Unrecognized device

I am trying to set up an external hard drive. After installing everything and plugging it into power and plugging USB cable in and turning HD on: A mesage keeps appearing at the lower right hand corner (Unrecognized device). Any ideas on a fix for this.
Thanks Eric

 

Right click Computer or My Computer and select Properties >Disk Management.

See if the drive is initialized or not. If not, right click and initialize. The wizard should then come up to partition and format.

 

I am running Windows XP Professional.... I tried what you suggested but it just took me to System Properties. I am I doing something wrong?

Thank you

 

Open control Panel -> Administrative tool -> Computer management -> Storage -> Disk managment

Your external drive should be listed in there. Right click on it to create partitions and format.

 

I am sorry, I gave the wrong info. Do what Tueur suggested. I should have said right click My Computer and select Manage then Disk Management. :-o Thanks for posting that Tueur.

 

i tried tat but it is not listed. when ever I turn the power on to the external drive, the "unrecognized device" pops up in the lower right hand corner of my screen.
thank you for you help.
Eric

 

Is this the error you receive?. If it is unplug your external drive,unplug your computer and also the battery if it is a laptop. Hold down the power button for 30 seconds. Then replace the battery and plug the computer back in. Power on and then connect the external drive. Does it detect it?

 

No I am not trying to install windows on an external drive. My motherboard on my old computer went so I bought a refurbished Computer. Thos one is a Mini Tower/desktop. Where my other one was a tower model. The place I usually go to suggested I get the external enclosure and use the 160 GB HD as a backup which was my plan but the new computer does not recognize the device(HD).

 

Did you try the link in post#7 and have you tried to connect the external drive to another computer? Try plugging the external drive into the back USB port and see if that works.