Formatted sata HD with External Enclosure, but did not gve me a drive letter??help!!!

Discussion in 'PC hardware help' started by mikej3131, Apr 14, 2006.

  1. mikej3131

    mikej3131 Regular member

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    ok i put my internal western digital (OEM)hard drive into my external enclosure and plugged it in the usb port of my PC. i restarted my computer and opened up datalifeguard tools(western digitals formatting and partitioning software). Well it recognized the hard drive was in the usb port and i clicked on next to format and partition. Datalifeguard tools supposively partitioned andformatted the hard drive but when i went into "my computer", i did not see a drive letter for it.

    So what is going on, do i have to do another step?
     
    mikej3131, Apr 14, 2006
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  2. ddp

    ddp Moderator Staff Member

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    you have to load the sata drivers so windows sees the drive.
     
    ddp, Apr 15, 2006
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  3. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    for xp and windows 2000

    go to control panel,administrative tools,computer management,disk management,see if ye drive is listed there,if its there format the drive,by right clicking ye drive in the lower window..
    that where i format my drive when i use an external enclosure with a hard drive
     
    Last edited: Apr 15, 2006
    ireland, Apr 15, 2006
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  4. mikej3131

    mikej3131 Regular member

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    Well i already have sata drivers i think because i have two sata drives that i set up a month ago internally


    Hmmm i formatted the drve with datalifeguard tools. wouldnt that be the same thing if i did it under windows. its already formatted, should i format it again with windows?
     
    mikej3131, Apr 15, 2006
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  5. mikej3131

    mikej3131 Regular member

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    The drive isnt in disc management???? my comp isnt recognizing it? did datalifeguard not partition ?
     
    mikej3131, Apr 15, 2006
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  6. mikej3131

    mikej3131 Regular member

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    actually i did find it in disc management. it said sumthing about the drive not being(or being) allocated. i right clicked on it and then i clicked add partition. i aded the partition and then i cicked format. it is taking about 2 hours to format right now????

    It took datalifeguard tools about 5 minutes to format my other drive. why does windows take 60 times slower to format my a drive?

    Or is it because this drive i formatting with windows is a usb drive and the one i did in datalifeguard tools was connected through sata. the usb one i am doing now is OEM and the one i did with sata was Retail at best buy?
     
    mikej3131, Apr 15, 2006
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  7. ireland

    ireland Active member

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    windows is doing a full format,which is a 100% better..then a short format..then Datalifeguard tools does..
    cheers
     
    ireland, Apr 15, 2006
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  8. mikej3131

    mikej3131 Regular member

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    why is it better? my internal drive was formatted with datalifeguard tools, is it that much worse than windos that i should delete the partition and reformat with windows instead?

    After i format this with windows, i can plug and unplug this drive with usb right? i dont have to keep it plugged in do i?
     
    mikej3131, Apr 15, 2006
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