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Alternate Instructions for Installing a Drive
Windows 7/Windows Vista
Windows Vista has all the necessary tools to help you properly
install a SATA drive. Depending on your configuration, follow the
appropriate set of instructions below (Single Install or Adding a
Second Drive).
Note: Ensure your drive is detected by your SATA controller during
bootup or in the SATA BIOS by disconnecting any other hard drives
from the computer system until Windows has been completely
installed on the desired hard drive.
Single Install:
If your SATA controller supports RAID, you may need to define your
drive in a RAID Array before Windows can detect the drive, even if
the motherboard or system drivers are being loaded correctly. This
is true even if installing a single drive. Contact your system or RAID
controller manufacturer for assistance on defining your drive in a
RAID Array.
1. Insert the Windows Vista DVD into the DVD-ROM drive and
restart the system.
2. Follow the onscreen prompts until the Where do you want to
install Windows? screen displays.
3. Your hard drive is listed in the center window screen as "Disk 0
Unallocated Space."
–If you want a single partition (single drive letter), click Next to
automatically partition and format your hard drive in NTFS.
Windows Vista continues installing.
–If you want multiple partitions on this hard drive, click Drive
options (advanced) and skip to step 5 below.
–If your hard drive is not detected, you may need to obtain third
party SATA controller drivers from the SATA controller
manufacturer. These drivers must be installed from a CD, DVD,
floppy, or USB flash drive.
4. After clicking Drive options (advanced), click New to add a
new partition to the hard drive.
5. Enter the capacity of the partition and click Apply.
6. Select the Disk 0 Unallocated Space and click New to add
another new partition to the hard drive.
7. Enter the capacity of the partition and click Apply.
8. Repeat steps 6 and 7 until the desired amount of partitions is
obtained, then click Next to continue installing Windows Vista on
the first partition.
Adding a Second Drive:
1. Start Windows Vista and allow the operating system to boot to
the desktop.
Note: Be sure you are logged in as System Administrator.
2. Once Windows has fully booted up, left-click the Start button to
access Disk Management.
3. Right-click Computer.
4. Left-click Manage.
5. When Computer Management opens, click Disk Management.
Partitioning/Formatting:
Note: In two separate windows, on the right side of the screen, a
graphical representation of the partitions on the installed hard drives
is displayed. The top window is for viewing a drive's status,
capacity, and file system. The bottom window displays a
representation of the drives in the system beginning with the boot
drive (drive 0). In almost all cases, you will want to work with the
bottom window.
1. Locate the newly installed hard drive and right-click the long
Unallocated banner device listing.
2. Click New Simple Volume from the menu.
3. The New Simple Volume Wizard appears. Click Next to continue.
4. Select the capacity of the first partition you want on this hard
drive. If you want a single partition (single drive letter), leave the
capacity the default value and click Next.
5. You may assign a drive letter that is not already in use by other
devices, then click Next to continue.
6. Leave the allocation unit size at default and label the drive as
desired. Select Perform a quick format and then click Next to
continue.
7. Click Finish when done.
Windows XP
Windows XP has all the necessary tools to help you properly install
a SATA drive. Depending on your configuration, follow the
appropriate set of instructions below (Single Install or Adding a
Second Drive).
Note: Ensure your drive is detected by your SATA controller during
bootup or in the SATA BIOS by disconnecting any other hard drives
from the computer system until Windows has been completely
installed on the desired hard drive.
Single Install:
If your SATA controller supports RAID, you may need to define your
drive in a RAID Array before Windows can detect the drive, even if
the motherboard or system drivers are being loaded correctly. This
is true even if installing a single drive. Contact your system or RAID
controller manufacturer for assistance on defining your drive in a
RAID Array.
1. Insert the Windows XP CD into the CD-ROM drive and restart
the system.
Note: You may need to press the F6 key to load the driver for the
SATA controller before Windows can find a drive to which to
install. See Answer ID 127 in the knowledge base at
http://support.wdc.com for more information.
2. From the partitioning option screen, create the partition size you
want by pressing C. Note that the FAT32 does not allow
partitions larger than 32 GB. For more information about this
limitation, please see Microsoft Article 184006 at
http://support.microsoft.com. NTFS format, on the other hand,
has no size limit on partition sizes. After the partition(s) have been
created and formatted, continue with Windows installation.
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