Help! I'm lost in Hard Drive hell

hi everyone, I need a little help here. I have a new 160GB hard drive that I just bought, and it has created a bit of a situation. The hard drive is recognized in device manager, but it wont show up in "my computer", leaving me unable to get to it. I had the same situation with a hard drive on my friends computer, but I think that the reason in this case may be different. My guess is that i may have too many drives hooked up. I know that you can only have 4 ide devices working at once, but I am not sure what qualifies. you will see below:

EVEREST Home Edition © 2003, 2004 Lavalys, Inc.

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Version EVEREST v1.51.195
Homepage http://www.lavalys.com/
Report Type Report Wizard
Computer FRANKS-COMPUTER (Frank's Computer)
Generator Frank
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition 5.1.2600 (WinXP Retail)
Date 2005-07-08
Time 21:47


Summary

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Computer:
Operating System Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition
OS Service Pack Service Pack 2
Internet Explorer 6.0.2900.2180 (IE 6.0 SP2)
DirectX 4.09.00.0904 (DirectX 9.0c)
Computer Name FRANKS-COMPUTER (Frank's Computer)
User Name Frank

Motherboard:
CPU Type Intel Pentium 4HT, 2800 MHz (14 x 200)
Motherboard Name ECS 661FX-M (Deluxe) (3 PCI, 1 AGP, 1 CNR, 2 DDR DIMM, Audio, Video, LAN)
Motherboard Chipset SiS 661FX
System Memory 1536 MB (DDR SDRAM)
BIOS Type Award (11/10/03)
Communication Port Communications Port (COM1)
Communication Port ECP Printer Port (LPT1)

Display:
Video Adapter NVIDIA GeForce FX 5500 (256 MB)
3D Accelerator nVIDIA GeForce FX 5500
Monitor Plug and Play Monitor [NoDB] (151713137)

Multimedia:
Audio Adapter SiS 7012 Audio Device

Storage:
IDE Controller SiS 5513 IDE UDMA Controller
SCSI/RAID Controller SiS 180 RAID Controller
Floppy Drive Floppy disk drive
Disk Drive EPSON Stylus Storage USB Device
Disk Drive Maxtor 6 Y200M0 SCSI Disk Device (200 GB, 7200 RPM, Serial-ATA/150)
Disk Drive Maxtor 6B160P0 (152 GB, IDE)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST CD-RW GCE-8525B (52x/32x/52x CD-RW)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVD-ROM GDR8162B (16x/48x DVD-ROM)
Optical Drive SONY DVD RW DW-D22A
SMART Hard Disks Status OK

Partitions:
C: (NTFS) 194466 MB (1673 MB free)

Input:
Keyboard Standard 101/102-Key or Microsoft Natural PS/2 Keyboard
Mouse Microsoft PS/2 Port Mouse (IntelliPoint)

Network:
Network Adapter SiS 900-Based PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter (192.168.0.101)

Peripherals:
Printer \\VAIO\hp officejet d series
Printer EPSON Stylus Photo R300 Series
Printer hp deskjet 940c series
Printer hp deskjet 940c
Printer Microsoft Office Document Image Writer
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB1 Controller SiS 7001 PCI-USB Open Host Controller
USB2 Controller SiS 7002 USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller
USB Device USB Composite Device
USB Device USB Mass Storage Device
USB Device USB Printing Support

Problems & Suggestions:
Problem Disk free space is only 1% on drive C:.

I guess what I think may be the problem is that I have 3 IDE optical drives, 1 S-ATA HDD, 1 IDE HDD, and 1 Floppy drive. that is 6 items and you can only have 4 ide items so i guess I must have 5. does the serial ATA HDD or the floppy drive count towards the 4. I hope not, because as you can see I am quickly running out of disk space. any help or advice is very appreciated. Thanks

EDIT:
Just now realized that the drive that i am having a problem with is EIDE and not IDE, do i need a special cord or something, i am still looking to see if my mobo supports eide. Thanks

 

As ddp suggested.

A new hard drive will not be allocated a drive letter until is has been partitioned and formatted, although it will be seen in device manager.

Right click My computer
Click Manage
Click Disk Management
(you will see your new hard drive there, and the space will be unallocated)
Right click on you new hard drive there, and click format, then just follow instructions regarding partitioning/formatting.

Under the partitions section in Everest, it only shows one partition being present.
This will contain more when you partition your new hard drive.

Only if you are using standard motherboard with 2 IDE connectors on it.

If you have SATA connectors on there aswell, then in theory you can have:
2 x SATA devices
4 x IDE devices working at once.

or

If you also have a PCI IDE adapter card installed aswell:

4 x IDE devices on PCI adapter
4 x IDE devices on motherboard IDE
2 x SATA devices

 

thanks alot everybody. I will be trying it now.

 

Thanks alot, Fixed the problem, I do have a second question though: If I have just files (say...backup iso's of ps2 games) on the 2nd hard drive, would it be possible to put that hard drive into a different computer and transfer those files to that computer's already existing hard drive, and then put it back in the original computer, without ever losing the files? I understand that there is a problem with having to reformat if it is a new hdd, but I dont know if that applies if it is a hard drive without an OS on it. Just so you guys know, I am not computer illiterate, but I do happen to be completely cluless when it comes to Hard Drives, so any help is greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

Yep, just to add to Mr ddp (soon to be a mod I think (deserves it anyway)

Only if the other PC is running a similar file system ie NTFS and not FAT32.
That is of course if you formatted with NTFS and not FAT32.

If you have formatted with NTFS, then an O/S such as win98, will not see the information, however if you have formatted using FAT32 then it will.

If you will be doing this alot, it would be easier for you if you purchased an external USB/Firewire HD instead, that way you would not need to open the case up all the time, just plug and unplug into the external connectors on the case and be nice and portable.......................

 

The Akasa Integral is a nice external enclosure, quite cheap and looks good, well chuffed with mine.

 

LOL, nah, just came across a thread that was discussing it and your name seems to be top of the list - and so it should aswell.

If we have a public vote, I think you'll nail it, well, you'll have my vote anyway...........

 

Thanks again guys, I wont be doing it often, just wanted to hook my friend up with some "backups". you were all alot of help.