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Formatting Question

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boffo

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Dec 27, 2002
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I have a new hard drive that I've hooked up to an external USB SATA hard drive box that is also brand new.
When I connect it to the computer it gives that little piano key noise and goes new hardware found 80 gb WD USB hard drive etc.

But when I go into my computer to format the new drive it hasn't been given a drive address like D, E , F etc; so, I can't right click on it and then click on the format line to format the drive. In fact the new hard drive appears nowhere in my computer.

When I go into device driver, it's sitting there as a USB 80 GB external hard drive; but, I'm perplexed about how I'm supposed to format the new drive if I can't get Windows XP to show it up as a drive ID under 'my computer'.

Does anyone know how I can format this drive? Thanks for any input.
 
Is your XP up to date?

Did the drive come with any software?

Go to the manufacturer of the drive's website & see if there is a more current driver.
 
Depending on your OS, you might need to assign the drive letter first...
Tried right click on "my computer"-->select "manage"-->under "storage" and pick "disk management. then look for the unpartitoned disk & assign the drive letter.
 
You have to partition it before you can format it.

Control Panel\Administrative Tools\Computer Management\Disk Management then right click on the drive in the right window
 
Thirdtime has already provided the answer, but the question and answer was a good illustration of an opinion of mine.

I'm going to assume that Boffo is not a computer "old timer" (i.e. his computer use does not go back to the days of DOS). I think that anyone who goes back that far would have seen Thirdtime's solution. In fact, I still use DOS to partition and format new drives, rather than doing it from within XP (faster, and eliminates the potential for problems on bootup).

Computers and operating systems are like cars. They build them to be more "user friendly" at the cost of making them less user serviceable.

However, it's still is useful to know how a radiator works, what radiator hoses look like, and how to hook them up.

In other words, DOS knowledge has not quite lost all it's utility yet!
 
I agree that an old boot disk floppy with the DOS 'Format' and 'Fdisk' commands still has it's use. But Fdisk can be tricky if not intimidating to use for the unexperienced, and I know someone who selected the wrong 'disk' (drive) and accidentally blow away their system! I wouldn't suggest using it to a novice. DOS 'Format' also has the disadvantage it can't format in NTFS.
Doing it within Windows at least gives you the visual confirmation that you're working on the right drive!
 
Recently had bought 2 Seagate HDs that came with excellent software.
I had partitioned and formated HDs before using what came with XP which was OK but the Seagate software was even more easy to use.
 
Thanks for your response kt-ironman.
Quote from it:
"Pick disk management, then look for the unpartitoned disk & assign the drive letter."

Yes, I found the unpartitioned disk in disk management; but, was unable to figure out how to assign it a letter. Maybe you can do that; but, I wasn't bright enough to figure out how to do it. My intuitive hacking around led nowhere.

So, I followed stream of ideas from Thirdtime and that did the trick quickly.

Thanks for tossing that idea up in the air anyway.
 
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