Missing SATA Drive / Recently Activated

[Barewolf]

Ok, I have had my PC’s 2nd Drive rigged up to Sata 0 which was switched off in Bios, for some reason I have been using Sata 1 for Windows and storage.

I switched Sata 0 on and switched over the Cables, then I booted into Safe mode so Windows would recognise the Drive.

It seemed as though it picked it up as it did say something about software was now ready to use, so I restarted the PC and booted up as normal.

Device Manager is showing 2 Drives, both ATA, One being a Samsung, However theres no sign of it when I click on “My Computer�.

Any Ideas? Do I need to associate a drive letter to it or something? Been a while since I messed about with slave drives.

I also cant distinguish which Drive is the Samsung, Whether that's my C drive for Windows or not.

The only thing in Device manager that has an Exclamation is “SM BUS Controller� Listed under “Other Devices�

[Kymmy]

Right click on MY COMPUTER and select Manage

Then you want the DISK MANAGEMENT, in there you should be able to see the new drive (it'll be the one without a drive letter), assign it a letter (right click on it) and even format it.. JUST DO NOT assign it as a DYNAMIC DRIVE otherwise you'll have problems later on if you move the disk elsewhere (instead assign it as a primary drive)

[Barewolf]

Just an update, Disk 0 in Computer Management says it's not initialized, where as Disk 1 says "Online".

As far as I am aware my Vista is now 0 as I had to swap the cables over to be able to boot Windows.

---------- Post added at 12:26 ---------- Previous post was at 12:23 ----------

Disk 0 Initialized now but theres no way to assign a Drive letter for some reason, only option is to run the "New Volume Wizard"

[Kymmy]

Why did you swap round the cables? All you had to do was swap the boot priority in the bios
Either way the OS might not always see the devices as the hardware sees them.. What drive letter is the Vista running under? Just that swapping cables and adding drives can mess it up, though in this case you should be fine.. Just confirmt hat the online partition is the correct drive letter (do not change it) and then assign and activate the unassigned drive

[Barewolf]

Problem Solved, Ty

[Kymmy]

[Barewolf]

I didnt realise I had to run the Wizard to set up a Letter and Partition

[Kymmy]

You don't, it can be done manually

In the end this is just the replacement for the old FDISK and FORMAT from the dos/win3-98 days

[Barewolf]

Now for a Harder Question..........

My Main Drive which "IS" the Samsung, has 3 Partitions, C,D and E. C being the OS, D being Storage, and E being Recovery. E is Never used and Never has been, but I am running very low on the main C partition, Is there any way I can merge E with C? as theres 14gb being wasted on that partition.

[Kymmy]

I believe you can merge partitions with DISK MANAGE (though they might have to be the same type) this though gives you a DYNAMIC DISK (as it doesn't truely merge but does a link instead) as I said this can cause problems later on.. You need instead something like Partition magic that will allow you to delete E, move the Storage partition to the end of the drive and then expand C.

Before you get the software and try that do you have the recovery disks?? Or a vista OS disk with access to drivers???

[Barewolf]

i do have a disk with windows on it but im happy to risk the merge.

[Kymmy]

OK, seems that you can;t merge (sorry I was thinking about another software) you can though delete and resize (but only to the right) What order are your C,D and E partitions in? If E is first then you'll need something like Partition magic..

Here's though a basic webiste on the disk managment (including the DOS version)

http://www.winvistaclub.com/t11.html

Move data from D to newly added spare hard drive

delete partitions D and E

Expand C to size you require and repartition the rest simples

[Kymmy]

Or you can do what hangover free Zing has suggested

I was thinking of that but thought that the poor guy doesn't wanna hang around for hours waiting for the copy... Plus I couldn't be sure of being alive later after waking up at 11am sorrounded by a few empty bottles of spirits


BUT!!!! the I must be slightly awake as I'm thinking that the E recovery partition will be first, if so then as I said in the last post you'll need a way of moving the C partition

still at the end of the day he has a new drive installed . He could to simplyfy things by moving data to new drive delete D expand his C and get the room he needs on the OS drive then if he needs to have a spare partition on OS drive the create one.
I personally would move data to new drive and expand C into all the space myself

It does not hurt having the original recovery if he ever wishes to sell the machine he can restore it to factory defaults instead of whatever he has installed on there