They either make this stupidy difficult or I'm just stupid.

I can see the drive in BIOS and it appears in the 'device manager' under disk drives (along with the IDE drive that windows is on) but it doesn't appear in 'my computer'?

I put this computer together today so it's a fresh install of XP and I used the 'install all' choice on the motherboard CD-ROM that came with it.

I know I had trouble setting it up the first time but can't remember how I got it working. The drive just has MP3's and general crap on it, not windows.

Any suggestions?

To create a partition or logical drive

Using the Windows interface right click my computer then select MANAGE

1.
Open Computer Management (Local)

2.
In the console tree, click Disk Management.

Where?

Computer Management (Local) > Storage > Disk Management

3.
Right-click an unallocated region of a basic disk, and then click New Partition, or right-click free space in an extended partition, and then click New Logical Drive.

4.
In the New Partition wizard, click Next, click Primary partition, Extended partition, or Logical drive, and then follow the instructions on your screen.


Note

• To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management.

• You must be logged on as an administrator or a member of the Administrators group in order to complete this procedure. If your computer is connected to a network, network policy settings may also prevent you from completing this procedure.

• You can create primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives only on basic disks You should create basic volumes instead of dynamic volumes if this computer also runs MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows XP Home Edition.

• On a master boot record (MBR) disk, you can create up to four primary partitions, or three primary partitions and one extended partition.

• On a GUID partition table (GPT) disk, you can create up to 128 primary partitions.

It says in there:

Disk 1
Dynamic

Foreign

(Looks like a small explanation mark on it)

I note in your post:

You can create primary partitions, extended partitions, and logical drives only on basic disks You should create basic volumes instead of dynamic volumes if this computer also runs MS-DOS, Windows 95, Windows 98, Windows Me, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows XP Home Edition.

The SATA disk was first made in XP Pro, I now have KP Home, could it be that it was a dynamic disk created in XP Pro that isn't recognised in XP Home?

last edited by mission at 23:20:47 17/Sep/07

change the drive letter, go into disk management after you format it if you right click on it in disk management you can then change its letter. some times windows seems to assign a drive letter thats already in use and the you cant see it in windows explorer

right click on the foriegn drive, it has an option to import it or something simular.

assign it a drive letter and profit.

If I right clck on it in Computer Managment, I get 'Convert to basic disc' which then reminds me I will lose all info that's on the disc. Not cool. The other two selections are properties and Help, of which not much help is offered.

The old system had three HD's in it - it was the third and I think the letter was G, there is only one HDD on this one that is C: and DVD is D:

So it's nothing to do with it being dynamic and XP Home not liking it?

last edited by mission at 12:06:15 18/Sep/07

Google is your friend on that one.

If you're running Windows XP Home Edition the option for Dynamic disks is unavailable.

I don't think dynamic disks can be moved from machine to machine either.

yeah they can.

o rly

The SATA disk was first made in XP Pro, I now have KP Home, could it be that it was a dynamic disk created in XP Pro that isn't recognised in XP Home?

Correct!

ffs that reallyyyyy sux.

I guess I'll reformat and put XP Pro back on.

I changed back to Home as i have a legit copy, the pro version has been suggested by Windows itself that 'I may be a victim of software piracy' - I gotta ask Fat Tony what all that is about.

Thanks for the help.

*edit* nevermind, guess it helps to read the thread.

last edited by Crakaveli at 12:01:00 18/Sep/07