[Fixer99]

I had a problem with the File Manager not assigning a drive letter to my new third hard drive. I got the solution and thought I'd post it.

Windows XP
3 Hard Drives - 1st two hard drives on the old, 2" wide ribbon cable. The 3rd hard drive is SATA.

The BIOS, CMOS recognizes the third hard drive, but there is no drive letter for the drive in Explore. (Not Explorer web browser, Explore file manager)

For anyone not familiar with CMOS or BIOS

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIOS

When your computer first starts, it does basic tests. It is what is called P.O.S.T or POST
Power On Self Test
http://en.wikipedia....er_on_self_test

I called tech support for my hard drive and they got me a solution:

Get into Device Manager, and partition the new hard drive
Right click "My Computer"
Choose "Manage"
Click "Device Manager" and make sure the drive that has no drive letter is showing up in the list of "Disk Drives"
Go back the to left hand panel, and:
Click "Disk Management"
In the lower right hand corner is a list of all your drives.
If the drive has a blue bar across the top, then it's okay.
If the drive has a black bar across the top, then there is a problem.
Right click the black bar.
Choose partition, I think, I'm not sure about that choice.
You need to partition and format the new drive.
For the most part, you choose all the default settings.
There is one window with 2 check boxes at the bottom, choose the first check box.
The window will have 3 fields and then 2 check boxes below it.
Finish the partition and format, and hopefully the drive letter will now show up in File Manager (explore)

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Thank you and I am sure this will help others in the future with this problem.

[rshaffer61]

Thank you and I am sure this will help others in the future with this problem.