Can an external HD be used as my primary HD?

Internal hd used as external storage with docking station problem?

• i have a docking station (recently acquired )that you can insert an ide/sata internal hard disc and use it as an external storage device (similar usage as a caddy but easy removal of h/d). i admit this docking station can be temperamental but it seems to work, i have used an ide h/d in it and this shows up in 'computer' (Windows 7). Today i acquired a sata external h/d (500gb off ebay) and tried it out in the docking station, unfortunately it is not recognised in 'computer' the docking station is recognised but not the sata h/d this sata h/d is recognised in 'device manager' and in 'disc management' so i thought i would 'format' it from there sadly on right clicking the largest partition (464gb) of the disc the only option i have is 'delete volume' and 'help' all the rest is greyed out. i have had this problem before but with a different device (R-Driver 3) which was a lead instead of a docking station, but thought the lead might be faulty. i have external hd bought already in a caddy and have no problem at all with them, why a problem with this. i originally bought this 'docking station' in case myself or a friend had a pc problem like not being able to load Windows but needed files/folder that were on their hd, but this would be pointless if you have to 'format' it. any help on this will be appreciated, thank you.

• Answer:

  Initially go to disk management and see if you can assign it a drive letter and see if it shows up if not I would go ahead and delete the volume - this should then convert it to free space and you can then format it and assign it a drive letter and your drive will be recognised HTH David