Help with initialising new HDD in Windows 7

Makunouchi · 10 Sep 2010 at 16:38

Hi,

Just hooked up a new 1TB HDD, have done so with many other HDDs and managed to initialise them fine, but I haven't had to do it before with Windows 7 and I'm running into trouble.

In the 'Disk Management' window the new HDD is showing up fine, online, with 931GB unallocated, it's showing up as disk - 'H' System Reserved - with a capacity of 100MB however.

Reading around, initialising a new disk is supposed to be as simple as right clicking it and going to 'initialise', but this doesn't show up for me when I right click either the visual display of the disk or where it's listed above in the Disk Management window.

Can anyone help me out? I've never had this much hassle hooking up a new HDD before...

Thanks in advance.

Edit: a screenshot of the Disk management window:

reygjabla · 10 Sep 2010 at 20:33

The 100 MB HDD your seeing is the W7 MBR, leave that alone.

double click on your Disk O as that is your new 1 TB HDD, then right click on it and create new volume. Just click yes on the prompts and you're done.

Makunouchi · 11 Sep 2010 at 15:45

Ah yes thank you, 'Create Simple Volume' did the trick

However the 100MB partition labelled 'System Reserved' is still showing up as a separate disk (H), is there any way I can hide or delete this?

The pic shows what I'm talking about:

Thanks again.

Orcvader · 11 Sep 2010 at 16:14

It's where important boot and system files are stored. Just leave it. You could mess up windows if you delete it :eek:

Makunouchi · 11 Sep 2010 at 16:28

Orcvader said:
It's where important boot and system files are stored. Just leave it. You could mess up windows if you delete it

Really? Then why isn't there a similar partition for my other HDDs? Progs C: is the one HDD with the OS on it. Anyway I'm getting out of my limited field of knowledge now so I'll just take your word for it... I just don't like it looking messy is all

reygjabla · 11 Sep 2010 at 20:21

You won't see it anyway unless you go to Disk Management.

Makunouchi · 11 Sep 2010 at 22:06

Except that's not really true...

reygjabla · 11 Sep 2010 at 22:41

That means you installed your OS while the other HDD's are also connected to the motherboard. I guess, You have to re-install with only the OS drive connected to the motherboard.

kona786 · 13 Sep 2010 at 16:53

If you want to dual boot with 2 hard drives do you still disconnect 1?

reygjabla · 13 Sep 2010 at 17:47

I did and i'm using 3 OS on 3 Hard drives. I simply press F8 whenever I want to boot from the other OS. At least, when one system crash, it does'nt take away the other OS'es. Saves you the hassle of finding the culprit.