Windows 7 PC doesn't recognise second SATA hard drive

[johnnr892]

Hi there,

I have built a windows 7 PC with a GIGABYTE GA-MA77OT-UD3P motherboard and have two 500gb WD hard drives in place. However, it doesn't seem to recognise the second one (this is the first time I have made a computer with SATA hard drives so I might be doing something stupid). I have checked the wires are fine - they both work on the boot drive. I have tried the second hard drive in different connectors on the motherboard and still nothing. Automatic hard drive detection seems to be enabled in the bios and there doesn't seem to be anything I can do there - in CMOS options it comes up with 2 hard drives but both master on the IDE/SATA channel (but I guess that is normal for SATA?) but in windows the hard drive is not there. Any help greatly appreciated.

John

[GoNz0]

paste diskmgmt.msc into the search box or run command and see if the drive shows in the disk management app

[jonathan_phang]

if you installed both from new, then you probably installed the OS on 1 but need to format the other drive to be recognised. If you go to Computer Mangement (just type it in the start menu) then select the Disk management, does the second hard drive appeat there? If it does, then right click on it and select 'Format'.

Hope that helps.

[johnnr892]

Cheers! sorted thanks.

[jonathan_phang]

Glad that worked! Enjoy!