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DIY computer upgrades: how do i install external hardrive

M

motorcityxj

NAXJA Forum User
Location
detroit suburbs
Ok i am dumb enough to not figure this out, not total idiot i built the computer my self a few years ago (2004). I just got a 320 gig western digital external hardriver from Bestbuy last night. No direction with it excpet how to plug it in. Thanks WD.

what ever i taught my self in 2004 i have fogoton, i seems i need to do something with fat32 partition, it doesnt show up on the "my computer" icon and i found some help on google but what it told me to do didnt work.

Any DIY computer nerd have any advice for me.

Thanks.
 
motorcityxj said:
Ok i am dumb enough to not figure this out, not total idiot i built the computer my self a few years ago (2004). I just got a 320 gig western digital external hardriver from Bestbuy last night. No direction with it excpet how to plug it in. Thanks WD.

what ever i taught my self in 2004 i have fogoton, i seems i need to do something with fat32 partition, it doesnt show up on the "my computer" icon and i found some help on google but what it told me to do didnt work.

Any DIY computer nerd have any advice for me.

Thanks.
Click to expand...

First and foremost - what interface, and what operating system? Critical points...
 
So, it should be a "driverless install" under XP, but the drive itself may not be set up - since they don't know if it's going to be used on WIntel or on a Mac.

Since I'm using Win2000Pro, you'll have to adjust this a bit...

Somewhere in your Start menu, Control Panel, you should see something like "Adminstrative Tools." Look in there for one called "Computer Management."

Inside there, you should see a "tree" of options - one of the main headings should be "Storage." Open it, and click on "Disk Management."

You should see a graphic of your local hard drives, their partition names, drive letter, partition type, and capacity. You should see a block that is "hashed out" with no letter assigned or partition type - that should be your WD drive. (DO NOT make any changes on the paritions with letters, unless you want to reload your operating system...)

Right-click on the "hashed-out" partition, you should get a setup option for it. I think WinXP still uses FAT32 - which should suit the 300Gb partition you want to create. Once you have the partition created, you can format it, and handle it just like any other drive.

BE SURE YOU STOP THE DRIVE if you ever need to unplug it - Windoze does a lot of "housekeeping" on a drive to dismount it, and failing to do the housekeeping can lose you a LOT of data!
 
dspilot said:
:worship: 5-90 continues to amaze me. Is there anything you can't do?
Click to expand...

Well, I can't give birth to children, and I can't fly without mechanical assistance. Other than that, I haven't run into much - to be perfectly honest.

Granted, that advice is for Win2000 (as I'd said,) so if anyone can "fine-tune" it to apply to WinXP, I'd appreciate it. I don't have any tech experience with WinXP - I haven't been impressed enough to bother upgrading... I suppose I'm going to end up having to go to Vista sometime in the next year or so (damn!) and I'm getting tired of all this "feature creep" in OSs.

Interestingly, Vista ships on a DVD, instead of a regular CD-ROM. How much hard drive space does this thing take up?!?

(You know, there are advantages to a chequered past...)
 
5-90 said:
Well, I can't give birth to children, and I can't fly without mechanical assistance.
Click to expand...

Well, I can't give birth to children...



:D
 
thanks 5-90, that confirms something, a google search prior to asking got me to the point you directed me to. I already have two small hard drives. This external one will back both them up as it is big enough to store everything on my two internal little drives combined.

I see one "hashed out" drive. Its currently my D drive aka my second internal hard drive.

(the reason i am doing this is i had my boot drive (a nice new maxtor) die on me un annouced last year (only lasted 1 1/2 years) so i want to back up all my videos, and Mp3s and pictures a few times a year.

As i understand i should see a E drive but dont.

Do usb drives fail?

How do i confirm my motherboard supports USB 2, i didnt buy a cheap board but anything is possible.
 
motorcityxj said:
thanks 5-90, that confirms something, a google search prior to asking got me to the point you directed me to. I already have two small hard drives. This external one will back both them up as it is big enough to store everything on my two internal little drives combined.

I see one "hashed out" drive. Its currently my D drive aka my second internal hard drive.

(the reason i am doing this is i had my boot drive (a nice new maxtor) die on me un annouced last year (only lasted 1 1/2 years) so i want to back up all my videos, and Mp3s and pictures a few times a year.

As i understand i should see a E drive but dont.

Do usb drives fail?

How do i confirm my motherboard supports USB 2, i didnt buy a cheap board but anything is possible.
Click to expand...

Question, when you boot the machine does the bios see it ? If not you need to update your bios. What model MB is it ?
If it does, right click my computer, device manager, see if the drive is in there. If yes select disc manager, the drive should be about disc 3 or 4, you need to do a partition and format it..
 
dspilot said:
:worship: 5-90 continues to amaze me. Is there anything you can't do?
Click to expand...

werd.gif

Billy
 
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