Second SCSI HD not recognized in Control Panel

Question

I've installed a second SCSI HD in my Precision 530 and can see it listed under hardware as well as at bootup on the DOS screen. But when I go to Explorer, it isn't listed as a drive. I'm using BIOS A06, Windows XP.   I  left the original HD at the end of the SCSI ribbon, skipped a plug and then placed the third plug on the new HD. Jumper sets new HD to '1' while original is '0'.   Setup at startup shows Primary Disk 0 = off & Primary Disk 1 = off   I see no way to set the BIOS to add the new HD as a drive in Explorer.   David

Chipstone · Answer

When you install a new SCSI or other drive you need to “Initialize” in order for explorer/Windows to recognize the drive.

Go Control Panel – Administrative Tools – Computer Management & Click on “Disk Management”

Sometimes the disk managment applet will automatically discover the new drive and guide you through the “initialization process”, if not, the drive should be visible on the list of installed drives, but will have no drive letter assigned or is formatted,it will only show the drive's capacity.

You will need to “initialize” the drive by adding a drive letter, name the volume you will be creating (Optional) and doing and using “quick format”, then the drive will be assigned a drive letter and recognized under Windows.

Chipstone · Answer

Drives formatted as Dynamic NTFS are not designed to be boot drives. You will need to delete the partition on drive H: Copy any data to a safe place. Then convert the drive to BASIC and format the drive in NTFS.

If I am correct you are trying to clone C: on drive H: and then swap the drives and jumpers so drive H: becomes C: and C: would be your secondary drive.

I use Acronis True Image software when cloning and never had a problem. Maybe the drive being cloned is formatted as dynamic and that may be the problem.

You should be able to Ghost drive C: to H: the application should create the dual partitions, and once complete you would power down the computer, switch drives and jumpers, whereas drive H: is now C:

If you have no problems once you boot up the application should recognize the cloned drive as C: and you may have to initialize and format the second drive (Originally C) and assign a drive letter.

Some cloning software do not properly create the dual partition on drive C:

Dell installs the diagnostic software in an FAT 8MB partition of the drive, some cloning applications will create a duplicate partition, but proportional to the new drive size and not just 8MB.

The worst case scenario: You may need to re-install the operating system and application on the drive you want to designate as C:

fishingklamath · Answer

OK, now its recognised, but it gets assigned drive 'H:'. How can I get it to be 'C:'?   I tried using Ghost, but didn't manage to get an exact copy of the C: drive onto the new H: dirive. The original disk has 2 partitions, a basic FAT (EISA configuration) and a C: basic NTFS (system). My new disk is formatted simple dynamic NTFS.   How do I get an exact copy of the old drive onto the new drive, and how do I get the new drive to be assigned C:?

fishingklamath · Answer

Getting there - I think. I've now gotten the proper formatting of the new drive, copied the old drive to it. Now booting from the new drive which is assigned C: drive and the old drive is F: drive. Good so far.   New problem. My C: partition on the new HD is the same size as on the old. Unallocated space is significant. Did I miss a step where I could have allocated more space to the new C: drive? I'm thinking that I could once again make the old drive the boot drive and delete the newly formed boot partition from the new HD and reformat it with a larger partition, then re-copy onto this new partition . Will the new partition keep its larger size, or will Ghost overide it and once again copy the old partition size?

Chipstone · Answer

Normally the clone process will adjust to the total capacity of the new drive. It may be due to the second partition that was on the first drive.

Did the clone created the second partition as well as additional unallocated space?
Or is the unallocated space the second partition that was created incremental to the size of the new drive?

I have not worked with Ghost software but the Acronis Software I use allows resizing the drive to add unallocated space back to the drive without re-format.

Without first hand knowledge of the Ghost software properties I am unable to formulate a cogent reason for what is transpiring.

Storage, Drives & Media

Second SCSI HD not recognized in Control Panel

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