SATA2 WD HD not showing up

[Toneko]

I put in a SATA drive in my computer to run a SATA2 HD 120 gig from Western Digital (the sata drive was recommended by a Geek Squad guy). The Sata drive works just fine but my problem is my HD isnt showing up to use in "my computer" area. The new HD does show up in my installed hardware area though an the under volumes reads

Disk: Disk 1
Type: Unknown
Status: Not Initialized
Partition style: Not Applicable

[fry]

have you installed sata drivers?

[Toneko]

yes... also when I turn on my computer it ask if i want to set the new HD as primary 1 or 2

[fry]

so set it as the second primary, i think that the trouble in this.

[Toneko]

I've tried that first thing when trying to get it working.

[Toneko]

Well since I can't get any reasonable help where I won't be treated like a complete n00b I'll seek help else where.

[nizzy1115]

Woa buddy, dont get your panties in a twist. Have you formated the drive in windows yet in the disk manager? (right click on my computer and go to manage and you should see the options in there.)

[Toneko]

Thats just it I can't format the HD because it doesn't show up under in that location like it should. Instead I have to find it under installed Hardware.

[goldeagle2005]

It shows up in device Manager, but not under Disk Management? That's quite weird. Can you check the disk on another computer to see if the disk itself isn't kaput?

[nizzy1115]

Are you sure your computer is sata2 and not sata1? If its sata1 you will just need to use a jumper setting on it.

[goldeagle2005]

Sata 1 had jumpers? I thought sata (1 or 2) didn't have any jumpers...

[nizzy1115]

I thought so too...before... my motherboard only supports sata150 but i bought a sata 2 drive (thinking for future upgrades), and i thought it would just run at sata150 speed. Well, it turned out it wouldnt, and to get it recognized i had to enable sata150 only mode by using a jumper on the pins (it wasnt included so i used one from an old drive).

[goldeagle2005]

So what happened when you plugged the SATA 2 disk on your mobo without setting the jumper? It didn't get detected?

[nizzy1115]

So what happened when you plugged the SATA 2 disk on your mobo without setting the jumper? It didn't get detected?

It took it a long time to boot and it wouldnt be seen in windows at all. It took me a while to realize that there was jumper settings on the drive for that. Once i put the jumper in, it booted fine and windows could format the drive.

[goldeagle2005]

Okay. I have a seagate sata drive, but i dont see any jumper pins on it. that means is a sata2 drive? What's the diff between sata 1 and 2?

[unionman]

Hi
control panel-admin tools- comp managment- disk management
then give it an initial (probably D)

[nizzy1115]

Yeah, it needs to be formated, but he said it couldnt be formated/seen in there. Anyways on the other question, sataII operates at 3.0 mb/s transfer speed while sataI operates at 1.5 mb/s speed. A sataII drive is backward compatable with sataI. Some motherboards will have connections for just one or sometimes both.

[goldeagle2005]

you mean 3.0 GB/S and 1.5 GB/S right?

[nizzy1115]

...opps, yes i do. thanks for the correction

[nizzy1115]

I did a little more research about sata drives and the pin settings, and i found out that some drives have pins while some others will not. The ones that do not have pins are auto sensing, so there is no need for the pins. You probably have an auto sensing drive becasue you said there was no pins located on it.