WD Caviar Black 1tb 32mb 7200rpm drive not installing

Knighthawk375

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Aug 11, 2009
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I bought a WD caviar black drive it is not installing on my computer the computer doesnt recognize that it is there i have a current HD that i am trying to replace i have the WD drive unplugged right now because my computer will not start up when it is plugged in i am also not sure if i have enough power im thinking that might be an issue but i dont think hard drives take up that much power anyone have an idea how i can get this drive up and running?....also the drive is spinning i hear it when i plug it in

Computer specs
http://support.gateway.com/s/PC/R/1015332R/1015332Rsp2.shtml

i changed the power supply to 500w
and i also have a nvidia 9600gt installed
 
Solution
Could be your BIOS simply won't recognize a 1TB drive. You should check with Gateway to see if there are any issues with your computer and this particular drive model. The chipset on the board itself shouldn't have any problem with it so either it's a BIOS bug, or you got a bad Hard Drive.

ubernoobie

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May 29, 2009
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Did you check the sata cable was connected to the harddrive? did you check if the bios could recognizes it(nothing but the harddrive) If it doesn't boot, then probably your bios doesn't support sata even though it should or you set your sata support thing in your bios to OFF/IDE only
 

raybob95

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Mar 7, 2009
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So when you say the computer isn't recognizing it, do you mean the BIOS itself or just Windows when you go into the 'My Computer' folder?

In Windows, an unformatted drive won't show up in My Computer. You have to go to Run>diskmgmt.msc and format the drive from there.
 
Could be your BIOS simply won't recognize a 1TB drive. You should check with Gateway to see if there are any issues with your computer and this particular drive model. The chipset on the board itself shouldn't have any problem with it so either it's a BIOS bug, or you got a bad Hard Drive.
 
Solution

dickcruz

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Feb 11, 2010
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You can do a power estimate of what's going on. Use this link (http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp) and put in everything you have. I know nVidias are power hungry but you should be good with about 450 watts. Also try changing the HDD interface in the BIOS from IDE to RAID or AHCI and see if it fixes anything. Your chipset's good as far as the drive's concerned it could just be a bad drive. I'd test it on something if nothing else works.