I've searched this forum but can't find exactly what I'm looking for so I'm sorry if this has already been answered.
My new Gateway 710GB Desktop PC arrived on Thursday with a whopping 310GB hard-drive installed. However I added two Maxtor SATA 300GB hard-drives. When I double-click My Computer they're not there but they do appear in Computer Management although both dives say "Unallocated". I've tried to format them but the option doesn't come up. How do I configure them please (basic, logical, master, slave)? I don't want to partition them I just need to format them as NTFS systems and use them for extra storage of my video files.
BTW, They're OEM drives which came with no leads, jumpers, or instructions. I bought and fitted two SATA Data leads and the power leads but don't know if they need any jumpers and if they do, what way around they go?
Cheers
I had trouble finding my Maxtor SATA discs when I built my PC,
Theres a utility on the maxtor websites called MaxBlast 4, that finds them and sorts it out.
It worked for me.
Cheers, I'll take a look. :)
I haven't played with SATA yet , but , i always create a single partition on my capture drives.
I create an extended partition , and then create a full size logical drive.
Takes a wee while to format once created.
Busy doing it with 4 x 250GB drives for my signature pc.
chirpy : be interested to hear what you thought/think of the gateway pc .......
There is no difference between setting up EIDE and Sata drives - apart from the fact that there are no master/slave/cable-select jumpers on a Sata drive, since each Sata channel only supports one drive.
I'm highly distrustful of the makers' own disk-setup utilities and would suggest that you stick with the tools available in Disk Manager.
Gary's given you the way in - you need first to create a partition, or there's nothing to format.
Think back to doing things under DOS - you had to create the partition first using Fdisk, and then use the Format tool to format that newly-created partition.
And, in just the same way, Disk Manager makes it a multi-step process.
I know that doing all this can be a bit sweat-making but the beauty of Disk Manager is that you are not working blind - you have a graphic representation of each drive and information displayed about the status of each.
So, unless you ignore the evidence before you, it's quite hard to pick the wrong drive and do unwanted things to existing drives that should be left untouched.
Bob
Thanks Folks,
I tried Nick's way first but as the PC doesn't have a floppy drive (and the file from Maxtor had to be copied to a floppy) I tried copying the file to a CD but the PC wouldn't recognise it. So I tried your way Gary but wasn't quite sure how to go about it until Bob came and clarified things a bit. I cheated and just did a quick format which took a few seconds rather than hours (should I have gone for the 'long and tedious' format?) The most fiddly bit was having to reassign all the other drives with higher letters so I could name the new drives E and F (C is partitioned). The flash card readers each have a separate drive letter!
Thanks Folks,I tried Nick's way first but as the PC doesn't have a floppy drive (and the file from Maxtor had to be copied to a floppy) I tried copying the file to a CD but the PC wouldn't recognise it. So I tried your way Gary but wasn't quite sure how to go about it until Bob came and clarified things a bit. I cheated and just did a quick format which took a few seconds rather than hours (should I have gone for the 'long and tedious' format?) The most fiddly bit was having to reassign all the other drives with higher letters so I could name the new drives E and F (C is partitioned). The flash card readers each have a separate drive letter!
sorry , i will endeavour to dot i's and cross t's after i have all my kit working on wednesday.
i have more storage space online , so can now include screen grabs for most posts. ( we appear to have fallen back to sub 50k attachments again )
The quick format , SHOULD , be ok.
On a new drive i always do a full format , in case a few bad sectors have crept in , and not been added to the list of bad sectors stored in the firmware etc.
I format all my drives and only when finished do i re-assign them.
for video the first drive is v: then w: etc
zip drives were always z:
pendrives tend to be either p: for pendrive or n: for netac , the maker of my newest pendrive.
Sorry, from the other advice I'm glad it didn't work. The software I downloaded sits in my Programs and I can run it from the hard drive.
Yes, I did wonder after I made my post if I should have I was relieved to see others jumped in to correct things.
I had built my own PC, so it'd be simple to start again, I also only had 2 SATA disks. I'd installed Windows on a C drive partition and it wasn't recognising the rest of the disk or the other one.
With you, it might have messed up your other disks and any preinstalled software, you might not have had any comeback to Gateway, not a nice honeymoon for a new PC!
I presume the Gateway has all its SATA drivers installed, I had real fun with mine, eventually ditching an ASUS (Via) mobo for a Gigabyte (nVidia) one.
Sorry, from the other advice I'm glad it didn't work. The software I downloaded sits in my Programs and I can run it from the hard drive.Yes, I did wonder after I made my post if I should have I was relieved to see others jumped in to correct things.
I had built my own PC, so it'd be simple to start again, I also only had 2 SATA disks. I'd installed Windows on a C drive partition and it wasn't recognising the rest of the disk or the other one.
With you, it might have messed up your other disks and any preinstalled software, you might not have had any comeback to Gateway, not a nice honeymoon for a new PC!
I presume the Gateway has all its SATA drivers installed, I had real fun with mine, eventually ditching an ASUS (Via) mobo for a Gigabyte (nVidia) one.
I don't have any sata drives , so i didn't know what would/wouldn't work , only what works for all other drives i've used.
If windows can see any hard-drive of a particular type ( ide / scsi / rll / mfm ) , with luck , all drivers are installed.
Therefore
It will happily handle another drive of same type.
( or at least i hope it will )
i only ever used maxblast etc when the drives were larger than a bios allowed , i stayed clear at all other times.
On some systems the various Sata drives are infact on two different controllers (some use a Promise chip) so it is possible to have one of the drivers and not the other. In addition Some times the bios can be set up so that some are preset to RAID as the default and than you need to change the setting.
Hope this helps
John