My friend left his OPERATING SYSTEM disk at my house and when my computer got sick I Formatted MY Hard drive with his disk!!Being that he also had a Gateway (not the exact same model and 3 years older)with XP PROFESSIONAL MEDIA CENTER EDITION ON IT, the disk got confused with mine and I installed his, I have a 2007 Gateway gt5220 with (AMD Athlon 64-X2 3800+ DUAL CORE 2.0GHz- 2x 512KB L2CACHE)-------(2000MHz SYSTEM BUS)-(MEMORY-1024 MB DDR2 DUEL CHANNEL)-250 GB HARD DRIVE-(NVIDIA 6150LE)and DVD+/-RW MULTI FORMAT DOUBLE LAYER-ULTRA SPEED BURNER. I'm using Roxio Creator 2009 Special Edition to convert AVI's to Mpeg2 and the Burn. WHY is it taking me an hour and 15minutes to convert then an hour and a half to encode and burn a 2 hour movie? PLZ PLZ SOMEBODY HELP I've tried every thing I know which isn't much but that cant be right something has got to be wrong. I went to gateway's site and downloaded the drivers but they are 4 years old from GATEWAY.COM

Sounds like the hard drive has been formatted, and there is no operating system. You will need a installation disc for an operating system to get past this message. As it is now, your computer will not boot from the hard drive.

It could be that the hard drive isn't formatted, there could be a driver conflict, or several other reasons. Did the drive work before and it just stopped working? That might indicate a drive failure. Try the drive in another computer and see if that computer recognizes the drive. If it does, then there is some problem with your computer and the cable and drive are OK. Try it again with a new USB cable. Attach the drive to your computer, then go to Control Panel/Computer Management/Storage/Disk Management and see if the disk is not present in the upper part of the window, but there is a disk listed in the lower part of the window that has a size that is the same as your USB disk, but no blue partition bars with the words Healthy Primary Partition underneath. That condition would mean that the disk (if new) hasn't been formatted and partitioned to be visible to the operating system. Find a friend or a teenager with computer skills to help you diagnose the problem further, as after these simple tests, there is no simple answer.

new hard drive needs to be formatted before software can be installed on the hard drive. you need to use advanced setting on the software installation, and then format hard drive.

Just by installing a new operating system, your hard drive will be wiped (formatted). Find your disk management on your Windows 7 computer and you can find a "format" option. Take care.. Once you format a drive, it has NOTHING left on it. It won't even boot the computer back up..

Turn your computer on and plug the external hard drive into the computer.

Open "Computer Management" by clicking "Start," "Control Panel," "System and Security," "Administrative Tools" and "Computer Management."

Click "Disk Management" in the left pane under "Storage."

Locate your external drive from the list of hard drives connected or installed on your computer.

Right-click the drive and select "Format."

Select a file format from the drop-down menu. Choose "NTFS" if you will be using the external hard drive with a computer that uses Windows 7, Windows Vista or Windows XP.

If you will be using the hard drive with an older version of Windows, select "FAT32."

This is a much less common format.

Click "OK" twice and your external drive is formatted. Once the drive is formatted, it is properly set up to be used with your computer.

hope this helps

hi

follow these instructions

Instructions Things You'll Need:

• Windows installation media (and product key)
• Manufacturer software

1. Ensure that the hard disk is installed properly in the laptop. The drive cannot be formatted before it is installed, or if it's not installed correctly.
   

2. Gather the required software. The type of media will depend on the hardware in your laptop. Older computers without a CD-ROM drive, will require the use of the operating system floppy disks. Laptops that can run Windows XP require the installation CD and product key. Older versions of Windows also have disk-formatting capability in the installation process, and the installation media is either a CD or floppy disk.
   

3. Place the installation disk or manufacturer software in the drive and then boot the computer. Early in the installation process, the Windows installer has a step that will detect any installed hard disks and allow for them to be formatted. The software from the disk manufacturer will also detect the hard disk and give you the option to format the drive.
   

4. Determine which file system is to be used. Windows XP will either work on a NTFS file system or an older VFAT file system. Choose the desired file system when prompted.
   

5. Decide whether the whole disk should be formatted or if the disk will be partitioned and each partition to be formatted separately. The Windows installer includes a menu-driven utility that will create hard disk partitions before formatting. If the hard disk is being formatted to replace an existing Windows installation, delete the existing partitions and re-create them.
   

6. Format the hard disk with the Windows installer when prompted. The Windows installer will let you know when it is time to format the disk and ask for confirmation.
   

this should help you.

Hello,

What you should do is, depending on your operating system,
Right-Click on 'My Computer Icon', then select 'Manage'.

When you get to Computer Management page,

Click on Disk Management on left hand side,

This will display ALL the disks installed on your system, either

partitioned or not partitioned, formatted or not formatted.

Then go to the ones that are hidden, not created, or not displayed,

right-click on it, then you'll see different actions that you can

perform.

Also, in some instances, what you just need to do when you get to

this page is to assign a new, distinct, drive letter apart from the

ones already in use on the system.

This will automatically bring out the hidden drives.

Kindly keep me posted about the problem and let me know how it goes

Hope this helps you out.

Thank you for using fixya.

Goodluck

Ensure that the hard disk is installed properly in the laptop. The drive cannot be formatted before it is installed, or if it's not installed correctly.

Step 2

Gather the required software. The type of media will depend on the hardware in your laptop. Older computers without a CD-ROM drive, will require the use of the operating system floppy disks. Laptops that can run Windows XP require the installation CD and product key. Older versions of Windows also have disk-formatting capability in the installation process, and the installation media is either a CD or floppy disk.

Step 3

Place the installation disk or manufacturer software in the drive and then boot the computer. Early in the installation process, the Windows installer has a step that will detect any installed hard disks and allow for them to be formatted. The software from the disk manufacturer will also detect the hard disk and give you the option to format the drive.

Step 4

Determine which file system is to be used. Windows XP will either work on a NTFS file system or an older VFAT file system. Choose the desired file system when prompted.

Step 5

Decide whether the whole disk should be formatted or if the disk will be partitioned and each partition to be formatted separately. The Windows installer includes a menu-driven utility that will create hard disk partitions before formatting. If the hard disk is being formatted to replace an existing Windows installation, delete the existing partitions and re-create them.

Step 6

Format the hard disk with the Windows installer when prompted. The Windows installer will let you know when it is time to format the disk and ask for confirmation.

Hello

1. Step 1 Ensure that the hard disk is installed properly in the laptop. The drive cannot be formatted before it is installed, or if it's not installed correctly.
   
2. Step 2 Gather the required software. The type of media will depend on the hardware in your laptop. Older computers without a CD-ROM drive, will require the use of the operating system floppy disks. Laptops that can run Windows XP require the installation CD and product key. Older versions of Windows also have disk-formatting capability in the installation process, and the installation media is either a CD or floppy disk.
   
3. Step 3 Place the installation disk or manufacturer software in the drive and then boot the computer. Early in the installation process, the Windows installer has a step that will detect any installed hard disks and allow for them to be formatted. The software from the disk manufacturer will also detect the hard disk and give you the option to format the drive.
   
4. Step 4 Determine which file system is to be used. Windows XP will either work on a NTFS file system or an older VFAT file system. Choose the desired file system when prompted.
   
5. Step 5 Decide whether the whole disk should be formatted or if the disk will be partitioned and each partition to be formatted separately. The Windows installer includes a menu-driven utility that will create hard disk partitions before formatting. If the hard disk is being formatted to replace an existing Windows installation, delete the existing partitions and re-create them.
   
6. Step 6 Format the hard disk with the Windows installer when prompted. The Windows installer will let you know when it is time to format the disk and ask for confirmation.
   
7. Hope this can help you, kind regards, andrea
   

Yes, it can be used that way. Do you already have an operating system installed on your first drive?

Disk can be formatted after installing operating system on the first disk or prior to installation if you intend to install the operating system on this disk.