It probably just needs 'initialising' in disk management?
Right-click on 'My Computer', and select 'Manage'.
In the new window which opens, click on 'Disk Management' under the 'Storage' menu on the left.
All available drives - including the external drive, should now be seen in the lower right window (Disk 0, Disk 1 etc)?
You'll notice that "Disk 0", "Disk 1" etc, is contained in a small box, with the partition information in a longer box to the right?
The external drive will either be Disk 1 or Disk 2 - depending on whether you have additional partitions?
If necessary, you can double-check which one it is, by unplugging the drive from the USB port, and plugging it back in again :emotion-55:
Once you've confirmed which one it is, right click on the smaller box - i.e. 'Disk 1". You should see the option to 'Initialise' it in the pop-up menu?
Once it's been initialised - and assigned a drive letter, you should now be able to use it like any other drive?
You don't want to (re-) format the drive really, because (re-) formatting the drive will wipe any utilities the drive manufacturer has included on the drive.
External drives are pre-formatted using FAT32 at the factory (for the purpose of compatibility with older OS and other external devices), so they don't need formatting.
If you find that information hard to follow (and although I'm confident the info is correct, I'm doing it from memory, since I don't have an external drive which needs initialising), see this 'How to Initialize a new hard drive' video.
You can subsequently follow the process step-by-step, pausing the video as/when necessary if needs be :emotion-5:
TheRealFireblad
3 Apprentice
•
4.6K Posts
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December 7th, 2009 04:00
It probably just needs 'initialising' in disk management?
Right-click on 'My Computer', and select 'Manage'.
In the new window which opens, click on 'Disk Management' under the 'Storage' menu on the left.
All available drives - including the external drive, should now be seen in the lower right window (Disk 0, Disk 1 etc)?
You'll notice that "Disk 0", "Disk 1" etc, is contained in a small box, with the partition information in a longer box to the right?
The external drive will either be Disk 1 or Disk 2 - depending on whether you have additional partitions?
If necessary, you can double-check which one it is, by unplugging the drive from the USB port, and plugging it back in again :emotion-55:
Once you've confirmed which one it is, right click on the smaller box - i.e. 'Disk 1". You should see the option to 'Initialise' it in the pop-up menu?
Once it's been initialised - and assigned a drive letter, you should now be able to use it like any other drive?
You don't want to (re-) format the drive really, because (re-) formatting the drive will wipe any utilities the drive manufacturer has included on the drive.
External drives are pre-formatted using FAT32 at the factory (for the purpose of compatibility with older OS and other external devices), so they don't need formatting.
If you find that information hard to follow (and although I'm confident the info is correct, I'm doing it from memory, since I don't have an external drive which needs initialising), see this 'How to Initialize a new hard drive' video.
You can subsequently follow the process step-by-step, pausing the video as/when necessary if needs be :emotion-5: