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driver needed for external hard drive


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#1
baggieboy

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Hi there,
Hope somebody can help me - I've two computers, an older one running on windows 98 and a slighty less older with windows xp. both low on storage compared to todays standards, so I purchased a Maxtor Basics external hard drive (500gb). Now with the later xp computer there's no problem it's just plug and play, however with the older computer on 98 the 'detected new hard ware ' wizard comes up and when I press next it searches either the cd rom drive or the floppy disk to install the drivers but I have no drivers with the machine so my question is where do I download the driver from using the later pc ( internet connected) and then transfer it to the older pc (not internet connected).

Thanks in anticipation
Baggieboy
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#2
phillip22

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Windows 98 has built-in support for many usb devices, but unfortunately not for external USB hard drives. These need a driver (if it exists) from the drive manufacturer. In some cases even Windows 98SE needs a manufacturer's driver for some USB hard drives. Seagate now owns Maxtor and provides customer support and software downloads for Maxtor drives. I've looked extensively on the Seagate website (in particular the driver downloads area) and unfortunately they do not provide any drivers for the 'Maxtor Basic' family -- it works "as is" but only on Windows 98SE or later versions of Windows.

See this page: http://seagate.custh...qid=4652#whynot

Scroll down to "Maxtor Basics Family" (4th row down in the first table) and you'll see "No Additional driver Required from Seagate".
If you click on "Why Not?" you'll see that the drive has built-in support under Windows 98SE. Windows 98 isn't mentioned.

Edited by phillip22, 12 November 2008 - 11:28 AM.

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#3
baggieboy

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Thanks for your help on this. I had a funny feeling it was unsolivable. What I'll try is move what I can using a floppy onto the newer machine and then onto the hard drive. It was just that I was hoping to avoid the long method .

Thanks again for your time and effort

Baggieboy
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#4
123Runner

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Why don't you hook the win98 drive as a slave to the XP unit. You may have to configure the jumpers to master and slave.
Also attach the USB drive to the XP and you can copy and paste the files you need.
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#5
baggieboy

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Cheers '123'
However I'm not too clever when it comes to the tech side of computers. so I'll probably just copy to floppy and transfer. Thanks for your suggestion though.
Baggieboy.
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