Having issues installing a 3rd hd please help.

They can't format the drive. When it's installed the computer won't boot. That's why I think it may be a bad drive.

Are you getting an error when the computer refuses to boot such as "OS not found" or anything like that?

NavyLCDR said:

Are you getting an error when the computer refuses to boot such as "OS not found" or anything like that?

No nothing like that, just a infinite boot

lopedoggie said:

Re-format the drive then, create one partition the size of the drive. In disk management you will have to designate a drive letter for your new hd drive. Do not install any OS on this drive unless you want to later. The drive should now be a storage device and not a boot device and should appear as such on your machine.

I can't partition the drive because I can't boot with it plugged in

Kleyton said:

No nothing like that, just a infinite boot

Sounds like it needs to be replaced since you don't have another computer to try it in. Although, one more question, what mode are your disk controllers set for in bios? IDE, AHCI, or Raid? Raid might be the problem.

Yeah sounds like a damaged drive then. If it has bad blocks the system will try to read them over and over again causing the system to appear to hang up. If you have the option to send it back under an RMA for dead on arrival I'd go that route. Even if you did manage to get it to work the bad blocks/sectors would be a problem. Where did you get it from, new from a store or used from 3rd party source?

At first I thought it was just an uninitialized drive but since you can't even boot up the system and taking that drive out allows the PC to boot up then the drive is mostly likely a drink coaster or door stop.

I may have missed this, but have you tried booting with just this drive as the only (and primary) drive in the system? If it still won't boot, I would say it is a bad drive.

DeaconFrost said:

I may have missed this, but have you tried booting with just this drive as the only (and primary) drive in the system? If it still won't boot, I would say it is a bad drive.

alright I appreciate the help then as I'm going to now assume the drive itself is bad