Can't access Samsung HD

narrasuj · Post by **narrasuj** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:46 am

I recently bought the Samsung Spinpoint that's on the recommended list (SP0802N), in the hopes of replacing my noisy Maxtor. At first I set it up as a slave (removing all the jumpers as I found, I believe, on the Samsung website). When I tried accessing the hard drive in windows explorer, I couldn't find any trace of it. When I checked in the Device Manager, I found the hard drive and it is (supposedly) properly functioning. I've tried looking for other jumper settings, but I'm no longer sure what to do. Anybody have any suggestions or a similar problem?

qviri · Post by **qviri** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 8:59 am

You have to format the drive first. In Windows 2000/XP, go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management.

narrasuj · Post by **narrasuj** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:19 am

qviri wrote:You have to format the drive first. In Windows 2000/XP, go to Control Panel -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Storage -> Disk Management.

The Samsung isn't listed in Disk Management. It shows my Maxtor, partitioned into two and my two optical disk drives.

TomZ · Post by **TomZ** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:41 am

Not sure what is going on, but a couple suggestions.

You said you set the jumper to slave - I assume you have another device set to master on the same IDE cable? If not, this could be a problem.

Does your BIOS recognize the drive?

Is this drive connected to the primary or secondary IDE connector on your motherboard or IDE controller? What other IDE devices do you have plugged in?

If this is the only device on the IDE cable, then I would set it to master or cable select. Then try different connectors. Try a different cable.

narrasuj · Post by **narrasuj** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 9:59 am

TomZ wrote:You said you set the jumper to slave - I assume you have another device set to master on the same IDE cable? If not, this could be a problem.

Yes, I've got both drives setup correctly, the Maxtor as master and the Samsung as slave (for now).

TomZ wrote:Does your BIOS recognize the drive?

I assume so, I was able to find the hard drive in the Device Manager, and it was stated as functioning properly.

TomZ wrote:Is this drive connected to the primary or secondary IDE connector on your motherboard or IDE controller? What other IDE devices do you have plugged in?

I'm not sure whether it's connected to the primary or secondary IDE controller (I'm not sure which is which on my mobo), but I've also got connected two optical drives (DVD and CD-RW) to the other IDE controller.

Hopefully, I'm just doing something wrong and it isn't the drive that's messed up or something.

TomZ · Post by **TomZ** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:10 am

I would still suggest to check the BIOS. First, make sure the drive is recognized there. Second, make sure it is set to Enabled, or Auto, and not something like Disabled.

When you look at the properties for the drive in Device Manager, does it show any status that is different than your Maxtor drive? Does it show any partition information?

narrasuj · Post by **narrasuj** » Sat Mar 18, 2006 10:49 am

TomZ wrote:I would still suggest to check the BIOS. First, make sure the drive is recognized there. Second, make sure it is set to Enabled, or Auto, and not something like Disabled.

Just did this, and it is enabled/recognized. It is set to Auto, but also gives the option of user specified HDD. Maybe I'll try that as well. *Edit: Neither setting is useful in solving my problem.*

TomZ wrote:When you look at the properties for the drive in Device Manager, does it show any status that is different than your Maxtor drive? Does it show any partition information?

The status is exactly the same as the Maxtor, they are both listed as functional and both capable of 80 GB storage. If anybody has any suggestions, anything at all, I'll gladly take them.