How to install my new Hard Drive?

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

Wow Jim, I am totally impressed! A 6.2/6.5 Diesel Guru and a Computer techy! Shit, I don't know what to say but WOW!

 

[JiFaire]

Heck, Tim, John, Ozzie, Jeff, and a whole bunch of others on here know more than me. I'm an old fart that grew up with ARPANET and UNIX.

What I've learned, through many versions of CSE, Network certs, and system admin, is that my education has been the progressive discovery of my own ignorance. I don't know all that much, but I'm getting a much better handle on identifying the stuff I don't know.

LOL. I am getting pretty good at figuring how to find out about the stuff I don't. Mostly, as a community of learners, if one of us doesn't know it, somebody else will. There's just too much for any one guy to keep up with - which is why IT departments are now a necessity more than a luxury.

 

[SfcJones]

Heck, Tim, John, Ozzie, Jeff, and a whole bunch of others on here know more than me. I'm an old fart that grew up with ARPANET and UNIX.

What I've learned, through many versions of CSE, Network certs, and system admin, is that my education has been the progressive discovery of my own ignorance. I don't know all that much, but I'm getting a much better handle on identifying the stuff I don't know.

LOL. I am getting pretty good at figuring how to find out about the stuff I don't. Mostly, as a community of learners, if one of us doesn't know it, somebody else will. There's just too much for any one guy to keep up with - which is why IT departments are now a necessity more than a luxury.

All of my training is self taught, I quit kindergarten because they had recess. I read alot to learn about things and of course I tackle my own projects. Trial and error. I grew up on Dos and OS2 and then to Windows 3.0 to the the latest Win7. Never touch a MAC or any other computer....well I did buy TI Computer many years ago.....1981?

 

[NVW]

All of my training is self taught, I quit kindergarten because they had recess. I read alot to learn about things and of course I tackle my own projects. Trial and error. I grew up on Dos and OS2 and then to Windows 3.0 to the the latest Win7. Never touch a MAC or any other computer....well I did buy TI Computer many years ago.....1981?

I bought one of those around 80 or 81, you had to write your own programs. Then I kind of went anti tech until 4 yrs ago

 

[Dieseldad97]

ok I'm back...but have questions.

it asked me SATA:0
:1
:2
:3
:4
it looked like 0 was for my 80g hard drive, 1 was for my DVD so I turned 2 on.
now I'm back but it doesn't show anywhere I added this new drive. It did say that it recognized new hardware but how do I turn it on?

also, nowhere did it ask my to format or ask FAT32 or NTFS

any help would be good right about now...thanks.

 

[SfcJones]

If you enter the bios and look for the drive, do you see it there? You may have to turn on all the SATA ports on as i do not know which one is being assigned to this new drive. but since you plug the red data port up on the MB could you look at the SATA Number assigned to it. Then enter the bios and turn that on.

 

[Dieseldad97]

I'm using the SATA 3 and it does recognize it. I turned it on and exit, but it does not show up anywhere. I'm a bit confused. Should I use the new hardware wizzard maybe?

I'm at least online and able to use the pc, but I gotta keep trying yaknow.

I just went into the control panel and it says the drive is not initialized and unallocated? Any ideas?

 

[SfcJones]

does the drive show up in "my Computer", It may not show up because it isn't formatted.

 

[Dieseldad97]

nope. doesn't show up there. this sucks.

 

[JiFaire]

Gerald, you need to go to control panel, then choose Administrative tools, then choose Computer management, then choose Storage, then Disk management.

In the lower right pane, you should see Disk 0, disk 1, disk 2, etc.

Your system disk should be Disk 0 and should say Drive C: .. don't do anything to this drive!

You say that your new drive is disk 3? Underneath the name Disk 3 it should say Unknown, the size of the disk, and Not Initialized. Right click in this area and you should get a pop-up window. Click Initialize Disk and it should only take a couple of seconds.

Now you get to format it.

To format, right-click in the column to the right of the Disk 3 label and then click New Simple Volume in the menu that pops up. From here, you can allocate how much of the drive you want for a new volume, what drive letter you want to call it, give it a name, and finally format the hard disk.


Formatting the hard drive may take a while, depending on the size. My 500 gigabyte drive took nearly an hour to format, so don’t be alarmed if your's takes a while. Once the format completes, your new hard drive will now show up in My Computer and you can start putting files on it.

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[JiFaire]

Oh, and once it starts formatting, you can do other stuff while that works in the background.

 

[SfcJones]

Gerald, you need to go to control panel, then choose Administrative tools, then choose Computer management, then choose Storage, then Disk management.

In the lower right pane, you should see Disk 0, disk 1, disk 2, etc.

Your system disk should be Disk 0 and should say Drive C: .. don't do anything to this drive!

You say that your new drive is disk 3? Underneath the name Disk 3 it should say Unknown, the size of the disk, and Not Initialized. Right click in this area and you should get a pop-up window. Click Initialize Disk and it should only take a couple of seconds.

Now you get to format it.

To format, right-click in the column to the right of the Disk 3 label and then click New Simple Volume in the menu that pops up. From here, you can allocate how much of the drive you want for a new volume, what drive letter you want to call it, give it a name, and finally format the hard disk.


Formatting the hard drive may take a while, depending on the size. My 500 gigabyte drive took nearly an hour to format, so don’t be alarmed if your's takes a while. Once the format completes, your new hard drive will now show up in My Computer and you can start putting files on it.

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forgot about this.......must be really tired.

 

[JiFaire]

LOL... easy to do, in this age of plug n pray... heck, I still think mount/umount, fdisk, etc. Most hard drives also come with a manufacturer's disk that has some version of the setup on it - I usually ignore those and just use the Micrsoft tools.

 

[Dieseldad97]

ok guys, its formatting while I type. Lets hope it works!!

 

[JiFaire]

Nice... I was sorta waiting for some kind of response... you had me worried, pal.

 

[Dieseldad97]

YOU were worried??

I had to break open the bottle of whiskey I was holdin till tomorrow.

I guess I'll be drinkin beer new years eve.

I'tle be cheap beer BTW.

 

[JiFaire]

ROFL... nice going, pal. You'll be fine, really. It should takequite a while to format though. 500 Gb is a lot of space. What it's doing is dividing all that empty space into allocation units and indexing them so stuff can be stored in them. It's also building a master index that will be used to keep track of that stored stuff.

One byte = a keystroke. One gigabyte = 1 billion keystrokes 500 gb = well, you get the idea... there are a lot of little allocation units on that disk, so naturally, it takes a while.

 

[Dieseldad97]

I want to thank you Jim and Tim for ALL the info and time you gave to my cause. I'm gonna have more stupid questions for ya, but without the great info you gave me I would NEVER had tried this myself. Serious.

I appreciate the time spent with me. Thanks!

 

[JiFaire]

Tim and I are waiting for our beer...

Seriously, you're welcome, Gerald. We're happy to have been of help.

I love that about this place!

 

[SfcJones]

Thats great that you have it worked out, i was also working with a customer who computer doesn't boot up anymore, so I had his HD out and was checking it out trying to save his old photos of a 67 GTO and his wife. I now have these pics on a thumb drive. Wished I had this car.
Glad you were able to get everything worked out,