Laptop external drive query

[RBP]

Anyone help with this one?

I bought a cheap (mickey mouse ) external HDD case, found an old (unused ) 4GB ide? HDD, I want to use it for extra storage on an old laptop, running win2k.

I installed the Case software, then plugged in turned on, got the usual found new hardware etc, USB device.

My problem is I can't "see" the external HDD in the way I would see say a USB pen, as an E, or F drive.

This may be a simple ( stupid question ) does the new HDD need to be formatted?

I thought if I installed the software for the case onto the Laptop, then connected the HDD through the USB cable, the system would then ask me(ho ho) if I wanted to format the new drive. The instructions were vague. ( Chinese! I did say the case was cheap))

Can anyone help me? Thanks.

 

[wolluf]

Yes the drive does need to be partitioned/formatted (run diskmgmt.msc - it should appear in there).

 

[mainegeek]

RBP,
I agree with Wolluf, the drive most likely has no partition.

 

[RBP]

Sorry guys I can't actually "see" the external drive to run the diskmgmt.msc.

When I plug in the external drive, the card and green arrow icon appears in the systray, (hardware detected) but I cannot see an icon for it on "my computer" - like I would for a USB pen.

Would it be worth while adding the external drive to a spare pc, setting it as a slave, partitioning it, then putting it back into the External case?
sorry I'm asking more dim q's but as I said I can't RTFM because it's in chinese script.
Thanks.

 

[19753]

you say old laptop, what spec? because it could be that the external drive could be usb v2 and your laptop being only able to support usb v1

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[RBP]

Thanks xentras, I did wonder about that, so I tried the ext drive ( it is USB 2) on a newer pc, I still get the same effect.

 

[19753]

is the hard drive set to master?
but i think it would be worth trying to add it to your machine as slave to see if it actually works and is partitioned.


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[wolluf]

RBP - 'Sorry guys I can't actually "see" the external drive to run the diskmgmt.msc.'

I don't know if this is just a misunderstanding - but you run diskmgmt.msc in order to create a partition on the drive. Until you do this you can't 'see' it anywhere else - like explorer. If the drive doesn't appear in Disk management's window when you run it, then there is something wrong (xentraz's suggestion is good to check the drive is viable).

 

[RBP]

Thanks to all, finally got it going (on another pc), then on the laptop. It was set to master(correct) I formatted it through disk management.(finally)
All seems ok but for one small point. The disk only shows as 2GB, the makers info on the label says 3.45gb, it may be due to the fact the hdd is quite old, and win2k takes exception, still can't grumble, have 2GB temp storage, that otherwise would have gone in the skip/dumpster.
Thanks for all the help.

Until the next problem.......

 

[wolluf]

2GB - you didn't format it as FAT(16) did you - that has max partition size of 2GB.

 

[micker377]

2GB? I am currently using a 160gig hard drive, partitioned into 42gig partitions under Fat 32. When I access my DVD copy program, it says: "Fat32 cannot handle files larger than 4gigabytes in size". I do have an external drive which is NTFS that I use for this.

 

[RBP]

Wolluf - didn't format the drive as FAT 16 so don't know what the problem is. Will probably go out and but a cheap 80gb, and chuck the2/4gb? now I know how to install etc. Thanks to all for help.