New PC from OCers, HDD not recognised.

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 18:41

Hi everyone,

New poster here having just bought an OCers PC. Not a total noob to PCs but not especially confident.

My new rig just arrived and only the primary SSD is showing in My Computer. The 500GB WD HDD I included as a data drive isn't showing. I remembered seeing a post regarding this and figured it might need formatting.

Googling formatting led to partitioning which led me to Disk Management. The Wiki I was using states 'If the hard drive is brand new, it will probably be on a dedicated row labeled Disk 1, or some number other than zero, and say Unallocated.' Thing is, the only space that says Unallocated IS on the Disk 0 row, next to a section that says System Reserved 100 MB NTFS. The 465GB capacity of the unallocated bit matches the 500GB WD drive that should be in there and Disk 1 contains what seems to be the smaller SSD used as the OS drive.

I just wanted to check I could proceed with following the wiki without doing anything wrong if the drives are in this configuration?

Also, do people recommend multiple partitions for a 500GB drive or is there no advantage over keeping it as one big one?

Cheers in advance, just don't wanna **** up my new baby.

CJ

wazza300 · 19 Apr 2013 at 18:49

click start/right click my computer/manage/storage/disk management and then see if the hdd shows up there,if it does right click it and create a simple volume,it should show up in windows then

right click the unallocated partition and format it (makesure theres no important data on it)

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 18:59

I've done the first part of what you say already. Did you read my queries regarding what I found in disk management? I think I've identified the correct portion to partition but I'm just not confident because the wiki I was reading said if it's a new drive it shouldn't be listed under Disk 0...

yashiro · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:12

Post a screenshot of the diskmgmt.msc window.

Tobes · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:36

I believe it's listed as Disk 0 because of the SATA connectors on the mobo/hdd boot order isn't it?

As long as you are confident that you are not formatting your windows partition you should be fine. I wouldn't have even thought it would allow you to format it while in Windows anyway if it was a OS partition.

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:38

Where do most people post pictures to include on forum posts? Seems a bit wierd to have to use my DA account lol.

Tobes · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:42

imgur.

Wow thats a bit weird. Windows has made the system reserved partition on that drive. You can format/create a partition on the unallocated space but I'm not sure it's a good idea to format the whole drive.

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:48

You see why as a bit of a noob I was a little hesitant?

So am I safe to just right click on the unallocated space and select create simple volume? Then do I right click again and select format? or will the drive appear in My Computer and I right click and select format there?

Tobes · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:50

yeah creating a simple volume with the wizard should sort it all out for you. You shouldn't need to format it yourself either. Just do the simple volume and you're good to go.

yashiro · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:56

Just right click and create vol/format the unallocated (black strip) space. It will be fine.

A problem you will have in the future is you probably can't boot the system from just the SSD since the HDD has the bootloader on it. You can fix it but it's a retarded way to install a system.

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:56

Ok that seems to have worked. Thanks for your help. Now I just need to get the damn exhaust fan at the top of the case working - the blades weren't in their housing when I got it today and didn't spin up when I pushed it onto the housing and switched on!

Lakesky · 19 Apr 2013 at 19:58

yashiro said:
A problem you will have in the future is you probably can't boot the system from just the SSD since the HDD has the bootloader on it. You can fix it but it's a retarded way to install a system.

Well I probably wouldn't have done any better but this one was down to the boys at OCers, lol. So basically if my HDD goes ****-up my PC won't boot?

Awesome...

Tobes · 19 Apr 2013 at 20:03

You could shrink your current windows partition seeing as it's pretty fresh and create the system partition on the empty space. I wouldn't know how to create a system partition though.

To be honest if it were me I would just reinstall windows because I hate effort but if your new to it then maybe leave it.

will13 · 19 Apr 2013 at 20:36

If windows is on C: drive, and the 1 that needs partitioning isn't C: then I don't see why it wouldn't boot