Caviar Green not recognized when put into a different PC

[AlejandroMunoz]

I purchased a 1 TB hard drive a year ago (approximately). I installed on my PC that was running Windows XP at the time, and ran the WD Align software. I later upgraded to Windows 7, and I never had any problems with my 1 TB drive.

Today that PC started giving me trouble so I bought a new one and took the 1 TB drive and added it to my new PC, as I did with my old PC when I first bought the 1 TB drive. The drive does not appear as a hard disk in the Windows Explorer windows, but when I ran the Data Lifeguard Diagnostic software it tells me that it is OK.

Should I install this hard drive in any specific way so that it is recognized by my new PC as a functioning second hard drive? (the hard drive that runs Windows is a 500 GB Seagate one that came with the new PC) It is almost full of data and I don't want to loseit!

Any tips will be greatly appreciated!

[Awopero]

Is your drive been seen by the computer BIOS?

[AlejandroMunoz]

Thanks for the reply. Yeah, it is being seen by the computer BIOs and under Disk Management it shows, not as a hard drive, with no no drive "identity" (like C: or D is assigned to it. It says that it is a "dynamic drive" and among the options I get is to "turn it into a basic drive" but it says I will lose all the data in it.

I put it back in the PC where it was originally and I could read it and retrieve information form it. Is there any way I can just make Windows 7 in my new computer recognize it withouth having to format it?

[DanZee]

You could put it in a USB enclosure and use it to back up your data that way. You can also look at your Computer Management/Drive Management tool and see if it appears. If it does, you can manually assign it a drive number.