On Sat, 28 Apr 2012 04:27:27 -0400, Yousuf Khan
wrote:

On 28/04/2012 1:36 AM, Peter Jason wrote:
I have plugged in a 1TB HDD and Windows Explorer
does not show it.

In Disk Management it shows up as "Disk 3" and
unallocated.

No amount of right clicking will induce the
"Initialize Disk" wizard to appear.

Is there anything else to do?

You gotta be careful when using the words "initialize disk", because it
has a very specific meaning. It means introducing a partition structure
to it. These days you have a choice between two different types of
partition structures, the old traditional MBR (Master Boot Record), or
the new GPT (GUID Partition Table).

Since it's not asking you to initialize the disk, that means that it's
already got the partition structure on it, and now you simply have to
introduce the filesystem structure to it, i.e. NTFS. Just right-click on
it, and it'll ask you to create a volume, but it won't ask you to
initialize it anymore.

If you truly want to reinitialize the disk right from the beginning,
then you'll have to run a disk wiper on it which will erase everything
including the partition structures.

Yousuf Khan



Thanks to all. I got it working by using the
"primary partition" option though the steps I took
are no longer clear. But it's working OK and in
Disk Management" drives the "Healthy Primary
Partition" indication in the Graphical View pane.
Perhaps it was difficult because I have the HDD
(1TB Sata) connected to the computer via a cable
to a USB3 port. I remember selecting the MBR
option - like all the other HDDs.
Peter