[TrueAnubis]

Yes, the saga of the new computer continues. I had to delete the partitioning on all my hard drives in order to partition the main hard drive properly and install Windows XP. Unfortunately, a new problem has popped up.

My second hard drive, the 500 GB monster, has disappeared. It's been installed, according to Windows XP. Heck, when I check the Properties under the main hard drive, if I go to the Hardware tab, it's right there. The Device Manager says it's working properly, just fine. Despite all this, I can't find it anywhere! While Windows XP swears up and down that it's there and functioning properly (even to the point of being able to hit the Populate button and getting a proper readout), I still can't find the dang thing. It just isn't there. It's not even hidden or anything, it's just . . . gone!

What's going on here?

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Go to start, my computer right click manage, disk management. Do you see the drive there? Does it have a drive letter assigned?

[austin_o]

Go to start, my computer right click manage, disk management. Do you see the drive there? Does it have a drive letter assigned?

[TrueAnubis]

Go to start, my computer right click manage, disk management. Do you see the drive there? Does it have a drive letter assigned?

Aha! It was listed, but there was no drive letter or anything. It said something like unassigned or something like that. Wow, I didn't even know that was there!

Anyway, I used the "help" files from there to "recreate" the hard drive, and now everything is good! Thanks a ton for pointing that out, I didn't even know there was such a utility!

Just curious, though . . . Should I have turned that 500 GB into multiple partitions, or is it okay as one single 500 GB partition? That's what I put it as, but now I'm wondering if I should have split it up. If it matters at all, my main hard drive (the 30 GB hard drive) is my "OS Hard Drive", and I plan on using the 500 GB for like games and storage and such. Is it okay to leave it as a single partition, or should I have split it up? If I should have split it up, can I still do so without losing data, or would I have to wipe it again in order to repartition it?

Any which way, thanks for pointing me to that, it fixed everything!

[austin_o]

It is up to you, and really depends on how you intend to use the drive. If it is data storage only, no partition is needed. If you decide you want to have separate partitions, now is the time to do it.

[happyrock]

go here for the lowdown on partitioning hard drives and the why's...very good and easy to understand..

http://partition.radified.com/