At Fixya.com, our trusted experts are meticulously vetted and possess extensive experience in their respective fields. Backed by a community of knowledgeable professionals, our platform ensures that the solutions provided are thoroughly researched and validated.
Does the disk show up under My Computer? If so then right-click it and select "Format Disk" and format it in NTFS. If it does not view this link and follow the instructions to get that disk active...http://support.microsoft.com/kb/309000
- If you need clarification, ask it in the comment box above.
- Better answers use proper spelling and grammar.
- Provide details, support with references or personal experience.
Tell us some more! Your answer needs to include more details to help people.You can't post answers that contain an email address.Please enter a valid email address.The email address entered is already associated to an account.Login to postPlease use English characters only.
Tip: The max point reward for answering a question is 15.
RIGHT click on my computer go to properties go to disk management find your HDD there see whether it is formatted properly or not if not format and allocate drives to it done
If you have tried it on two PCs with the same result, the hard drive is most likely defective. If so, the computer may recognize it being plugged in with a beep but will not recognize it at all as an accessible device.
One thing you can check is if the hard drive was never initialized, meaning that there is empty space but the empty space isn't configured for the operating system to recognize and use. To do this:
- Go to "Start" and "Run" and type in "diskmgmt.msc" and hit "Enter". - A list will pop-up listing all hard drives on computer. Each row is a physical hard drive. - The main hard drive for your computer should be listed as "Disk 0" and the local disk in it should be "C:". - Assuming you have no other hard drive besides the external, the next row should be "Disk 1" and say "Unallocated", which means the hard drive was never initialized. In this case, right-click on it and select "Format". Click next through everything and the external HDD will be formatted so that Windows can recognize it. - MAKE SURE NOT TO FORMAT LOCAL DISK C:! - After that, the external HDD should be recognized fine and pull up in "My Computer".
Otherwise, if no other hard drive is listed, the external HDD is most likely defective and you will need to purchase a new one.
You'll need to check and see if the disk is formatted and recognized as a logical disk. To do this, Go to Start, and locate the Run option, and type in diskmgmt.msc or you can go to My Computer, right-click it and select "Manage" from the popup menu. Then, at the bottom of the list to the left, you'll see the Disk Management submenu. Once you're in the Disk Management applet, click on the WD from the list of available hard drives from the list, and see if the partition is recognized as formated. If it's not formated you may need to format it. If the disk is recognized as RAW disk, then you'll need to first create an extended partition and then format it with NTFS file system. REMEMBER, if you can access the drive from another computer and it's recognized properly in Explorer, then formating it will erase all data on the disk. But if you never used it before (i.e you dont have any data on it) then you can go ahead with the formatting, which should solve your problem if it's a software issue. If you heard your disk clicking for a while in the past, and you had problems with it: slow reading of files, sluggish in copying files etc. then your hard drive may be mechanically failing and in this case there's nothing you can do to save it. If this is the case and you still have warranty, return the disk to where you bought it from, and ask for a replacement.
If this was informative and helpful please vote with a Thumb Up. Thank you.
Choose
a File System (NTFS is ideal most cases) and give the new volume a name
if you choose. You might like to call it something like "Portable
Drive," or "Removeable Drive." If not, just take the defaults and click
"OK."
You
will get one last warning that you are about to format your drive and
erase all data. Click OK to proceed. When you see the process has
reached 100%, you are done and you're new external hard drive is ready
to use!
Download and install Partition Wizard on your computer.
Put the USB in, and open up Partition Wizard. Click on the 1GB drive, now on the left side click format. On the top left click Apply and wait. once done your USB is formatted and open. Hope this helps.
×