System: Dell XPS 400 running XP Media Center, 2.8GHz Duo-Core, 2GB Ram, Nvidia 7800GTX, 250GB SATA Primary HD, 500GB SATA Secondary HD.

My Problem: I did a clean install of the OS. Before doing so, I moved a bunch of files from my primary HD to my secondary HD and then physically removed the secondary HD from the computer. After the OS installation was complete, I reinstalled the secondary HD. The HD is recognized in the BIOS and it shows up in disk manager, however, windows will not assign it a DRIVE letter which means I can't access the drive. When I right click the drive in disk manager, the option to change the drive letter is grayed out. I have spent several hours on the phone with Dell support technicians and they were not able to solve my problem. Does anyone have any ideas how I can get a drive letter assigned to the drive, short of reformatting it? Any help would be greatly appreciated. I am at wits end with this.

The drive in question is a Seagate 500 GB Internal SATA Barracuda 7200.9.

BTW, I ran the Seagate TROUBLESHOOTING tools and no problems were identified with the drive. I'm quite sure this is a software problem.

Thanks for your help!Does it already have its own letter?
Have you tried changing the drive jumpers?
What drive are you booting from? The recently formatted one, or the backup one? It does not have its own drive letter. (The drive shows up in the Disk Management tool, but not in explorer.)

The drive jumpers have been changed and all of the CABLES have also been checked. There is no need to apply master/slave order as these are SATA drives.

The drive I am booting off of is the recently formatted y 250GB drive. The drive in question is the 500GB Seagate.

I am fairly convinced this is a software issue as numerous hardware integrity tests have indicated the drive functions properly. Also, I should mention the drive worked fine before the reinstall of XP.

Any advice would be very appreciated.Have you tried Add/Remove Hardware?When you look at the drive in disk manager how big of a drive does it show? How many gigs.

The reason you are getting this is because the tools for this drive for your operating system to see a 500 GIG drive is not loaded. Disk manger knows you have a drive there but can't read the drive without the tools so it doesn't give a drive letter.

I would GO to segates web site and look for the drive tools.

http://www.seagate.com/www/en-us/support/downloads/



Were the SATA drivers re-installed after the clean install of Windows ? ?

If you right clik it in Disk Management and select Properties what is reported ? ?