I joined this forum recently and found everyone so helpful that I thought I would return as I now have another problem and want to learn more.

I have jsut assembled a new system, I have it set up with a small c: drive (20gb) that has windows xp installed on it, I also have a dvd drive (e and a cd drive (d. I have just plugged in a second hard drive (Maxtor 80gb) to be used for saving 'documents' on such as photos, the new drive is visible within device manager but when I go into 'My Computer' it is not showing.
Device manager states that the drivers are all up to date etc.

I am at a loss as to why it cannot be seen or used. Any one got any ideas??

Thanks in advance
Dan

Is your second hard drive new? Did you format it yet? If not, you can use the maxtor utility that came on the cd with the drive to format it. You should see it then.

Yes it is new but it didnt come with any driver utilities or disks at all, it just came on its own from Novatech. I thought you should still be able to see a second drive in my computer even unformatted and be able to format it in there? I am also unable to see it if I go to a dos prompt as I did think about trying to format it there.

Well I have managed to fix my problem. I attempted to download the Maxtor utility drivers from their website and use them but to no avail.
To solve it I had to right-click 'My Computer' and select Manage, when in there I had to click on 'Disk Management' and then right cick the drive to enable it and then format it from there - hey presto a second drive working.

I hope this can help someone else with the same problem.

Dan, I can't believe that it was that simple!!!
I have been unable to see my SATA drive since forever (it had disappeared after my 1st system drive crashed) even though all the management tools could see that a drive was present. I tried everything (or so I thought!) - but....
I followed your instructions up to clicking on disk management; there it was listed as 'foreign' -- I clicked on 'import foreign' and voila! I have my disk back after months of frustration.

Just to make sure - I have been listening to some music I picked up using Morpheus from the old days before I ran spybot removers

Thanks loads for the suggestion,0 <<anyone know where this '0' is coming from?>>
0<<here is another one!>>
0

I had the same damn problem. Thanks to you a lot, you saved me a lot of pain. Wondering how windows could behave like this.

Ok unfortunately the disk management did not solve my issue.. I have a 40gb maxtor drive that is running xp pro.. the slave drive is a 120gb maxtor that i have used as storage for movies but never as a boot drive.. its shows fine in cmos and the device manager but i cannot access it with dos commands and it doesnt show in my computer nor does it show in the disk management.. i was excited when i saw that answer but it didnt help me.. any suggestions?

Hi,

I have a semilar problem. I can see the drive on Disk Management but not on Mycomputer. On Disk management the drive States "UNALLOCATED". I've tried everything possible but to no avail. I actually have some 120 GB of data in it and a little scepticle to do anykind of formating. I don't wanna or can't lose any data from the drive.

Can someone suggest anything or help.
my email address: mike25kerr@gmail.com

I think you should start a new thread - the only people who can see this one are the people who have already posted to it - copy what you want and start a new one to get a wider audience.

If all else fails, you could try getting a USB adapter kit and trying to access the data through the USB drivers.

thank you so much. worked like a charm