I just got myself a brand new WD Caviar Blue SATA Hard Drive - WD5000AAKX-001CA0 which I purchased to use as a simple Data Storage drive as backup for my server and other internet files for my tractor site. My other WD 250gb Caviar blew up and it has taken me over 7 weeks to grab as much of the data as possible and now that drive is funtionally DOA. I can see it in Vista but I cannot access it because it says that there is 0 files and 0 space left. Like I said – DOA.
Because this drive was my primary computers main drive I have no way to mount the new drive in my computer - XP Pro does not recognize it either and since I do not want it to be my primary OS drive but simply a data drive I cannot format it at all. So I mounted it in an external USB Drive Bay. Vista however does not recognize the drive at all. It says that I have a WD5000AAKX-001CA0 when I try to remove the drive safely from my task tray but I cannot get the properties dialog box up with the format drive option. So I cannot format the drive so that it can be accessed.
In the old Data Lifeguard – 11 and below it was no problem setting the drive up or in the case of a drive needing to be brought back to factory specs - pretty simple - low level format, reboot and then set ithe drive up.
Ideas on how to get Vista to recognize the drive and then format it as an external usb drive? Thanks
