Sata Drive Not Recognized

[rj_sweeley]

Hello,i have a sata drive that my new mother board does not see as a primary,it comes up in control panel under computer.after i get in to it,and try to click on anything i get an error message.Thank you!!!Robb

 

[o1die]

Try maxblast 5.0 to prep your new drive. I boot up to the old sata first with windows running. Download maxblast (it's a big file, but free) then use the utilities section to do a drive to drive copy if you aren't changing motherboards. It only takes a few minutes. Set up the new drive as the new boot device. After maxblast is finished, it will power down (system also powers down after initial setup before the cloning process begins). Then after you're done, try both drives for boot up; if the system gets confused (won't boot up due to 2 boot devices connected at the same time) then connect your old drive while your system is running and use the plug and play detector in the device manager to identify it after booting up to the new one. Then use maxblast again to make the old drive a secondary device so you can use both together.

 

[foscooter]

Do you have an existing SATA drive?

Are you trying to set up the new drive as a master boot drive, with the OS?

SATA drives do not use primary/slave configurations, they are all primary.

Windows will not recognize a new UNFORMATTED drive.

If you aren't doing a fresh install:

Go to "start"/"My Computer"/right click, choose "manage"/click on "disk management" and the drive should be there (if physically plugged in). Then right click on it, and choose format. After formatting, Windows will list the drive in "My Computer." Ready to use.

SATA drives are picky as to which port they are plugged into. Always use the first port (0 or 1) for the OS drive, then you can use any other ports for additional drives.