i'm having problems configuring a disk in a brand new, clean windows-7 install. here are some system specifics-

. disk- western digital velociraptor wd6000hlhx . mobo- gigabyte z77x-ud3h . bios sata-mode set to ahci [not raid], w/disk connected to sata0 [6gb/s hi-speed sata]. . windows 7 enterprise sp1 x64

the disk is recognized by bios and correctly identified [name & size ok].

the disk is also recognized by windows on a h/w level, but it won't show up in the explorer. windows reports the device is working correctly.

windows disk manager shows the drive, but says it's uninitialized and has no partitions [which is incorrect]. if i try to initialize the drive, windows throws an error saying that it "cannot find the file specified". [which file???]

before connecting the drive to the new machine, i partitioned and formatted the disk under windows xp sp2, giving it 2 partitions [mbr, not gpt] and copying over a boatload of data. obviously none of this appears under windows 7. removing the disk from the new machine and replacing it back in the windows xp machine shows the disk and all data are intact and functional.

i'd like to have windows 7 recognize the disk w/o having to lose the data and start over. is this possible? if so, how would i do that?

I checked this post, but even though the problem seems identical, the information didn't help.

any help appreciated.

thanks!