Help with a 10,000 RPM Raptor

does the raptor have sufficient enough power?... not on the end of a daisy chain of power connectors or anything? connectors nearest the psu would be best (also, only connect either a sata OR molex power connector to the raptor, but NOT both, it can fry it)... are the bios settings correct?, possibly resetting them, and reconfiguring might help, or even clearing the cmos as well

Try installing the SATA/Raid drivers at the F6 command when you load windows onto your new HD.

Are you doing a fresh install of windows on this drive? Are you installing this drive as just a JBOD? Did you go into Windows Disk Management and import the new drive? Did you format the drive? Did you install the appropriate drivers? Did you try the drive on another SATA port? Did you try the drive on another computer?

Worst case, the drive could be DOA...hope not, but it's possible...

First question: With the Raptor hooked up; when you start the computer, does it recognize the drive in BIOS?

If you can't see it in bios, it might be that the SATA connectors maybe disabled and you'll need to go in there and enable them. Some MB treat them not as regular drives but as raid drives, so you might also find an option in there about a raid being disabled. If that's the case just enable it, when it finds the one drive it will toss up something but recognize the drive anyway.

Second question: Are you talking about a new drive that you will be installing Windows to, or is this going to an additional drive and the OS is on another drive?

If its the former sometimes you need to use RAID drivers (even if you're not installing it as a raid) from the MB during installation.

If its the latter check Disk Managment under Administrative Tools/Comp Management. Some times you need to activate the disk

Hi Darkwhyte,
Let me just cut to the chase....so you don't have to waste your time.
1. is the drive BRAND new....Yes??
2. then you MUST.... and I say MUST...."INITIALIZE" the drive FIRST !!!!! Otherwise yor puter will NOT "SEE" the drive. Go to the WEstern Digital site, download the drivers and software for it.
Look for the utility that formats and initializes the drive. It can usually be installed to a floppy.
The next thing you must decide is whether you want it for a "MASTER" or a slave drive. The next thing you want to do is set your bios to boot from floppy, AND make sure like one of the other guys said in another thread here, make sure your system "SEES" the drive. Once the bios can SEE the drive, you can use the WD Utility to format and initialize the drive. Once that is complete, you should be able to carry on with whether you want to slave the drive or master it.

I have a WD 74.3 Raptor myself and that is EXACTLY what I had to do. If you have any problems send me a post with your specs and I can help you further and step by step K?
paybax aka Mike

My system specs
Antec P180 PerformanceSeries mid-Tower
Asus A8N32 SLI mobo (bios version 1103 V02.58)
AMD Athlon 64 X2 4800+ Toledo Core, 2 X 1mb L2 cache (amd drivers w/MS hotfix)
2 gigs of Corsair TwinX3500LL Pro @ 437Mhz 2-3-2-6-1T
2- BFG 7900 GT OC 256mg in SLI (nvidia driver version 84.21)
Western Digital RAPTOR 74.3 gig 10-K rpm HDD for XP & apps
Maxtor SATA II 250 G HDD for gaming, movies, MP3's
Maxtor SATA II 250 G HDD for document backup (unplugged)
52 X sony cd rom
Plextor 708A DVD/cd rom
SeaSonic S12 600 watt power supply
Logitech Z 5500 digital 5.1 THX Surround 500watts
RealTek 97 onboard digital sound