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Question

New External HDD is not seen by WinXP

Feb 25, 2012 5:35AM PST

I have recently bought a Maxel Tank h500 external hard drive, which came with an eSATA connection as well as a USB lead. Unfortunately my PC (WinXP) does not sport an eSATA input, and so I obtained an eSATA-to-USB adaptor.. I was able to successfully connect the device to my wife's laptop (Win7) in this way, and have transferred some data to the Maxel Drive.
However when I link Maxel to my PC the system acknowledges that there is a Removable Storage device there, but is unable to find the disk or it's contents, and asks me to put a disk into the device!
Can anyone explain what is likely to be the problem here and how I can get to "see" the contents of the new drive, and make use of the device?

Discussion is locked

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Answer
It works in 7 but not XP?
Feb 25, 2012 5:45AM PST
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Suppose I partitioned the disk?
Feb 25, 2012 5:53AM PST

My Home edition of XP has had all the Service packs and updates so should it not be able to see 500 GB?
If size is the problem, should I , perhaps go back to the laptop, partition the drive into recognizable chunks and then try it with the XP PC? Might that work, do you think?

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Then the issue I noted is not the issue.
Feb 25, 2012 6:00AM PST

Be sure to check Disk Management and see if you can assign a drive letter.

Most folk LEARN to partition and format such things in XP SP3 for best effect. Or sharing with the other machines.

There are very long discussions why but I'll just look at the drive and prepare it on XP SP3 (and I'll delete the partitions, create new then use the Quick format because I don't want to wait hours.)

There are more discussions about it but details such as "XP" matter. XP has a lot of limitations that slowly were removed over the last decade.
Bob

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XP Disk Management reports "No Media"
Feb 26, 2012 6:26PM PST

Thanks Bob, but I can't see how I can partition in XP when XP Disk Management reports "No Media" on the HDD. I am able to change the drive letter, but the Computer Management doesn't "see" any media on the disk.
Perhaps I'll need to go to the Win7 laptop and try partitioning there. At least Win7 recognizes that there is media present. What do you think?
Steve

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For the no-media issue
Feb 27, 2012 6:03AM PST

I found I had to use GPARTED to remove the old partitions and get the drive blank. Then I could use it on XP SP3 to partition and format.

This area is, well, yes, one that could have been handled better by some software gorilla.
Bob