Windows 7: New HDD not recognized/initialized

I already have multiple HDDs installed and, yesterday, added 3 new WD20EARS to the system. All three appeared to initialize correctly.



-After a reboot, only two of the new drives were recognized. In Disk Manager the third drive is/was listed as "disk not initialized".
-Tried re-initializing the drive multiple times and got a couple of different errors, "incorrect action" (or similar wording). At this point the system crashed.
-After a system restore, the third drive is not visible at all. The other two new drives seem to be operating normally.

System is an i3-540, Gigabyte GA 57M USB3, Ultimate 64.

What should I try?

Check the hard drive with the manufacturer's diagnostic tools.

Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.
HD Diagnostic

You might go into BIOS again and be sure that the HD is setup properly.

First I would look at the Bios and see if it sees all the drives. If not then swap the bad drive with one of the good drives to see if is the drive or the port. May also be a bad cable.

Jim

Okay...the one new drive is not showing up in the WD diagnostics either.

Haven't looked at BIOS yet, but why would it change after, earlier, initializing correctly?

I just added a new drive a few weeks ago and I had to go back several times and reset the BIOS. For some reason it kept changing.

Could be lots of reasons. Drive is flaky, port is flaky, bad or loose cable. The drive needs to show up in the Bios before you can get anywhere in Windows. Double check and reseat the sata and power cables.

Jim

Tried re-seating cables, no change. BIOS looks okay, all ports enabled AHCI. Swapped power and SATA cables with a known good drive and the problem follows the drive.

So, bad drive?

Can you move the HD to another machine to run WD Lifeguard diagnostics CD, as this will confirm bad HD.

No other machine to try it in.

WD diagnostics can't find this (defective?) drive no matter which SATA or power cable is attached to it. Conversely, WD diagnostics does see all other drives I attach to any SATA or power cable and reports them as "okay".

Since this is a new drive, and did work for a couple of hours after it was first installed, I'm thinking infant mortality???