SATA drive not recognised for AV scan

[Channel Hopper]

As the title suggests. Ive been given a 160GB drive that I want to check for errors and any nasties before using it in the PC as a storage device

The main o/s is on the primary IDE drive and the SATA unit is recognised in the boot, however it is not seen under 'start > my computer', and so won't be seen by the onboard AV, nor the cleanup/defrag.

How do I get it to become visible for a full scan/error check ?

 

[Mickha]

What make/model SATA drive is it? Check the manufacturers website, especially if running XP.

 

[Terryl]

Go to you hardware manager (through you control panel) and see if it is in the hardware list, if not then hi-light the hard drive section and do a "scan for hardware changes".

 

[2cvbloke]

Right click "My Computer"
Click "Manage"
Under "Storage", Select "Disk Management"

If the drive shows that it is lacking a partition, then that will be why it is not appearing in My Computer as an actual drive (Partitioned but unformatted, or unsupported format would show, but windows will want to format), two things you can do, download SeaTools for DOS (CD version), doesn't matter what brand the HDD is, it'll do a full deep scan regardless of make, or, partition the drive and format it, windows would do a basic scan as standard when doing those actions...

If the drive is not recognised within the Disk Management, then it may have a fault with the drive's controller, so would probably be a lost cause...

 

[Channel Hopper]

Thanks. I've started using Partition Doctor but it is taking ages to look though the drive.

 

[2cvbloke]

If it's doing a deep scan, it'll take a fair while...