[furntree]

recently purchased a new external hard drive.

when i plugged it in, windows recognized it and shows in device manager but fails to become a mapped drive

any ideas?

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Hi furntree! Welcome to G2G!

Go to START-->CONTROL PANEL. In the new window that appears, double-click on ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS and then double-click on COMPUTER MANAGEMENT. The COMPUTER MANAGEMENT window will now appear. In the list on the left side, click once on DISK MANAGEMENT under the heading STORAGE. Now look on the right side of the window and you should see all your hard drives and cd/dvd drives listed. Locate the one corresponding to the new hard drive and right click on it and select CREATE NEW PARTITION. The new partition wizard will now open, just follow along with the instructions.

Once your drive is finished being formatted, it will now be ready to be used and should be visible in MY COMPUTER.

Fenor

NOTE -- THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE BASED ON THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO DATA ON THIS DRIVE THAT YOU NEED TO RECOVER, AND/OR THAT IT IS A NEW DRIVE. IF THERE IS DATA ON THIS DRIVE YOU NEED TO RECOVER FOR SOME REASON, THEN DON'T DO THE ABOVE INSTRUCTIONS!

[Fenor]

Hi furntree! Welcome to G2G!

Go to START-->CONTROL PANEL. In the new window that appears, double-click on ADMINISTRATIVE TOOLS and then double-click on COMPUTER MANAGEMENT. The COMPUTER MANAGEMENT window will now appear. In the list on the left side, click once on DISK MANAGEMENT under the heading STORAGE. Now look on the right side of the window and you should see all your hard drives and cd/dvd drives listed. Locate the one corresponding to the new hard drive and right click on it and select CREATE NEW PARTITION. The new partition wizard will now open, just follow along with the instructions.

Once your drive is finished being formatted, it will now be ready to be used and should be visible in MY COMPUTER.

Fenor

NOTE -- THESE INSTRUCTIONS ARE BASED ON THE FACT THAT THERE IS NO DATA ON THIS DRIVE THAT YOU NEED TO RECOVER, AND/OR THAT IT IS A NEW DRIVE. IF THERE IS DATA ON THIS DRIVE YOU NEED TO RECOVER FOR SOME REASON, THEN DON'T DO THE ABOVE INSTRUCTIONS!

[Fenor]

Since you left chat before I could repy to your question, I'll post my answer here...

If you are plugging the USB drive into one of the USB ports on the front of the computer, try using the ones in the back. The front ports don't work very well for much besides a flash drive or keyboard/mouse. ALWAYS use the plugs in the back for any kind of major hardware, like a hard drive in your case.

Fenor