Accessing HDD with Freedos installed from OS installed on SSD

Question

I recently bought a Gigabyte P25W v2 that came with FreeDos installed on an internal HDD. As a promotional offer, I also received an mSATA SSD drive, which I installed immediately. I installed Windows 7 on that drive, hoping to use the other as storage.

I have no problem booting to Windows on the SSD, but I'm not able to use the HDD, I can see it as a system disk in disk management but I can't format it and it's not shown under "Computer".

What could cause this and how can I format that HDD ? Would changing the boot order in the BIOS (I think the order is DVD drive-HDD-SSD but I haven't checked, I'm not at home) be of any use ?

If more information is needed, please do not hesitate to comment. Thanks in advance for your answers !

Answer 1

Fixed it !

As far as I understood it, my HDD was 1st in boot order in the BIOS, so Windows installed some booting information on it (MBR?) and the OS on the SSD. What I did to fix the problem :

• Used the Windows installation disk to format the HDD (couldn't do it from the disk management utility in Windows as the disk was considered a System disk)
• Physically removed the HDD from the computer
• Reinstalled Windows on the SSD
• Put the HDD back in place

I now have Windows on the SSD and I can use the HDD as storage disk in Windows.