Can't see my new second hard drive 1

[barrylowe]

I have just installed a second hard drive in my home PC which is running Windows XP. It is appearing in the BIOS settings and appears in the Device Manager, which says it is working fine.

But when I open "My Computer" I can only see the orignal C: drive.

This is the first time I have put in an additional hard drive so I may just be missing something very basic.
Can anybody help?

 

[micker377]

Go to "Computer Maintenance" and see if it shows up. You have to format it before it will show up in "My Computer".

 

[AckNack]

Click Start > Right-click My Computer > Choose Manage > Click Disk Management in the left pane.

Is the new drive showing up in the right pane?

If so, you can right click on it in the lower right pane and create a partition and format it.

If it isn't showing up you probably have a hardware problem...jumper, power, data cable, etc.

AckNack

http://www.computer-help-guide.com

 

[barrylowe]

Thanks, that's great, it's up and running now.

Just one final question, the drive was set up as dynamic as opposed to basic. What does this mean and should I have set it up as basic instead?

 

[AckNack]

Here's a link to Microsoft's Knowledge Base article about the difference between the two.

If you're not planning anything that requires a dynamic disk, you probably want to stick with a basic disk.

AckNack

http://www.computer-help-guide.com

 

[AckNack]

Oops, forgot the link.

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314343

AckNack

http://www.computer-help-guide.com

 

[barrylowe]

Thanks very much for you help.

Looks like I just need a Basic drive as I only want to use it as a data drive. Luckily it's easy enough to change back as I haven't put anything in it yet.

Thanks again.