Missing motherboard or other drivers. Not something to pin the blame on anyone but Microsoft for that issue.
Without machine details, this is a wild guess. Try all USB ports and then install latest motherboard drivers and enable all the USB ports in the BIOS.
I won't cover how to partition or format drives.
Bob
I am running Windows XP SP2 and I have just purchased a Beyond Micro 250gb external hard drive. As I purchased it from TigerDirect I have very little documentation to help me out. The problem is that my hard drive is detected and Windows claims it has installed drivers, but the drive only appears as an unusable mass storage device. I cannot find it under computer management at all. Any help would be nice, though if the help is the suggestion not to buy from TigerDirect again, I'm already there.

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