nd
>> hard drive is there, and if i go into administrative
>> tools / computer management / disk management, it shows
>> that i have a second disk but it is not assigned a drive
>> letter. In My Computer, I only show one hard disk. I
>> can't access the second disk, can't do anything with it
at
>> all....
>>
>> Firstly I thought it was because the second disk was too
>> full, (disk management was showing only 1GB of free
space)
>> so I put it back in my old pc and deleted a load of
stuff -
>> its a 20gb HD and now has over 5gb free - but again,
>> according to administrative tools / computer management,
>> its showing what it first showed us - that there's only
>> just over 1GB spare... and rescanning won't update
etc...
>>
>> Anyone seen this before, or have a clue why its
happened?
>> Possible solutions, other than re-installing windows yet
>> again?
>>
>> All I can think of is that when I first installed XP, I
>> did it with only one HD installed and put the HD in
>> afterwards. Should I do the same again?
>>
>> Thanks for any help that could be offered...
>>
>
>
>.
>

[Dolemite]

I know this may be a dumb question but I've got to start from the simple and
work to th complex.

Is the drive connected to power and is the drive firing up correctly.

Are there any events in the event log?

Is a drive assigned in Disk Management?


"MattE" > wrote in message
...
> I have windows XP installed on my pc - with 2 hard drives
> working. I have some windows errors occurring etc, tho, so
> decide to reinstall windows as an easy solution (sorry,
> I'm a bit new to this).
>
> I reinstall windows, and although the bios shows my 2nd
> hard drive is there, and if i go into administrative
> tools / computer management / disk management, it shows
> that i have a second disk but it is not assigned a drive
> letter. In My Computer, I only show one hard disk. I
> can't access the second disk, can't do anything with it at
> all....
>
> Firstly I thought it was because the second disk was too
> full, (disk management was showing only 1GB of free space)
> so I put it back in my old pc and deleted a load of stuff -
> its a 20gb HD and now has over 5gb free - but again,
> according to administrative tools / computer management,
> its showing what it first showed us - that there's only
> just over 1GB spare... and rescanning won't update etc...
>
> Anyone seen this before, or have a clue why its happened?
> Possible solutions, other than re-installing windows yet
> again?
>
> All I can think of is that when I first installed XP, I
> did it with only one HD installed and put the HD in
> afterwards. Should I do the same again?
>
> Thanks for any help that could be offered...
>