External HDD

hey guys i just bought an ultra external enclosure with a 250 gb seagate hd from tigerdirect.com i set it up (meaning put all the pieces together) but when i plug it into the pc, it is recognized through usb but doesnt appear in my computer. the question is do i format the hd by removing it from the enclosure or do i format it through the usb. if through the usb, how do i do that?

 

You mean the drive icon does not appear on MY COMPUTER? What OS do you have?

 

i am using windows xp. i know this may sound stupid but where do i open computer management from?

 

any external hd i ever used is already formated to use out of the box..it should also come with a cd with drivesr if ye need it

computer management is in control panel administrative tool them computer mgr. then disk management

 

Had a similar problem. Connected a 300gig Seagate SATA hdd via usb 2.0.
It didn't show on "My Computer" page. Although it did show up in device
manager, also if I right clicked any of the drives on "My Computer" page and clicked hardware it showed up as a mass storage device, when I clicked to populate, it said unreadable. Went to "Disk Management" through the control panel, found a reference for "usb mass storage" Right clicked> format. Once it formated, all was good. Hope this leads you in a good direction.
Joe

 

You should have gotten a disc with your hard drive. If you connect the drive through USB (I have done this several times building external HD's with maxtor and western digital drives)and then insert the disc it should walk you through the process of getting windows to recognize your drive.

 

try to install the standard drivers from xp through control panel-system-hardware tab-device manager. find your device and click update driver at the top of the device manager box. see if it finds any standard drivers that will get it to load.

 

Yes, you can format through the USB.Go to control panel, Double click
Admin. Tools, then Computer Management, then Storage, then Disk Management [local] your usb mass storage device should be there under the volume column. Right click and from the dropdown choose format. After the format complets your storage device should show up in "My Computer" Good luck.
Joe

 

k i got it but one last question wil formatting through quick format make the hd slower than formatting by a complete format?