2 TB Sata Drive not recognized in Windows Vista. HELP!

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Just got myself a Seagate 2 TB internal hard drive. Plugged it in and booted windows Vista. Nothing shows up. Here's the troubleshooting i've done so far...but first, my specs:

Sata channels on my motherboard (XFX 680i LT Nvidia chipset): 6 SATA channel
Sata drives installed: 1(250 GB) + 1 (150 GB) + the one i'm trying to install (2 TB)
OS: Windows Vista Home Premium (64 bit edition).

Troubleshooting:
- I looked in my BIOS and it shows up as a (2000GB) hard drive.
- I tried switching my sata cable between my 6 channels including the ones originally plugged in my 2 installed SATA drives.

The only difference between my 2 installed hard drives and my new one is the power unit. My old are powered by the 4 pins plugs whereas the new hard drive is powered by the new sata plugs. However, I really don't think this is the problem because my bios recognizes my hard drive (it's windows that doesn't).

Is there anything I should do in Windows to get this drive to be recognized?

Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

Alex

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

my first comment is:
the more reason to get off vista and move to windows 7...
now for the solution:
right click on the my computer icon and go to management / computer management window will appear,
look for disk management on tree left hand-side.
activate or enable disk (HDD).

I also want Windows 7 but unlike many people, I buy Windows and considering that I've had to buy 2 copies of Windows Vista in the last 3 years (PC and Laptop)...I want to extend my purchase for a little while longer (maybe until a good SP pack for Windows 7 comes out) or when I get hyped about a game that would fully use DX11 (Metro doesn't count).

As for your solution: thank you. I will try this when I get home tonight.

 

[sminlal]

To expand on malmental's comment - once you've got Disk Management running you need to look for your disk in the LOWER portion of the RIGHT pane. If it doesn't show as having a drive letter then you need to right-click it, create a volume, and format it. That will assign a drive letter and then it will show up in Windows Explorer.

 

[tomate2]

not that i like Vista better than win7... i use a win7 myself...
but i don't think it would have made a difference if it were a win7... or would it?
as far as i know on win7 when you install a new hdd you still need to go to Disk Management and format the drive and etc....
just like installing a new hdd on vista

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Thanks guys, I'll try this out tonight.

 

[sminlal]

as far as i know on win7 when you install a new hdd you still need to go to Disk Management and format the drive and etc.... just like installing a new hdd on vista

Yes, it's been that way for as long as I can remember - certainly back as far as XP and probably to Window 2000 as well.

 

[x3style]

Some drives might also require you to right click and Online it (In diskmgmt.msc) before you can do anything else with it.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

Best answer selected by Alex The PC Gamer.

 

[Alex The PC Gamer]

glad it worked..

Ya. thanks again.