Hi, i just bought a new Hitachi Deskstar Sata 500Gb. Drive,
I use Win XP Sp2 and Linux Mint 8, i already have a similar Drive in my PC as Boot Drive and had a IDE 40Gb Drive in it that went death.
To the problem, i removed the IDE Drive and the cable and then installed the new Sata Drive, the Sata power lead was too short so i used the one from my DVD Burner, on starting up i went into Bios to check and found the Drive detected and OK, i then went to Windows and found the new Drive in Device Manager without any conflicts.
But when i wanted to adress it, i did not have a new Drive in “My Computer” only my C: Drive and minus the DVD Burner, i checked the cabel and then Booted into Linux and here too the new Drive was not present.
Anybody any clue what’s going on?
What do you mean the drive was “not present” in Mint? Did you open GParted to format it and it didn’t show up in the list of devices? Or did you open the file manager and it wasn’t listed as an extra drive to mount? Linux isn’t going to list a drive in the file manager for you to mount if it hasn’t been formatted yet, and neither will Windows automatically assign a drive letter to a drive unless it’s been formatted in a way that Windows understands (like NTFS). Fire up GParted and format the drive the way you want it, then it should show up in Linux and (depending on how you formatted it) Windows.
Sounds like you’re looking for it in Windows, if this is the case then the drive needs to be initialized before it will show up. Right click My Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management… I suspect you’ll find the drive there.
Concur.
I checked in the Devise Manager and fond under the Volumes tab, Status: Not Initalized.
This is the first time i installed a Sata Drive without installing a OS, it seems to be different to installing an IDE Drive for as much i can remember i did not have to Format a IDE Drive to use it for File storage only.
So i have to format it in order to use it, and i have to Partition it as well to Format it with Linux? am i right?
Thanks
I’m not sure if I’m reading you right. For simplest access to the disk, you should only need to partition it once, creating one partition for the whole disk. You can then format this partition in any file system you want, presuming both the version of Linux and the version of Windows that you are using can read and write that file system.
My first choice would be NTFS.
I want to use it for Win XP so it would be NTSF but what do i need to do, i was going to select it in the Bios and then use my XP CD-Rom to format it, will this work?
Thanks
The BIOS doesn’t really enter into it.
Boot to Windows, go to Device Manager like you’ve done already, Initialize the volume, then format it NTFS. How to. Your Mint 8 should then see it with no problem, as Mint 8 can read and write NTFS.
You typically have to partition and format bare (ie no external enclosure) drives before using then in XP or they will ony be seen as a “device”. SATA drives give some older MB’s a bellyache under XP. Go the Hitachi website and download the partition and formatting setup software. That should solve your issue.
Yes that will work, you may want to consider unplugging the other hard drives during this process so you know for a fact you are only partitioning/formatting the correct drive. Once the quick format is done, shut it down, plug your drives back in and enjoy, it should detect and be accessible by a drive letter now.
Ok, i got it working, i am wondering why Windows is not prompting to do the initializing and formatting of the new Drive after it is installed, is this normal?
anyway it’s running and i can Back up now. Thanks
SATA was introducted a bit afer XP debuted. SATA recognition and setup is not fully woven into the XP OS.