Hard Drive Not Recognized By Windows


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My friends hard drive recently died so we went out and managed to get a 1TB Western Digital Caviar Green for relatively cheap. Hooked it up to his rig and started installing Windows 7, everything went fine until it got to "Installing Upates" where it hung for about 10 mins or so and then said something like "The installiation couldn't finish because the file localle couldn't be accessed". After that I googled around to try and find an answer but couldn't find anything with an error message like that, today I brought over an old hard drive and put it in and installed 7 on it and then put in the new WD drive to use as a data drive but Windows didn't pick it up, rebooted and went into the BIOS where it showed fine and it was in the right SATA port. I installed Intel Rapid Storage and the disk shows up in it but all of the info says "unknown" and it still isn't being picked up by windows.

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System specs

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Anyone got any idea why it isn't being recognized now?

Bad SATA cable or just a bad hard drive.

Swapped the two cables around and still had the same results, I thought the hard drive might be bad since it was recognized before but not now, just wanted to double check first before we went about trying to get a refund.

Get a Ubuntu Live CD and see if Linux can pick it up. It often can see drives that Windows can't.

Windows just probably corrupted it.

Was just about to post back saying that I'd tried a copy of Ubuntu I had lying around and still no joy, just going to get a refund and try something else, after reading a few reviews the caviar green line doesn't sound that great.

Was just about to post back saying that I'd tried a copy of Ubuntu I had lying around and still no joy, just going to get a refund and try something else, after reading a few reviews the caviar green line doesn't sound that great.

Green drives are bottom of the barrel. Get yourself a good drive.

As I said I ended up trying it as a data drive but still had no luck, the shop also had some Seagate Barracudas so going to pick one of them up for ?2 more. We were just in such a rush that we picked up the first reasonably priced drive we seen, didn't realise that it was quite that low powered!

EDIT: I know that the Barracuda is for storage as well, he's just keeping the drive I gave him for the OS.

WD's green line is for storage only, not for the OS. It is low powered for a reason.

FUD. While true they may be slower, if you were to use them as a OS drive, the drive wouldn't up and die because of it!

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