Installing a New Western Digital Drive

Thanks for your patience on this long post. I finally called WD and
asked for support, $15. The drive is kaput. I'm buying a replacement.

Thanks for your patience on this long post. I finally called WD and
asked for support, $15. The drive is kaput. I'm buying a replacement.

"W. eWatson" wrote in message

smlunatick wrote:
On Nov 24, 5:33 am, "W. eWatson" wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:

Yes, that's fine, but if my system doesn't know it's there, how would
that work?
Something I didn't mention earlier is that I'm using W2K. There are
practically zero posts over there on hardware. I went to a repair
shop awhile ago and explained what I observed. He said try SP4 for
W2k.
Disk management (diskmgmt.msc) will see it and allow you to format it
when My Computer doesn't even see it. If the partition size(s) hasn't
been set, formatted, and made active, My Computer doesn't know it's
there.
SP4 would be nice to have on it, but it's not going to help with the
problem.
SC Tom
Thanks anyway. I discovered diskmgmt.msc minutes ago. I also enlisted
the aid of WD diagnostic tool. See my post just a minute ago. I put
SP4 on it, but it didn't change anything for this problem. You may be
right about formatting it. I've lost the instruction manual. I'll go
ahead and do it.
Well, running diagnostics said the drive was OK, but it has no way to
format it, nor does diskmgmt.msc, as far as I can tell. I see something
about a volume, but am not sure what to use if it does indeed format a
drive. It shows the slave as drive 1, and wanted me to write a
signature, which I did. It shows that drive as 7.87G, which probably its
wild guess at the unformatted drive.

You must first "define" a partition with Disk Management, on the drive
before you can format it.
I'm sure you are right, but here's my problem now. It appears
diskmgmt.msc is different between W2K and XP. I'm, of course, using W2K.
If I look at help it wants me to right click on disk 1 to see a menu
with Partition on it. Well, the only choice is pretty much Create
Volume. When I do I get a volume wizard. It shows the max size for the
volume as 8G. There are two windows. The right one says Disk 1 and the
other is empty. Betwen them are arrow pointing to the left. One is
remove volume, and the other is remove all. I select remove volume, and
the size drops to 0 and Disk 1 appears in the left window. Going further
gets me nowhere. In factt, the dynamic volume disk1 hasn't changed.
Very odd.

I think there's a disk mgmt in Control Panel that may be different.
Dunno. I found it on my XP machine. If I dig around, I might find a CD
from Western D that has something that'll solve this. I do have
Partition Magic but it's not on the W2k machine. Maybe it's time to put
it there.

You should either install Partition Magic ot the WD Tools (Acronis True Image
WD Edition) to partition/format the drive.
Acronis True Image WD Edition:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...id=502&lang=en

--

Brian A. Sesko
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://members.shaw.ca/dts-l/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

"W. eWatson" wrote in message

smlunatick wrote:
On Nov 24, 5:33 am, "W. eWatson" wrote:
W. eWatson wrote:

Yes, that's fine, but if my system doesn't know it's there, how would
that work?
Something I didn't mention earlier is that I'm using W2K. There are
practically zero posts over there on hardware. I went to a repair
shop awhile ago and explained what I observed. He said try SP4 for
W2k.
Disk management (diskmgmt.msc) will see it and allow you to format it
when My Computer doesn't even see it. If the partition size(s) hasn't
been set, formatted, and made active, My Computer doesn't know it's
there.
SP4 would be nice to have on it, but it's not going to help with the
problem.
SC Tom
Thanks anyway. I discovered diskmgmt.msc minutes ago. I also enlisted
the aid of WD diagnostic tool. See my post just a minute ago. I put
SP4 on it, but it didn't change anything for this problem. You may be
right about formatting it. I've lost the instruction manual. I'll go
ahead and do it.
Well, running diagnostics said the drive was OK, but it has no way to
format it, nor does diskmgmt.msc, as far as I can tell. I see something
about a volume, but am not sure what to use if it does indeed format a
drive. It shows the slave as drive 1, and wanted me to write a
signature, which I did. It shows that drive as 7.87G, which probably its
wild guess at the unformatted drive.

You must first "define" a partition with Disk Management, on the drive
before you can format it.
I'm sure you are right, but here's my problem now. It appears
diskmgmt.msc is different between W2K and XP. I'm, of course, using W2K.
If I look at help it wants me to right click on disk 1 to see a menu
with Partition on it. Well, the only choice is pretty much Create
Volume. When I do I get a volume wizard. It shows the max size for the
volume as 8G. There are two windows. The right one says Disk 1 and the
other is empty. Betwen them are arrow pointing to the left. One is
remove volume, and the other is remove all. I select remove volume, and
the size drops to 0 and Disk 1 appears in the left window. Going further
gets me nowhere. In factt, the dynamic volume disk1 hasn't changed.
Very odd.

I think there's a disk mgmt in Control Panel that may be different.
Dunno. I found it on my XP machine. If I dig around, I might find a CD
from Western D that has something that'll solve this. I do have
Partition Magic but it's not on the W2k machine. Maybe it's time to put
it there.

You should either install Partition Magic ot the WD Tools (Acronis True Image
WD Edition) to partition/format the drive.
Acronis True Image WD Edition:
http://support.wdc.com/product/downl...id=502&lang=en

--

Brian A. Sesko
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://members.shaw.ca/dts-l/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

"W. eWatson" wrote in message

Thanks for your patience on this long post. I finally called WD and
asked for support, $15. The drive is kaput. I'm buying a replacement.

If the drive was new and still under warranty you shouldn't have to pay
anything or buy a replacement.

--

Brian A. Sesko
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://members.shaw.ca/dts-l/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375

"W. eWatson" wrote in message

Thanks for your patience on this long post. I finally called WD and
asked for support, $15. The drive is kaput. I'm buying a replacement.

If the drive was new and still under warranty you shouldn't have to pay
anything or buy a replacement.

--

Brian A. Sesko
Conflicts start where information lacks.
http://basconotw.mvps.org/

Suggested posting do's/don'ts: http://members.shaw.ca/dts-l/goodpost.htm
How to ask a question: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/555375