Usb external hard drive?

Question

i connect a WD 160 gb on my win xp laptop...it recognizes the connection but no where to be found in "my computer". it is located in the laptop hard drive " C" under hardware location O! it shows tthe following in properties:

disk type: unknown;

status unreadable;

partition: not applicable

capicity 0 mb

unalocated space 0 mb

reserved space 0 mb

plse help me to get this working so i can start using it.

thanks in advance

i don't know what is the next proper step to take to start using the external hard drive. Plse help.

Answer 1

Click Start, Right click My computer, click Manage. Click Disk management. You should find your WD 160 gb drive there. Click on the drive letter of your new drive. On the top menu, click Action> All Tasks> Format. After formatting, you should find your new drive when you click "My computer".

Answer 2

Hello From the tech:

First thing to check is that the drive is set to be a slave somewhere there should be a setting of master and slave.  If it is set to master it will bump your regular drive out. Try a reboot after ensuring slave and the drive may be picked up by windows and you can format it by right clicking on the drive from My Computer and choosing Format.  If the drive was used it could be seperated already if it was a used drive. make sure if it is to format all segments before using

Second you need to format the drive you can either go to the Western Digital Site and download a Floppy that will allow you to boot from and walk you through a format.  You could also do it by going into windows set up with a set up disk and follow through set up till you find the disk letters choose the E or F what ever it allocates the drive to and just select it and choose make directory that way......once it has formed the alocation of size then just reboot the computer *** REMEMBER TO CHOOSE ONLY E OR F DRIVE *** NOT C: OR IT WILL WIPE OUT YOU WINDOWS.***  The web site and floppy will  be the easiest but your laptop must have a floppy drive, and it will show as that drive in you windows root system.....remember this drive will not show under C: it will be a different letter E or F....D will be set for your CD or DVD depending on what you have.

Hope this helps, Have a gr8 day.

NightHawk

Answer 3

when the external hd is plugged in and turned on

go to start and right click my computer

then click manage this will bring up a window

on the left side look for disk management and click on it

after that on the right side scroll down to your external hd

right click it and select change drive letter and paths

then another box will appear

change the drive letter to x or q or something like that

then click yes

if it doesnt work try all the rest of the letters avaliable

if THAT doesnt work id get a refund

Answer 4

Control Panel...Administrative Tools...Computer Managemen...use disk management on left...format the drive, make it active