Solved Original hard drive not seen, can't format

[cbrundage]

A shop installed a bigger hard drive with Windows 7 on it. My old hard drive had XP. They thought I could use the old one after they took my files off it but when I picked it up, they said the computer couldn't see it and I should reformat it and gave me instructions. I see the old one in Device Manager (not in Explorer) but there is no file system listing (it was NTFS). When I right click on it to reformat, the only option is delete. I would like to use the old drive for storage but can't figure out how to format it or assign a drive letter to it.
I'm grateful for any suggestions!
Christina

 

[richc46]

Welcome
I think that these instructions from MS, may help
Change, add, or remove a drive letter
Same for Seven.

 

[cbrundage]

Thank you for the suggestion - unfortunately, everything except delete is still greyed out.

 

[patio]

One option would be to prep the drive for use with the free HDD diagnostics from the HDD manuf. site...use it to create a bootable CD and run it from there.

 

[cbrundage]

Have formatted, still can see

My daughter suggested downloading a partition program which I did and was able to format the old hard drive. It says the drive is good. I gave it a letter but I still can't see it in the new hard drive except in device manager.

 

[jumanji]

Try low level formatting the HDD and then do a regular format. HDDGURU: HDD LLF Low Level Format Tool

 

[vampman05]

i installed windows 7 and had a my old vista hdd. I couldnt delete or format it properly even tho it showed up in the admin tools and in explorer. In the end i had to use a program called Erase hard drive by Active@ KillDisk. Low Level Format. to format it.

 

[karlsnooks]

cbrundage,

If you boot into the bios, then:
do you see the drive? yes/no

DiskPart is a powerful program that comes with your Win 7.
I will give you instructions on how to use DiskPart.

The objective here is to see if DiskPart sees the drive.

Incidentally, forget all of that "low level" format stuff. That belongs to the dark ages of hard drive hardware.

To start DISKPART:

WIN | type CMD | do NOT hit ENTER | CTRL + SHIFT + ENTER keycombo | ALT + Y

WIN=key with the microsoft logo on top

You are now running cmd.exe with administrative privileges.
This is what is called an "elevated" command prompt since your privileges for cmd were elevated.
Even if you are logged on as administrator, you still must "elevate".

Now type, and hit ENTER
DISKPART
this puts you in the diskpart program which has its own little set of commands.

type, followed by ENTER
LIST DISK
that will list the disks found

type, followed by ENTER
SELECT DISK 0
that selected the first disk in the list

DETAIL DISK
this will give more info about the disk

SELECT DISK 1
DETAIL DISK

and so on soforth for all the disks that were shown when you said List Disk

You can use
EXIT to exit DiskPart
and
EXIT again to exit the command shell

Questions are:
did your old disk show up?

If your old disk showed up, then I'll give more commands so that you can regain use of the disk.

I recommend that you find another computer repair shop.
At least come here first, the next time you have a problem.

 

[cbrundage]

I have tried 5 times for my post to appear. I hope it does this time.
Thank you so much for all the instructions. I did what you said and diskpart said the old hard drive was "healthy" but there was no drive letter.
Christina

 

[jumanji]

Did you try the low level formatting suggested by me and vampman05?

 

[cbrundage]

I was following the instructions of Karlsnooks. There seems to be a disagreement about low level formatting. It puts me in the middle because I don't know anything about it.

 

[cbrundage]

I did start running the low level formatting program but it was saying every sector had an error and I could see it would take a long time to run so I stopped it. I don't know if I should have continued or not.

 

[vampman05]

DiskPart is a powerful program that comes with your Win 7.

learn something new everyday, never knew Win7 had this program for this sort of thing. Thanks

 

[karlsnooks]

christina,
This one has over 40 years computer experience.
When he says do not low level format, the don't low level format.
Listen to the pros.

Now excellent that your drive showed up in diskpart.

Go back to DiskPart.

Select the disk.

then
DETAIL DISK

now I want you to copy what you see and paste it into your next post.

Also
LIST VOLUME
SELECT VOLUME 9 (or whatever corresponds to first volume on your problematic disk)
DETAIL VOLUME

once again copy and paste into your post.

Here is how you can copy and paste from that command shell window:
Up in the top left hand corner is a wierd looking icon.
Click on that icon | choose Edit | choose Mark
drag you cursor to "mark" the area you want to copy
Hit Enter

the marked area is now stored in the clipboard.
Switch back to where you are generating the reply post and use
Ctrl + V to paste the clipboard into your post

If you want to cut out some posts back and forth:
Select the volume for the problematic drive,
then
ASSIGN LETTER=K

that will assign the letter K to the volume.
K is just an example. Use whatever you would like.

 

[cbrundage]

Wow, that made me very nervous since I really didn't know what I was doing. Here is what I got, up to the volume part since it says there are no volumes -

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

ST3250410AS ATA Device
Disk ID: 00000000
Type : ATA
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1F05)#ATA(C00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

There are no volumes.

DISKPART>
------------------------------------
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1F05)#ATA(C00T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : No
Pagefile Disk : No
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : No
Clustered Disk : No

There are no volumes.

DISKPART> list volume

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 D DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 System Rese NTFS Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 2 C NTFS Partition 465 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 3 E TOSHIBA EXT NTFS Partition 298 GB Healthy
Volume 4 H FAT32 Removable 7633 MB Healthy
Volume 5 G FAT32 Removable 3827 MB Healthy
Volume 6 F BRL2000 FAT Removable 988 MB Healthy

DISKPART>

 

[karlsnooks]

excellent.
Go back into DiskPart.
Select DISK 1 (your problem drive)
DETAIL DISK (just to make sure you got the correct one)
CLEAN ALL (will write zeroes to each and every byte on disk)
the clean all will take some time. Be patient and eventually the DiskPart prompt will reappear.
CREATE PARTITION PRIMARY (will create a partition on the disk)
FORMAT FS=NTFS (will format the partition)
the format can also take some time.
ACTIVE (make the installation of OS on disk a possibility)
ASSIGN (will asssign next available drive letter to disk. You can change the disk letter later)

EXIT on out
WIN | DISKMGMT.MSC| enter

Now does your "old" drive show up?

 

[cbrundage]

You are so kind to take the time to do this! I shall begin now, even though I am 74 and getting older by the second doing this!!

 

[cbrundage]

I'm at the "clean all" part. I am assuming it is doing something but there is just the blinking line in the next line.

 

[karlsnooks]

Do you see the normal DiskPart prompt? Yes/no

Is there a light either on the disk or on your computer, blinking to indicate disk activity?

 

[karlsnooks]

as said,
Clean ALL can take a long time.

Just be patient.