Win7 up and running on separate HDD. (Have XP on one HDD, have a 2nd HDD (NTFS, no OS; Drive letter F: in XP) used to store files/data, and then installed Win7 on 3rd HDD . I Use BIOS to select which drive to boot so OS's are totally separate. No issues with BIOS and both XP and Win7 boot properly when selected.Initially could not see the F: (data) HDD in Explorer. Found it in Device Manager as disabled. Enabled it successfully per Dev Mgr. Now shows in bottom half of Computer/Manage/Disk Management window but cannot "see" it otherwise. It is healthy and is operating properly per device mgr. I read a blog that I needed to assign a drive letter but when right clicking that HDD in Disk Management and choosing either the option to Assign a letter or the Properties, get an error message that it cannot be accessed.Has anyone else had issues accessing a 2nd HDD in Win7 and how did you solve it?

I have vista on my first hard drive. I installed Windows 7 on my second hard drive. Windows 7 did not see the first hard drive right away. I had to go into Disk Management and assign it a drive letter for it to be seen by Windows Explorer.

Thanks Stuke but I've been there and done that.When I right click in Disk Management and select either "Change Drive Letter and Path" or "Properties" I get..... (actually it's a pretty dialogue box but I couldn't paste it here. But here's the text)....---------------------------Disk Management---------------------------The operation failed to complete because the Disk Management console view is not up-to-date. Refresh the view by using the refresh task. If the problem persists close the Disk Management console, then restart Disk Management or restart the computer.---------------------------OK ---------------------------I have closed and restarted Disk Management and am on my 3rd restart of the computer with a trip to XP in between. Nothing seems to work. BTW - I can't see my "original"C: HDD with XP in Disk Management (although it too is working properly per Device Manager) but that's not a biggie. I'd really like to get to my files on the data HDD.

Can it be because of thedata hard drive partition type "primary" or "extended"?

All 3 HDD's in the system are primary. (XP, Win7, and the data drive) What is odd is that XP can see them all, even Win7, but Win7 can't see any HDD but it's own.Is there a major difference between XP and Win7 which does not allow Win7 the same access to other drives. Perhaps a setting somewhere?

I have the same problem. 7 doesn't recognise any hard drive but its own. On the same system, XP detects all of them. This is only for internal drives. An external hard drive that has Vista on it is perfectly recognised.

Windows does not let you see the other Hard Drive for a reason and it's so you can't mess with certain files that are locked via protection of the OS (locking files so they can't be opened and/or edited, etc).That's it, end of the story. ECS GeForce7050M-M (V2.0), AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+ (OC: 3.2GHz), 4GB OCZ Titanium XTC DDR2-800 Memory, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, EVGA 9500GT 512MB DDR2 (OC'ed) and 6GB Flash Disk for READYBOOST. Running Windows 7 beta build 7000. My Windows Experience Index (WEI) Score is: 5.3

Tyler:Those are system files you're talking about. Everyone on this community knows not to mess around with them too much. We need 7 to just bloody recognize the drives.

Permit an amateur to bark among the big dogs. I installed a 2nd SATA drive for W7 and unplugged the first SATA and the IDE drive that has <cringe> W2K on it. After plugging in the IDE drive back in, W7 does not recognize it, even when I go to 'add hardware', nor does it see the USB card reader I have installed on this machine. Is there something somewhere that need to be enabled?Thanks for any advice.

tylerward said: Windows does not let you see the other Hard Drive for a reason and it's so you can't mess with certain files that are locked via protection of the OS (locking files so they can't be opened and/or edited, etc). That's it, end of the story. ECS GeForce7050M-M (V2.0), AMD Athlon 64 X2 Dual-Core 5600+ (OC: 3.2GHz), 4GB OCZ Titanium XTC DDR2-800 Memory, Creative Audigy 2 ZS, EVGA 9500GT 512MB DDR2 (OC'ed) and 6GB Flash Disk for READYBOOST. Running Windows 7 beta build 7000. My Windows Experience Index (WEI) Score is: 5.3 Er.. I disagree. I did pretty much the same thing - I've got XP loaded on a 200 GB HDD, Vista loaded on a 320 GB drive and Win 7 loaded on an 80 GB drive. I also have an old 20 GB popped in with Vista Beta 2 - and I can access all the files on all 4 drives - provided I'm running using the SAME user name and as Administrator. There are occasionally folders (such as Program Files) that require a UAC boost to access, but no troubles otherwise. I'm sure that if you're using a standard non-admin user account, things WILL be blocked, however.

ssn696 said: Permit an amateur to bark among the big dogs. I installed a 2nd SATA drive for W7 and unplugged the first SATA and the IDE drive that has <cringe> W2K on it. After plugging in the IDE drive back in, W7 does not recognize it, even when I go to 'add hardware', nor does it see the USB card reader I have installed on this machine. Is there something somewhere that need to be enabled?Thanks for any advice.The real question you might want to ask - does the BIOS see theMIA hard drive after you plugged it back in? If the hardware can't see the drive, the software sure as heck won't either. Make sure the drive is physically plugged in correctly at both ends and the power is also plugged in.I'm also going to assume you can see the USB card reader when booted to another OS - so it's plugged in properly. Windows 7 does some stuff differently - when a drive is empty (i.e. has NO removable media) it hides the drive - at least on the left hand pane of Win Explorer. My DVD drive shows up only when there's a disc inserted into the drive.If you look in Device Manager, you should see the device listed as something - a USB mass storage device or a hub.

Kinda the same thing here. Dual booting XP Pro and 7. When running XP I can see and access the 7 partition, but when running 7, I cannot see or access the XP partition. What's up with that? I would like to be able to access personal files on the XP partition....Thanks.Rob

Bondr006,If you go into the managment console (right-click on Computer, select Manage) in Win 7, and go to the drive management snap-in, you should see the XP partition. Right-click on the XP partition and select "Change or Add Drive Letter" and assign the XP partition E: (or whatever the first available letter happens to be) and click OK... You should be able to see the XP stuff from there.

Thank you Wolfie. Life is good now....

Another question, as you stated aboveif thereis no media in the disc drive it doesn't recognise/show the drive.I have a new unformatted HD in the second slot, it shows up in the BIOS, and shows up in device manager, but is not shown in "my computer" how do you access the drive. After initial installation onbooting up a prompt came on screen saying the driveers for the hd were being installed but that is all.Please forgive my ignorance I haven't made a new machine for over 6 years and the technology got away from me.I'd also like to know how to adddestinations to "send to"

All of you heremust still be using the beta release because drives that were not being displayed by default in the betaare now displayed by default in the RC.

All of you heremust still be using the beta release because drives that were not being displayed by default in the betaare now displayed by default in the RC.

Another question, as you stated aboveif thereis no media in the disc drive it doesn't recognise/show the drive.I have a new unformatted HD in the second slot, it shows up in the BIOS, and shows up in device manager, but is not shown in "my computer" how do you access the drive. After initial installation onbooting up a prompt came on screen saying the driveers for the hd were being installed but that is all.Please forgive my ignorance I haven't made a new machine for over 6 years and the technology got away from me.I'd also like to know how to adddestinations to "send to" middlechamber - There's a couple of things to check..1.) Click the Start Orb, right-click on Computer and select Manage - click through the UAC prompt.2.) Click on Drive Managment in the Storage section on the left.3.) Once it's connected, look at the drives on the right. You should see the C:\ drive and you should see the other one there.Make sure the drive has a drive letter.. If not, follow the instructions I gave to give his XP partition a drive letter.If that still doesn't work - 4.) Open Windows Explorer and press the ALT key. 5.) Click Tools | Folder Options and click on the View tab.6.) Look for the check box next to the item that reads "Hide empty drives in the Computer Folder" and make sure it's NOT checked.7.) Click OK and restart Windows Explorer.Let us know how that goes...

Hi, I did the folder options before posting the question,thinking that was all I had to do, but also had to go into the manage section afterwards as you statedand muddled through new terminology with success. Thank you very much.Now any idea about adding locations to the "send to command"Another question because I had to build a newWS this week the old ws/server I had died after 10yrs of hard work.The OS I presently have on the new machine, just downloaded this past weekend 8/1 (says it's an evaluation copy and not "RC") is the EC same as the RC? Just as an aside note to a previous question Iposteda couple of weeks agoand may havesounded stupid concerningan install from the beta to rc when the trial was ending. When the prompt came on screen that the OS was ending, I clicked the link and was immediately brought to the download page, right to the section to select language and bit type. Unfortunatelywithout reading anything above that point because of the link directing me to the exact page location to download, all I did was select the parameters and download.If your not paying attention as I wasn't, and didn't read, anyone could have written over the existing OS or thought it was done. But, I did receive a prompt that stated I was going to lose all existing information if I proceeded with the install sothe hd was reformatted before therc was installed.

Gee, I can't find a "drive management snap-in" when i select manage

"Disk management" is afair the correct name (I'm running an non English version, so I can only tell what I remember)."A programmer is just a tool which converts caffeine into code" CLIP- Stellvertreter http://www.winvistaside.de/