1 HD missing

[sammytheman]

Hi guys so I installed Win7 and now in "computer" I see c:, and d: but I am missing my 1TB hard drive. Where did it go? Also in c drive I have something that says "windows.old". I did choose "delete" and "format" before installing win7 to make sure I had a fresh windows. Any advice would be greatly appreciate as always. Thank you.

http://img844.imageshack.us/img844/7263/11816320.jpg

 

[treefrog07]

Looks like the 1TB is Disk1. You may have to change your BIOS settings. Are you using SATA/ACHI? or SATA/IDE? Change that setting from what you have to the other selection, save and exit. Windows should see the drive after re-boot.

Windows.old is a folder created by Windows when you choose custom installation. This folder contains the files, folders and drivers from previous windows version (see the link for more info).

 

[John_VanKirk]

Hi there,

Your Disk Management shows you have 3 drives attached to your MB and that your C: drive is 3rd in boot order, your 1 TB drive is Drive 2 and is the system drive without a Drive letter. That's why its not seen.

Is this a brand new installation of Win-7? The Windows.old is your "old" windows that gets renamed when you update from an older version like Win-XP, rather than installing Win-7 as a clean install. Or it could have installed a "second" copy of Win-7 if you rebooted the computer during one of its pauses, before it finished a complete install.

Could it have been that you upgraded to Win-7 rather than a clean install, and you had one or two other HDD's attached to the MB when doing this?

If you want a new complete clean install of Win-7, you should Custom Install it from the DVD, and before beginning, delete any partitions on the HDD that may exist. It will give you the option to choose the size of the system partition. It will then create the hidden 100 MB system partition on the HDD, before formatting and installing a fresh version. Also don't have any other HDD's attached during this process so that all boot files, BCD, bitlocker space, etc. are properly installed on this one drive. Once it is up and running, reattach any data or secondary HDD's to the MB.

Also remember that when you delete a partition, or all partitions on a HDD, you lose any data on that drive.

You can reorder your drives, label the system drive C; disk cleanup the windows.old, but if you want a good clean install with the 100 MB system file in the proper location, I would probably spend the hour with a fresh start.

You Disk Management image is just great and worth well over 1000 words. Nice. Did you snip it out with the Win-7 applet, or Snag-it or ?