Windows 7: newly installed 2nd internal SATA HDD showing up as unallocated space

Hi folks,

I upgraded one of my internal SATA HDDs to a 1TB version today. It is a second drive which I use for data while the first HDD contains the Windows 7 OS.

The drive was recognized by the PC on reboot but doesn't show up in My Computer. I can view the drive under the Disk management portion of Computer Management. It shows up as Unallocated. I'm a little confused as to the next step to make the hard drive visible in my computer and allow me to use the space.



I cannot seem to find a menu to allow me to format the drive. When I right click on the drive in Disk management I can see "New Simple volume" available to me. Should I go ahead and create a new simple volume or do something different?

Any help to get this sorted is appreciated.

Welcome Sannesley to the windows 7 forums.

Yes, you are correct, in Disk Management, it asks for you to create a new simple volumn, say yes and the you will have the option to create partition(s). Select which you want and then it will create a drive for youR partition(s), you can break it down into more than one drive if you wish. But each must be formatted before it can show up in My Computer as a drive letter. Some suggest that you at least make it two drives of 500gigs each. Won't make it any faster but might be less confusion for some..


Rich

Yes. Volume is used as a synonym for partition. It's now unallocated and has no partition and is not formatted. After you make a partition, you can format it and give it a drive letter--at which point you should be able to see it system-wide.

thanks for the advice folks. I just did it now and it worked.

Once again thanks