Cannot initialize a new HDD

rattler418

New Member
To anyone who can or will help:

I am working on a friend's Toshiba laptop (running WVHP32), and recently had to replace his second HDD. I matched the new HDD with the old one (Hitachi model number for Hitachi model number, size for size, RPM for RPM, voltage for voltage). The BIOS recognizes the drive. 'Computer' has no indication of a HDD other than the system drive (C: . Disk Management under Administrative Tools reports the drive as unallocated space, but the option to initialize the drive is not present on a right-click or in the command menu.

Several search strings online have only pointed to mentions of a RAID utility that I cannot find on the Hitachi site. I am open to any suggestions that any of you may have.

Thank you in advance.

Rattler418
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    hp Pavilion a6000n
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 x 2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 PC2 4200
    Hard Drives
    1 - 250GB

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    CPU
    Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
    Memory
    Crucial Ballistix 4x2GB PC2 6400
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207 + HPvs15
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050 + 1024x768
    Hard Drives
    2-WD5000AAKS-500 GB
    WD 5000AAV-500 GB external
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Comfort Curve
    Mouse
    MX Revolution
    Other Info
    Wacom Intuos 2 Graphics Tablet
    Experience Index=5.5
Thank you for your reply.

Unfortunately, in order to do anything with a partition on the new drive, it needed to be initialized first..and that is what the machine wasn't allowing me to do.

So I went over to my friend's house again to get the text of the error message (maybe I should have done that first), and when I entered that into a Google search, I came across a different forum post that mentioned a fix some guy found by accident.

It seems that if you right-click on the drive label representation in Disk management (not the representation of the drive space), you actually get the option to initialize the disk. 3 seconds to initialize, then about an hour to format (120 GB), and he now has a bona fide second physical HDD.

I again want to thank you for your time and effort in helping me to resolve this issue, have some reps.

-Rattler418
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    hp Pavilion a6000n
    CPU
    AMD Athlon 64 x 2 Dual Core Processor 4200+
    Memory
    4GB DDR2 PC2 4200
    Hard Drives
    1 - 250GB
Glad you got it sorted out. I don't have that option under the drive label so didn't know about that. Thank you for posting back as I learned something too.

Take Care.
Gary
 

My Computer

System One

  • Manufacturer/Model
    Dell XPS420
    CPU
    Intel Core2 Quad Q6600
    Memory
    Crucial Ballistix 4x2GB PC2 6400
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce 8600 GTS 256 MB
    Sound Card
    Creative SB X-Fi
    Monitor(s) Displays
    HP w2207 + HPvs15
    Screen Resolution
    1680x1050 + 1024x768
    Hard Drives
    2-WD5000AAKS-500 GB
    WD 5000AAV-500 GB external
    Keyboard
    Microsoft Comfort Curve
    Mouse
    MX Revolution
    Other Info
    Wacom Intuos 2 Graphics Tablet
    Experience Index=5.5
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