Trying to get a Sata HDD to work....

[Running Rampant]

Hi guys, need some help, I've just had delivered one of these....

Western Digital Caviar 160GB S300 8mb 7200rpm (WD1600JS)

...but, my G/F's computer won't recognise the drive but showed it on disk management as "unallocated" on one part but no-where else in it and the only other program that would recognise it as even being connected was Everest, but it couldn't show any info on the drive.

I noticed that the drive didn't come with any jumpers and I decided to try and see if there was a way to make it a slave drive. I found a site that showed a diagram that on this WD's Calviar drives, a jumper on pins 3 & 4 makes it a slave....but that make it not show up at all.

Any help is much appreciated, thanks!

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Running Rampant

Hi guys, need some help, I've just had delivered one of these....

Western Digital Caviar 160GB S300 8mb 7200rpm (WD1600JS)

...but, my G/F's computer won't recognise the drive but showed it on disk management as "unallocated" on one part but no-where else in it and the only other program that would recognise it as even being connected was Everest, but it couldn't show any info on the drive.

I noticed that the drive didn't come with any jumpers and I decided to try and see if there was a way to make it a slave drive. I found a site that showed a diagram that on this WD's Calviar drives, a jumper on pins 3 & 4 makes it a slave....but that make it not show up at all.

Any help is much appreciated, thanks!

SATA doesn't use jumpers. The problem seems to be that it's not formatted. If you're running Windows, right-click My Computer and click Manage. Find the disk section and you'll see your new HDD there. The partitioning scheme will say "Unallocated disk space". Right-click it and choose format. FAT32 would be the most compatible choice for this size of partition.

[One4yu2c]

Yuri, were you reading that as 160MB instead of 160GB? He definitely should be using NTFS over FAT32 on that drive.

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Yuri, were you reading that as 160MB instead of 160GB? He definitely should be using NTFS over FAT32 on that drive.

No, I read it correctly. I have an external 160GB drive formatted as FAT32. It's more compatible with different operating systems (including Windows ones). Unless he's installing Windows on it, there's no reason to limit the capabilities of the partition.

[One4yu2c]

Unless he states otherwise, I'm assuming Windows XP is going on this hard drive, and choosing FAT32 over NTFS would be a quirky decision at best. While some of this info is slightly dated, here's a good read on the differences (LINK).

[Panda Man]

Originally Posted by yurimxpxman

No, I read it correctly. I have an external 160GB drive formatted as FAT32. It's more compatible with different operating systems (including Windows ones). Unless he's installing Windows on it, there's no reason to limit the capabilities of the partition.

It's internal, and unless he is going to use Linux on it, NTFS is the way to go

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by One4yu2c

Unless he states otherwise, I'm assuming Windows XP is going on this hard drive, and choosing FAT32 over NTFS would be a quirky decision at best. While some of this info is slightly dated, here's a good read on the differences (LINK).

Dated and inaccurate. The 128GB partition size limit was a bug in the original release of XP, and has since been patched. The actual partition limit is 8TB. The real concern over FAT32 is its 4GB file size limit, which has annoyed me when I've wanted to save disk images to my FAT32 partition.

The choice is really a matter of what needs to be stored on the partition. NTFS' main advantages are the abilities to store files larger than 4GB and the ability to mount disks to directories. Its security isn't what people are lead to believe, as it doesn't stop execution of files without being specifically told to by an anti-malware app, and the owner of a file can be changed without as much as a password.

[Running Rampant]

Thanks guys, yep its for Windows XP and internal, its also for my G/F's computer....so, unless she's lied to me and her degree was actually in Programming (at which point I'd ask "Why the hell am I doing this?!?!") I'm fairly certain Linux won't factor into it

I'm formatting it now! (NTFS by the way)

[yurimxpxman]

Originally Posted by Running Rampant

Thanks guys, yep its for Windows XP and internal, its also for my G/F's computer....so, unless she's lied to me and her degree was actually in Programming (at which point I'd ask "Why the hell am I doing this?!?!") I'm fairly certain Linux won't factor into it

I'm formatting it now! (NTFS by the way)

Are you installing Windows to the disk or is it an extra?

Edit: Make sure you do a full, low-level format, or you might run into some goofy problems.

[Jafo]

Originally Posted by Running Rampant

Thanks guys, yep its for Windows XP and internal, its also for my G/F's computer....so, unless she's lied to me and her degree was actually in Programming (at which point I'd ask "Why the hell am I doing this?!?!") I'm fairly certain Linux won't factor into it

I'm formatting it now! (NTFS by the way)

I found a lot of Programmers can do anything they want once a computer is up and running, but let something die inside it and they're lost as to how to fix it.

Disclaimer:
The above is just my experience and may not apply to all programmers.