I found an extra hard drive (maxtor diamondmax plus 9 sata) in a machine I was otherwise junking. It's previous use was as a boot drive in an xp system. Can I simply change the jumper setting to slave, toss it in my vista rig and reformat it so it's good to go?

_________________
...

yeah because the master boot record on your primary drive is the only thing that gets read. so if it's jumper setting is set to slave it won't be recognized first.

You may have to repartition as well.

That's cool, I just wanted to make sure an attempt at salvaging a piece of equipment and increasing storage wouldn't end up being more trouble than benefit.

Thanks guys

_________________
...

It's a SATA hard drive so there is no Master/Slave jumper so it's even easier...


More hard drives is always nice. I got 9 hard drives and sometimes I wish I had more hehe.

You will definitely need to repartition it before you'll be able to format it. Windows won't let you format a drive marked as a system drive (the presense of a \windows directory with files marked as +s will mark it as such automatically)

_________________

World of Warcraft: Kallaystra, Gweila, Steakumn, Tarathia [ Feathermoon/Horde ]

Vista is capable of doing that correct? Or will I need to grab partitioning software elsewhere?

(PS Thanks Fin, I got home and saw there was no jumper to change and got bummed figuring I'd have to try and get one from somewhere. Now I see there was a reason said jumper was missing in the first place.)

_________________
...

Yeah. You won't need any extra software.

OK the drive is installed
cmos sees it
windows device manager sees it
but windows explorer does not

fwiw I also have an external drive attached and an internal cd/dvd drive, I don't know why that would make a difference but just in case it does I offer the info =)

sounds like its not able to read the partition, but windows acknowledges there is a drive installed. it can't initialize it for some reason, could be because of the type of partition that's on there like vanamar had mentioned.

well I don't care about what may be on that drive as I was planning on reformatting it anyway to begin with.

if you can view it in disk management you should be able to format it completely there

http://www.google.com/search?q=Disk+Man ... lz=1I7HPIA

that should be a starting point, im at work sorry to be short.

I appreciate the help, I can see it in DM but only option there is delete volume

got it, thanks