external 250BG drive not recognized by XP

[JB]

I just got an external 250GB (western digital drive) off of ebay but when I
plug it in the normal 'new hardware message' comes up but it doesn't install
correctly.

Any ideas before I start searches for new drivers?

Its an USB2.0/Firewire combo drive but I only have a USB1.0 connection. I
thought that would do until I get a new machine later this year. Could that
be the cause? I thought these were supposed to work on the older versions.

I'm also wondering if the previous owner formatted it in some form (say
apple) that's hosing me up here but that's a wild guess.

jb

[NoNoBadDog!]

JB;

You need to buy and install a USB2.0 card. The drives controller is
probably set to only work with a USB2.0 connection.

Bobby

"JB" > wrote in message
...
> I just got an external 250GB (western digital drive) off of ebay but when
I
> plug it in the normal 'new hardware message' comes up but it doesn't
install
> correctly.
>
> Any ideas before I start searches for new drivers?
>
> Its an USB2.0/Firewire combo drive but I only have a USB1.0 connection. I
> thought that would do until I get a new machine later this year. Could
that
> be the cause? I thought these were supposed to work on the older
versions.
>
> I'm also wondering if the previous owner formatted it in some form (say
> apple) that's hosing me up here but that's a wild guess.
>
> jb
>
>

[CS]

On Thu, 29 May 2003 16:56:48 -0500, "JB" > wrote:

>I just got an external 250GB (western digital drive) off of ebay but when I
>plug it in the normal 'new hardware message' comes up but it doesn't install
>correctly.
>
>Any ideas before I start searches for new drivers?
>
>Its an USB2.0/Firewire combo drive but I only have a USB1.0 connection. I
>thought that would do until I get a new machine later this year. Could that
>be the cause? I thought these were supposed to work on the older versions.
>
>I'm also wondering if the previous owner formatted it in some form (say
>apple) that's hosing me up here but that's a wild guess.

Hi JB:

I just logged on to the WD site (www.westerndigital.com) and looked up
your drive. (there's only one 250GB combo listed and I assume that's
the one you have.)

According to the specs, it's backwards compatible with USB 1.1 so
that's OK. The drive comes pre-formatted from the factory either as a
PC format or MAC format. So if the drive was ordered with the MAC
format, it would not be able to be used in a PC. Did you receive any
installation manuals, docs, anything at all from the seller?

Anyway, I recommend you go to the WD site yourself and look up your
drive. If you have any further questions about the drive, you can
give WD tech support a call. My experience with their support has
always been good, but like anything else "your mileage may vary".

Good luck.





You might wish to go to the Western Digital web site and look up your
drive. See if the drive is supported by XP natively or if it needs
drivers. The combo drive (250GB model) is

[Rose Faex]

I just got one of these, and use it with Firewire on a Mac.
It came formatted FAT32, so I had to reformat it, but I
also repartitioned it. I later tried to plug it into the
USB 1.1 port on my laptop running XP, and it saw the drive
(in disk mgmt tool), but wouldn't mount it. The WD web site
says that you can, in fact, move it back and forth between
Mac and PC, but it must be partitioned and formatted on the
PC, first. Then you can go format any other partitions you
want on a MAC. Otherwise, if it was partitioned on a Mac,
you get what I saw (and maybe what you saw).

So I'm guessing, here, that what you may have is a drive
that someone had formatted for Mac. You'd need to format
it for PC, and, in fact, you may need to run one of the
partition tools to set up the partition table so that the
PC can manage it. Don't remember what still comes with XP
these days - maybe FDISK? Or you may be able to partition
it with XP's Disk Management tool (haven't used that in
a while, I'm partial to Ranish - http://www.ranish.com/part/).

Rose