Question abot my new SATA hard drive

[Liquid_Scope_99]

Hello all i bought a new harddrive the other day i was out of space and thought it would be a good timne to upgrade to a sata drive lol i know im way behind the curve i bought a WD 250 16 meg cache drive i installed it i didint put any jumpers on it i was under the impression you dont have to loaded windows on it all seemed fine .
Well i went to install my video drivers and it said i needed to free up some space :think: then i looked in my computer and it is showing up as H Drive instead of c I read some things that said that was normal but if it is how to i add my games and drivers and things Im hoping im just a SATA noob and that the problem any help appreciated

[jdbnsn]

So did you remove the other HDD and you are now only using the sata, or do you have multiple drives?

[Liquid_Scope_99]

i removed the ide cable on the drive i wanted to get the sata one updated and all the programs updated so yes i removed the ide hard drive the sata is the only one that is connected when i have this problem

[blueonblack]

Sounds like a partition problem, when you installed Windows did it ask how you wanted to partition the space on the drive?

[Liquid_Scope_99]

i just made on big partion or was that wrong ? I can reinstall windows what should i pick at the partion screen ? Thanks in advance it is win xp By the way.

[Luke122]

Did you have a card reader installed in your PC when you did the HDD install? I had the same issue, and ended up with a local disk H as my main! Doh..

[Bopher]

With my SATA 500gig I partitioned 20gig for XP then the other 480gig is for programs and storage. I had a problem to start with the SATA not starting up as C when it was all 1 partition, then this fixed it. Or I got stupid lucky:D

[nevermind1534]

If you go into computer management, you should be able to change which drives are mapped to which letters.

[Liquid_Scope_99]

@ Luke122 yes i did have a card reader installed what did you do to fix it take it out and reformat or something else i did notice it had one of there card reader slots as c drive .

That could be part of the problem as well i just made one big partion would 10 gig be a enough ?

[nevermind1534]

@ Luke122 yes i did have a card reader installed what did you do to fix it take it out and reformat or something else i did notice it had one of there card reader slots as c drive .

That could be part of the problem as well i just made one big partion would 10 gig be a enough ?


Go to control pannel, administrative tools, computer management, then, from there, disk management. You should be able to change the letters of your drives there.

[Luke122]

I'm not sure you can reassign the letter on the primary hdd.. I ended up recreating the partition and reinstalling (with the card reader removed).

[Liquid_Scope_99]

Hey nevermind1534 sorry i missed your first post iwill try that thanks


Luke122 if what nevermind said dosent work iwill reinstall with out card reader thanks all +rep to everbody

[Luke122]

LOL.. I just had the same issue happen to me! Installed a new SATA hdd on a system that previously had an IDE hdd, and when I did the install, I didnt notice the drive letter. Hit Windows, and there it was.. "LOCAL DISK H".

Dammit. Removed card reader, and reinstalled.. C now.

[nevermind1534]

I don't think you can change the letter of your drive that you boot off of without reinstalling the os.

[Luke122]

You definitely cant.. I just confirmed it. ;)

[nevermind1534]

Yeah, it would break everything.

[Liquid_Scope_99]

Yes u i can also confirm it Luke122 i took out the card reader and reinstalled the windows works like a charm and also nevermind i did try that and it would not do it Thanks a lot guys just gained a little knowledge thanks again plus rep to all

[Liquid_Scope_99]

lol now when i moved the old ide hard drive into the old compter it was in it wont recognize if i put it back in my old pc it works fine any ideas hate to bug you but your on a roll lol also i set it to master it strats the win xp install then gets so far and says no hard drive present it still has a copy of xp on it i say a thing knoppix live boot cd i have never used that any tips appreciated

[Luke122]

When you say it wont recognize, do you mean it isnt recognized in the bios? Did you change any jumpers on the drive?

There is a possibility of a conflict with another drive on the same IDE channel/cable. Try it as the only one on the cable. If it is the only one on the cable, try it on the other connector on the cable.

Each IDE channel has a master and a slave drive. If both are set to "cable select", then the drive at the end of the cable becomes the master.

[Liquid_Scope_99]

it wont reconize in the bios or wwhen i put the xp disc in and run it i will check my cables thanks in advance
after the hp logo loads it goes to a black csreen with a flashing cursor thats it.

After frantically awitching the jumpers and cables i put the hd on one ide as cable select the dvd on the other as cable select and changed a cable i could almost promise you i had tried them as cable select maybe it was the cable whic i dought thanks all for the im learning everyday