Member Avatar for bugmenot

I bought a new SATA Hard Drive, and I want it to be secondary to my first hard drive. After I connected the device to my computer, how do I install it so I could see it in the "My Computer" folder? I'm also having problems setting it up on the Bios.

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— covered the physical hookup and boot priority, which is the correct start. A few clarifying steps and troubleshooting tips will make the new SATA drive show up in Windows and help if it doesn't.

After the drive is physically connected and the BIOS shows the device, boot to Windows and open Disk Management (right-click My Computer / This PC -> Manage -> Disk Management, or run diskmgmt.msc). A new drive normally appears as "Not Initialized" or "Unallocated." Initialize it, create a partition, format (NTFS is typical for Windows), and assign a drive letter. For partition style choose MBR for older systems or GPT for disks larger than 2 TB / UEFI systems — GPT is preferred on modern hardware but may not be compatible with very old OSes.

If the BIOS detects the drive but Windows does not: install or update the motherboard chipset/SATA controller drivers. On older installers (Windows XP era) you may need to load SATA/RAID drivers during setup (press F6) or temporarily set the BIOS SATA mode to IDE/compatibility so the installer can see the disk. Note: changing SATA mode (IDE <-> AHCI) after Windows is installed can prevent booting unless the correct drivers are present; install drivers first or revert the change if Windows fails to boot.

If the BIOS does not detect the drive, check power and data cables, try a different SATA port (use the lowest-numbered port for the boot drive), and try another power connector or cable. SATA drives do not use master/slave jumpers like PATA — each has its own port. If problems persist, test the drive in another machine, check for controller/RAID card ports that need separate drivers, and consult the motherboard manual. Mount the drive securely, ground yourself to avoid static, and back up any existing data before reformatting. Glad it helped, ; , the motherboard manual and vendor support pages are good next reading.

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Member Avatar for fren

Shut the computer off.

Just place your new sata hard drive in any of the sata sockets/slots on the motherboard. Attach the power and sata cables to the drive.

Restart your computer. Enter your BIOS setup.

Set your first hard drive (boot drive) as first boot in the bios.

Next procedure go to this link: http://www.pcstats.com/articleview.cfm?articleid=1778&page=9

Member Avatar for Akuma Gekido

Thx fren, that link was extremely helpful, im now on my way to having my secondary SATA drive up n runnin :o)

Member Avatar for shyam_etrx

hey fren.. u seem to be knowing quite a lot about motherboard n stuff.. could u please let me know some websites wherein i can find some information about all these..
thanks in advance

Member Avatar for fren

Akuma Gekido: glad you liked it.

shyam_etrx: just google and you will find several helpul sites.

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