Windows 7 not finding second hard drive?

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

So I just got a new computer, and I want to move my old, second hard drive over to the new one. I have everything plugged in correctly, even after watching a few tutorials to be 100% positive. The thing is, my computer isn't detecting the hard drive, and I can't find it anywhere in the 'My Computer' section. Do I have to do something to turn on the hard drive slot? Or do I have to do something more complicated? Any help is appreciated, thank you to all in advance!

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

You need to initialize the drive and assign it a latter using the Disk Management tool.

Dogsnake · Feb 22, 2015

First I would boot to the bios and check to see that the drive is listed there. If you have and it is then go to Control Panel/Administrative Tools/Computer Management/Storage. Open the Storage section and then Disk Management. There you should see the missing disk as a disk with no name (Letter). At the top of the window you opened are the disks listed under the Heading "Volume" column. Right click on the un-named volume and you will see the option to give it a drive letter. Once you do that it should appear in the My Computer section.

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

Alright. After booting to Bios, I found that it detected 2 "physical disks", which I believe means it has detected both my hard drives. I navigated to Disk Management, and I found an unnamed disk called "Disk 1", but only in the bottom box. In the top box, I have "(C: )" and "HP_RECOVERY (D: )" (ignore spaces after colons). Those two are also in the bottom box, but not the unnamed disk. Any way to get it to appear up there? Thanks!

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

The unnamed one is the new disk. YOu need to right click it and initialize and assign it a letter.

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

I'm not sure I can initialize it and assign it a letter from the bottom though. When I right click the small box that says "Disc 1 -- Dynamic -- Foreign", on the left-hand side of the bottom box, my non-grayed out options are "Import Foreign Disks", "Convert to Basic Disk", "Offline", "Properties" and "Help". Are one of these the buttons I need to click?

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rqn5ubXo18

This shows you how.

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

In the video, at 1:10, the box he is mousing over is gone for me. Also, there is no amount of gigabytes listed, it just says 'Dynamic' and 'Foreign'.

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

You have the power connected to the drive properly, correct?

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

Correct.

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

Thats odd. Does the drive have a box that says how big it is? Are you 100% POSITIVE you are looking at the correct drive.

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

Well, the drives listed are Disk 0, Disk 1, and CD-ROM. To the right of Disk 0, there is the C Drive and the HP_Recovery D drive. Disk 1 and CD-ROM 0 have nothing to the right of them. The box that should contain the information that says how big the drive is only says 'Dynamic' and under that 'Foreign', which is in Disc 1.

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

IF you right click the Disk 1 box where it says disk 1, what options do you have?

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

I have a good list of options, but most of them are grayed out. The available options are "Import Foreign Disks", "Convert to Basic Disk", "Offline", "Properties" and "Help".

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

One thing worth noting, both hard drives are being connected to the power supply through one cord 'track' you could say. Basically, a bundle of cords is going out to the first drive, then the SATA plug is plugged in. After that, more cords are coming out of that SATA plug, which leads about an inch to the next drive, where the next SATA plug is plugged in. So 2 SATA plugs for one track, or bundle of cords. Is it possible the power supply isn't reaching the second hard drive? Should I try to play around with the cords a bit more?

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

Could the problem be in the BIOS?

Tailacoster · Feb 22, 2015

I just hooked up a new system, and am trying to 'recognize' my 'slave' SATA drive to this system.

tiny voices · Feb 22, 2015

It is not a slave. There have not been "master" and "slave" drives since Windows XP.

Convert to basic disk is what you want I believe.

Windows 7 not finding second hard drive?

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