Gateway 7805u laptop second hard drive install but not usable

[chuckthemech]

Hello,

I install a 500g WD in the second slot on my Gateway 7805u laptop. Windows installed drivers and it shows up in device manager but not in my computer. Am I missing a setting somewhere?

Thanks for the help.

 

[RetiredChief]

Did you go into windows Disk manager and initialize the drive and then partition/formate it.

 

[chuckthemech]

Chief,

I didn't. How do you do that?

Thanks for your help also.

 

[RetiredChief]

For windows 7, very simular for vista. For XP, just google "Initilize Hard disk in win XP" Stll almost identical - just visually different.

The first thing you need to do is go into the Control Panel, then double click on Administrative Tools. After that, open up Computer Management

, then go to Storage, then Disk Management. This is where you will see all of your drives listed. Be extremely careful in this section because you don’t want to screw up your main hard drive.

What you are looking for in the Disk Management area is your new hard drive. If you only have one hard drive, it should show up as Disk 0. Therefore, your new drive should most likely be Disk 1. Underneath the name Disk 1 it should say Unknown, the size of the disk, and Not Initialized. Right click in this area and you should get a pop-up window. Click Initialize Disk and it should only take a couple of seconds.

Your hard drive is now ready to be partitioned and formatted

Once your new hard drive is initialized, you will still have to format the drive before you can use it. To format, right-click in the column to the right of the Disk 1 label and then click New Simple Volume in the menu that pops up. From here, you can allocate how much of the drive you want for a new volume, what drive letter you want to call it, give it a name, and finally format the hard disk.

 

[chuckthemech]

Chief,

Your the heat! That was the fix.

Thanks again!

 

[Guest]

Chief, you are the man. My HP Laptop is still under warranty, and the second HD went out. They sent me a new one and had me do a FULL re install of the OS on the computer two times. I grew tired of talking to people who barely understood what i am saying, looked online and Whola, you saved the day. Thanks.