Big time rookie

I wish that I read some the posts here it might have save me a few headaches. Anyway I am in the process of reformatting, partition my passport . I have two healthy drives but my problem is downloading the driver and smartware. I get to a point and I get msgs that usb have to be disconnected. I have pulled every usb connection out and still get this msg. What gets me is the hard drive is working fine but with a Microsoft driver is this compatible???

Once again lost in space----Any help would be appreciated