Many Thanks in Advance !!

Brand new out of the box Dell 8960 Tower, Windows 11 Home.

2Tb SSD C:

No HDD from Dell.

Fully updated and fully functional.

Only one modification so far to use Chrome as browser, otherwise totally factory settings.

Trying to add Western Digital 10Tb Black HDD - will be used for data ONLY - will NOT be boot drives.

Also brand new, out of the box.

I have TWO of these 10Tb drives, same behaviour for either one.

Both were manufactured on the same date, but I find it highly unlikely both are flawed.

Install (one or both) 10Tb HDD into the Dell Windows 11, either slot, same issue:

Turn it on and it stays at black screen for ~5 minutes then turns off.

HDD is spinning, I can feel it.

HDD is accessed, I can hear it chirp a few times, then nothing more, just quietly spinning.

Remove the HDD and Windows 11 machine boots per normal.

Boot Order is fine at C:

Also boots just fine with 2 old data-only HDD's (a 4Tb and a 2Tb) installed, so it's not trying to boot to a HDD.

Have been advised to change SATA from RAID to AHCI, but it gives me a warning message "Warning! Changing this setting may prevent your operating system from booting or require a reinstall"

So I left it alone - at least for now.

THEN,  

I can put the same 10Tb HDD in my old Dell XPS (maybe 15-20 years old now..) Windows 7 Pro machine.

Windows Disk Management and CMD prompt both report that it is on-line and a healthy drive.

But, I cannot initialize it into either MBR or GPT option - I/O error.

CMD "Create Primary Partition" also returns I/O error.

The driver is up to date.

Event Log, for every attempt, reports Virtual Disk Management - Error 10.

The Microsoft site for Code 10 is for a different issue, but I ran the "fix" code anyway.

The code ran successfully, but does not correct my issue.

ALSO,

I can take an existing WD 4Tb from the Windows 7 machine, as well as a very old 2Tb (from storage) previously in the Windows 7 machine and put them in the Windows 11 machine and all is fine.

Because of this, My gut tells me if we could initialize in Windows 7 it might transfer ok to Windows 11 ??

Whatever the fix, as I can get these installed in the new Windows 11 machine I am good.  I don't care about 10Tb in the Windows 7 machine, I only need them in the Windows 11 machine.

Have tried everything I can find on-line.

WD Drive Utilities does not see the 10Tb when it's in the Windows 7 machine.

WD has authorized return and replacement - but I don't think the drives are the issue.

Have NOT called Dell - yet.

Have posted to a Microsoft group.  Their advice and results are included in the information above.

If I can't get these installed I will need to return the unit to Dell.