[PsychoCoder]

Recently I transfered my installation of Windows 7 Ultimate to a new 500GB SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD (from a 300GB SATA 3.0Gb/s HDD) which worked beautifully. Today I hooked the old 320GB HDD back up and it's not being found by Windows. Is this because it still has an installation of Windows on it, and if so how can I format it when it isn't showing up in my HDD list in Disk Management or in Device Manager?

[no2pencil]

PsychoCoder, on 07 April 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

Today I hooked the old 320GB HDD back up

Did you hook it up to the motherboard, directly on the SATA Bus, or is this over a USB adapter? If it's directly hooked up, see if the BIOS can identify the drive. Does the drive make a clicking noise? You can hook the drive up to a Linux box, & watch the dmesg output to see if it is being addressed. This is what I do to ultimately decide if the drive is dead & needs data recovery.

PsychoCoder, on 07 April 2010 - 09:46 PM, said:

if so how can I format it when it isn't showing up in my HDD list in Disk Management or in Device Manager?

If the OS can't address the storage device, how is it supposed to create a file system?

[PsychoCoder]

No clicking noise or anything. It's hooked to a SATA bus on the motherboard. The drive is new (maybe 4 months old) and I only switched because I got a 500GB as a gift and figured I'd put Windows on the largest drive. I can unhook the 500GB and boot from the other drive (it just assumes C when I unhook the 500GB drive) so I know the drive works.

My motherboard can support up to 6 SATA drives, and my PSU can handle 9 (it's an 1100 watt Diablotek modular PSU) so I cannot figure out why both drives wont work at the same time

[no2pencil]

Does it still work individual from the 500? It's possible (however unlikely) that one of the 2 drives is faster & is unable to switch down. This is common in laptop SATA hard drives, but I've never seen it on a desktop.

Can you post the model numbers?

[PsychoCoder]

The 500GB is : Western Digital Caviar Green WD5000AADS 500GB 32MB Cache
The 320GB is : Western Digital Caviar Blue WD5000AAKS 320 GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache

I can run either individually (with the other unhooked) but cannot get both to run at the same time

[no2pencil]

WD's data sheets says that they both can push 3gb/s, so I don't know, I'm out of ideas.

[raziel_]

is your BIOS detecting the HDD. if not maybe there is problem with the connection (Power or SATA). if BIOS detect it it is possible the windows on the hard to make the problem. what is the version of the windows on your new (320 GB) HDD

This post has been edited by NoBrain: 08 April 2010 - 02:04 AM