My external harddrive wont show up on vista (brand new harddrive)

[tentoes]

i bought the harddrive and it is read in the system i guess, it pops up as safely remove hardware, but nothing shows up in the somputer settings. whats going on, the drivers are up to date and correct... im confused.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Do you see the drive under Disk Management when it's plugged in?

Start>Run>diskmgmt.msc>Ok

 

[tentoes]

yes it says 74.53 (only 80 gig harddrive.) unallocated

disk 1
unitialized

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Right click on the drive and initialize it.

 

[tentoes]

its says use the following partition style
MBR (master boot record)
GPT (GUID Partition Table)

which one?

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

MBR I'd assume.

 

[tentoes]

ok nothing happend...then agian it doesnt help i have no idea what im doing. i have a disk 1
basic
74.53 GB
unallocated
and

Disk 0
basic
74.53 GB
online

yet the one i bought doesnt appear to be on here i have a main hardrive split for data and for ACER C: and i have a CD-ROM O the only thing on here is three drives one has 9.76 GB free (100%) the ACER has 3.81 (11%) and the data has 27.22 (84%) thats all so the external does not appear to be on here... im very confused sorry.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I can't really understand what you're saying.

If the external hard drive you bought isn't detected by Windows, try a known working USB port. If it's still not being detected or it can't be initialized you might have a defective drive. Consider having it replaced.

If however, it is being detected, you'll probably have to format the drive after it's been initialized.

 

[tentoes]

i found the drive, its there the only options it gives me is properties and help when i right click. sorry about the confusion.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

It's okay.

Look under "My Computer". If you see the drive here, right click it and click "Format...". Do not click the "Quick Format" option.

 

[tentoes]

its not in "My Computer" im running vista in just in case you didnt know

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

If it's not there then its either not being detected by Windows or it's not initialized. I believe you should automatically be prompted to initialize the HDD when you open the diskmgmt.msc utility. If that isn't happening, you may have a defective HDD. Try to get it replaced.

 

[tentoes]

thank you for the help, ill do that.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

You could always try the drive in another PC or wait for someone else to respond.

There was someone posting here a day or two ago with the same issue (their external HDD wouldn't initialize), they replaced theirs and I assume it solved their problem because I don't believe they have posted back.

 

[tentoes]

hmmmm... well its worth a go, im going to tinker with his for a while until i feel like throwing it agianst a wall... or someone else responds to this. ill look the other up. thanks.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Throwing it against the wall would probably void any warranty you have . Though, it'd be quite the stress reliever I'm sure.

 

[tentoes]

http://www.jakeludington.com/hadware_upgrades/20040909_diy_external_hard_drive.html

this was the answer to my question i just didnt know how to bring up the graphicical on te bottom of the drive manager. all the info was there and its no longer partition its well i forget now, yeah go me right. anyways for all those readingn this go to this site this guy does a god job of telling you what you need to do (mainly because its done with pictures... yeah i really needed those!)

well good luck

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

Welp, congratulations.

 

[tentoes]

hey can you answer another question? it has to do with alcohol 120% and mounting a .iso i can mount it i can install the game then when it comes time to play it the comp. doesnt recognize the mount as a cd. im in korea so i dont have access to any blanks right now.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

I'm going to go ahead and assume that you are just making a backup of a game that you currently own .

I'm unfamiliar with Alcohol 120%'s mounting software. I've never had a reason to use it. Try something like ISO Recorder v3 or Virtual CloneDrive.

 

[tentoes]

good assumption

thanks for the advice.

 

[Matthew DeCarlo]

No problem...

 

[tentoes]

good assumption

thanks for the advice