I just purchased a new (old stock) WD RE4 250gb and wanted to set it up using my USB adapter. But with power to the drive and the adapter plugged into the USB port, the drive isn’t recognized by the computer (WinXP). I wonder if this just isn’t possible to do, or are there certain instructions I need to know to make it work this way.
I just noticed that this new hard drive is recognized in Disk Management, I just wasn’t scrolling down enough to see it. But it’s not showing up in My Computer (WinXP).
Being this is a 3.5 inch drive you may not have adequate power to it from just the USB port alone. You may need an adapter that has an external source for powering it up properly.
New drives usually need to be partitioned and then formatted. If you can indeed see it from Windows Disk Manager then you should be able to partition and format it IF it is powered up properly.
If you’ve not done this before this link may be of some help.
This is for windows 10 but XP should be pretty close to being done the same way. You already know how to open the Disk Management so have at it and good luck. Just remember a new drive has no lettered (D:) designation in XP until it has been partitioned and formatted. You won’t see it it in My Computer until then. Make sure the drive you are about to set up is the CORRECT drive.
Once I found the device in Disk Management, I was able to initialize it. I created a partition and tried to format the partition. But Format would start and then fail after a few minutes with a non specific error message. I tried two or three times but it was obvious that in Disk Management I wouldn’t be able to format the disk. I wonder if this had something to do with the USB connection and WinXP. BTW, my USB adapter uses line power so that was never an issue. Next I started up Partition Magic 8 and was
able to format the partition without a problem.
So at this point all’s well, and thanks flhthemi for the help.
Hey! I love success stories!
I was gonna say try doing things on a Win 10 box but sounds like you made it work!
Atta Boy! You earned it!
