How do I get computer to recognize my new hard drive

[gsinco]

I have Dell Studio XPS running Windows vista, I purchased a new Samsung 1 TB hard drive to replace the existing drive, (which I can use as a backup drive) and the plan is to install windows 7. The computer does not recognize the un-formatted new drive. How do I initialize and format it without the operating system installed. I did try starting the computer with the windows 7 disk but the computer still does not recognize the drive. Whats next??

 

[tecmo34]

Are you trying to do a fresh install of Win7 to format it and you can't see the drive?

Have you tried going into your Disk Management folder and formatting the drive using your current drive to boot from than do a fresh install?

 

[gsinco]

the only drive connected is the new un-formatted drive. There is no operating system on the drive. My question is how do I format the drive with nothing on it. Can I make a boot disk? not sure how to do it.
Thanks

 

[lewbaseball07]

try switching to ahci in bios in order for windows 7 to see the drive. it might of switched back to ide by default when you switched the drive out. sometimes the bios does weird stuff like that. also see if the bios sees the drive. if the bios doesnt see the drive then there could be something wrong with your drive. test it in another computer. listen for it to spin up...