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General discussion

Formatting a slave drive.

Nov 19, 2004 6:38PM PST

Stupid question - but I've recently bought and installed a 160g secondary drive onto my computer (running with Windows XP).

All good - its being picked up by dos and in the device manager - but I have no idea how to go about formatting it.

Help would be much appreciated

Discussion is locked

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Re: Formatting a slave drive.
Nov 19, 2004 7:58PM PST

Goto the HD makers support website for details on your topic. They offer alot of hints/tips/guide best suited for the HD model installed plus any s/w required. If you didn't get such with your new HD, that's a good place to start. Look for a install guide or the FAQ related topic, alot of users ask tthe same question.

I suggest, use CS(cable select) on the HDs. When asked partition the new HD into maybe 80gb each(1/2 of available space) to better control the HD or simply use it all. I find it also better to deal with the new HD by itself in order not to harm the orginal HD, thus disconnect old HD, make new HD(solo) and then do what you have to. Hope this helps....

good luck Happy -----Willy

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2nd reply...From the WD support webpage
Nov 19, 2004 8:09PM PST

As shown at the WD support webpage as follows:
good luck -----Willy
\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\\

Adding a Second Drive:
Make sure your drive is identified on the boot up screen. If not, please refer to our knowledge base article on how to identify drives in your BIOS, Answer ID 54.

Access Disk Management by first clicking on the Start button.

Select Run.

In the text box type diskmgmt.msc and click OK

When Disk Management opens, a wizard may appear entitled: Initialize and Convert Disk Wizard.
Note: You must use this wizard to write a Signature to the drive otherwise, the drive will not work with Windows XP. If the wizard does not appear, you may need to manually complete this process following the steps below:


Right click on the name of the drive to be initialized. (Drives are numbered as follows: drive 0 being the boot drive and drive 1-3 are all other drives. For CDs, the first CD is CD 0 the second CD 1 and so forth.)

Choose Initialize from the menu that appears.

The next screen shows the drive you selected to initialize. Make sure the drive is checked and click Next.

You will have the option to convert the drive from basic to dynamic storage.
Leave this unchecked and click Next.

Click Finish

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If Device Mgr sees it
Nov 19, 2004 8:31PM PST

already, then you have it hooked up properly I would think. Go to My Computer and open it up and see what drive letter has been assigned to that slave drive (click the drive C: first to make sure that it isn't your slave drive that was hooked up as a Master by accident....if files open up, you have done it right). Now click the drive you believe is the slave drive.....if nothing happens, or if you get a window saying it's not formatted, you're fine. Just right click that drive letter and choose FORMAT....and XP will format it for you without having to do it in dos.

If you right click the C: drive, and choose Properties, you should be able to see if your Master drive has been formatted in FAT32 or NTFS. You will want to format the slave drive in the same format as the C: drive so choose the correct one from the XP Format window for the Slave.

TONI