New HDD not in My Computer

[Ben_]

hi, ive installed a new HDD, it is in BIOS and in device manager, but not in my computer. What am i doing wrong?

btw the drive is a samsung SP2504C

[stormy]

You need to use 'Disk Management' to setup the drive and partitions.

XP:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000/

Vista:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Win...129a71033.mspx

Hope this helps,

Mike

[Ben_]

thanks, thats sorted now

ok, now for the partioning, how does this sound?

ok so heres my plan. i have 2 250gb HDD's

lets call them A and B

I plan to partition A into 80GB/170GB, windows will be installed on the 80GB partition. I will install applications and games on the 80GB windows partition. This will leave 170GB on A and and 250GB on B for storage. Im quite worried about losing data, hence the partitioning. I play a lot of games and stuff hence the large 80GB partition for windows. Would i be best creating my documents in the 170GB partition or on B, or would it be safest in the windows partition?

Hows this sound?

[stormy]

I personally would not bother, but its all personal choice. If you are happy with those partition sizes then go for it.

My configuration at the moment is one 500Gb HD in 2x250Gb partitions and a 320Gb drive with no partitions.

It wont matter where you put your documents but again my personal choice would be to leave it by default with the main Windows partition, just makes it easier if you need to backup the whole Windows installation.

Mike

[jimbouk]

It's probably marginly safer on the second hard-drive as it will be accessed less than the main one, but it really is marginal.

I've always worked from 1 drive with 2 partitions, windows and programs on the first and keeping the data on the second so that reinstalls are easy. If you have the second drive then mirror the valuable data onto it (weekly backups, or monthly even if it doesn't change that often), I do this to a second computer.

[Ben_]

is it ok installing programs onto the other (data) partition? just incase i use up the 80GB

[stormy]

is it ok installing programs onto the other (data) partition? just incase i use up the 80GB

Yup, no problem at all.

[vaughan]

and if you have 2 seperate hard drives, then it will improve performance if youy make the windows swap file use the 2nd physical hard drive (not a different partition, but a different hard drive)

[Ben_]

how do you do that then?

i might just use 60GB for the windows partition, should be more than enough. will only end up filling it with data when i fill the others anyway, which would kind of defeat the object.

also how much free space is needed for the swap file and would i still be able to reinstall on the windows partition without formatting the other partition and drive if the swap file was on the other drive? and would any problems with windows affect the other drive if the swap file is on there?

thanks

[jimbouk]

The swap file is recomended to be 1.5 times the amount of ram you have, so a couple of gig. When you reinstall windows the old swap file can just be deleted (it'll be hidden but accessable I believe), it's just a file in that sense. Any programs installed will have to be deleted and reinstalled with windows even if they are on a different drive/partition.

[mycarsavw]

Zak33 has an interesting theory - see his sig for details.

[vaughan]

how do you do that then?

i might just use 60GB for the windows partition, should be more than enough. will only end up filling it with data when i fill the others anyway, which would kind of defeat the object.

also how much free space is needed for the swap file and would i still be able to reinstall on the windows partition without formatting the other partition and drive if the swap file was on the other drive? and would any problems with windows affect the other drive if the swap file is on there?

thanks

right click on my computer (windows XP) then select properties, once in the properties page, click advanced tab.

once you're on the advanced page, under the heading 'performance' click the settings button.

then got the 'advanced' tab again and select the virtual memory change button.

there you'll be able to see the virtual memory settings for your PC,.

select the drive you want to use for the swap file, and remove the old swap file from C:

once done, reboot, and now your 2nd hard drive will be used for the swap file.. it does increase performance.

[vaughan]

if for some reason the swap file is deleted from the 2nd drive (a new swap file will be created automatically), or you remove the 2nd drive, things will still be ok as windows will default to using C: drive again.