Solved Can't initialize new HDD

[ROsness]

I'm adding a 2TB disk and can't seem to get the expected results. In Disk Management, I have right-clicked on the new drive, but no option to initialize appears. I have never seen the Initialize Disk Wizard, as expected. The attached Computer Management screenshot shows the present situation.

There is a problem with my SSD, too. It was previously labeled Disk F: but now shows as C: I'd like to make the 2TB disk Disk D: and then copy over the files from my old 1TB Disk.

 

[Megahertz07]

- The initialize wizard only appears if the disk has no partitions (all unalocatted). As your disk was already formatted, it didn't show up. If it's working, leave as it is.
- An active partition is a partition on a hard drive set as the bootable partition that contains the operating system. So I can say that this drive used to have a OS. As it's now a data disk, set is as no active or you may have boot problems.
- The drive you boot from is always assigned as C:. If your SSD showed as F: it's because you were booting with another drive than the SSD.
- To assign D: to the 2T drive, on disk management, right click on the drive, choose change drive letter. If the ODD is D:, you have to change it to another letter fist.

To post an image, use the paper clip to directly post it. Why did you attached to a Word file?

 

[ROsness]

Progress with adding a new HDD

Thank you for your response, Megahertz07, it got me a little further down the road.
I was able to get my SSD and 1TB and 2TB HDD's all working together.
The new 2TB Disk is completely empty, but I am able to copy files to and from it.
The 1TB Disk is booting nicely as the C: drive now.
The SSD is behaving normally.
I re-labeled the drives to suit my preferences.

(See attachment... I used Word to contain the Snipping Tool image of the Computer Mgmt display)

I think I would like to boot from the SSD for faster startup, but hesitate for fear of messing something up.
Do you think that would be worth the effort?
I have run out of SATA cable connections, and had to borrow one from my CDROM drive to get this far.
Do you know of any simple way to add another plug into the chain?

 

[Megahertz07]

"I think I would like to boot from the SSD for faster startup, but hesitate for fear of messing something up.
Do you think that would be worth the effort?"

You have no idea what a SSD (as main drive) will improve your computer.
- You have fist to copy all data from the SSD to the 2T drive as the SSD will be formatted.
- Make an image of your C: partition (not a disk image, only C: partition) and save it on the 2T disk. Use Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
- Delete all partitions on the SSD. Format as NTFS.
- Restore the saved image to the SSD and shut down.
- IMPORTANT: Detach the 1T and the 2T drives (take out the power cable)
- Boot from the Win 7 installation disk, go to repair and do a boot repair on the SSD.
- On BIOS, change the boot order to the SSD.
- Boot on the SSD and see if it's working well.
- Shut down and attach the 1T and the 2T drives

As I mentioned on post #2, your 2T it's now a data disk, so set it as no active or you may have boot problems.

 

[ROsness]

I'm having a problem trying to do what you suggested. I downloaded Macrium Reflect V.6.3.1835 but am failing repeatedly in my attempts to backup the 1TB C: Drive onto the 2TB E: Drive. The attached Word program Shows the results of my latest attempt.
I don't understand how to do this with Reflect.

 

[Megahertz07]

Schedule a disk check on the drive C:, D: and E:

 

[ROsness]

Disk Checks

All dskchk operations completed successfully without errors! (See attachment)
What's next?

 

[ROsness]

Thanks, Megahertz07