i am reposting this here... due to the fact no one seems to go any place else but this area

ok i just got my new system up and running. i got vista D/l evrything works like a champ. it reads my 250 gig HD with ease. the problem i am having is setting up a master ( 250 gig ) and slave ( 500 gig ) i am back to noobisum! in bios it will see it. but when i log into vista to d/l my games onto the 500 gig. it is no place to be found. this is ym set up

780i mobo
250 gig sata
500 gig sata

i have the 250 and 500 daisy chained with the power comming from the PSU, The 780i comes with 6 sata ports. what i think i am doing wrong is not being able to set it up right in bios. if anyone could help me it would be great. this is my first home build sence CPU's where the size of a 1980's pager lol. if anyone has an idea it would be great. i tryed nvidia site and there is no thread to show anyhting. Also to add.... in bios it shows the 500gig. in device manager it will show the drive. but under my computer. it dosnt show it.
I will spend some more time on google to see if i can find an answer

thanks

Let me give it a shot. IMO this is a problem with partition/format. My question is: "Have you formatted the 500GB?"

Since you said that you saw your 500GB under device manager, then I can bet that it might be not formatted yet.

If you're not sure, you can just go to computer management (start > control panel > administrative tools > computer management)

Under computer management window, find the storage > disk management.

You should see both of your HDD there. Check the 500GB, if it's saying like unknown partition or unformatted partition just format it.

If you see that it's formatted already, then it might be that your 500GB has not assigned drive letter.

Hope it will help.

i will try this right now. this is the first smart thing anyone has told me all day. also how mite i know if the drive is bad? could this be a sign?

ok... i did as you said the 250 gig comes up with in blue wich means primary partition the 500 gig has been format. shows 465 gigs of 500 also its is in black wich shows up as Unallocated. What dose this mean? it isnt assigned a letter??

edit.... it also shows my cd/dvd drive as beeing in blue as in primary partition

i fixed it!! yay it wasnt partition. this site link took me right there

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/tu [...] al116.html

OK, that's good. Since you found your HDD there, it means everything is OK.

Now, all you have to do is format those 500GB, if it says unallocated, then it means that it's not formated.

First, you should allocate it first (make partition). In this window (disk management) just go right click on your 500GB, find menu something like (create volume or new volume or alike). Allocate your space. You can make some partitions on one drive. Just allocate your space as you want, let's say 200GB for the first partition, and another 300GB as the second. You can also take the whole 500 as a single partition.

Second, after you alocate the partition space, you should format it. Go right click again and find format

That's all. What I meant with drive letter is that we can assigned the drive letter for each partition, normally windows will automatically assign it. So don't worry, just go ahead with format, you should be find. Post again if you have something not clear.

regards

thanks again. evrything worked out great! now i dont need to throw my new build out the door hahaha

Nice glad that it helps ..

Please read the following when you have time. You will no longer be a newbie when you set up your next hard drive.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AT_Attachment
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SATA

Thanks Zpyrd.. its been along time from when i built a computer. the old HD's had a jumper on the back. ( befor windows ) it was all ran of Dos. it was a Fun build. this issue stumped me for a few hours. At first when i was trying to D/L vista with both HD's hooked up. it wouldnt allow me to do so. then i disconected the 500 gig and it installed vista with out a hitch. Its all a big learning curve. but its something i will always remember. thanks again for all your guys help.