How to format new external HDD in Vista?

[Psilonaught]

I have vista installed and have been using an external 200GB HDD for storage with it just fine.

The problem is I just installed another external hdd (IDE) and this new one doesn't show as a drive in Vista.

I went into the install menu for Vista with the USB drive turned on, and the format section recognised both my main HDD and the external one, but the external one says zero space allocated, and can't format the drive as it says vista doesn't support usb/firewire drives, please load a driver.

Can i format the HDD inside Vista (it does appear in the device manager ok)??

 

[benjo plz.]

Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Disk Management, and you'll probably need to partition the drive.

 

[Psilonaught]

many thanks, it's sorted now. I must say, I thought Vista was supposed to be clever, I would never have guessed that series of steps unless someone had told me

sigh, but can't these things just "work"

thanks again matey

 

[benjo plz.]

You have to do it in XP too ya know .


Anytime .

 

[oddjob62]

many thanks, it's sorted now. I must say, I thought Vista was supposed to be clever, I would never have guessed that series of steps unless someone had told me

sigh, but can't these things just "work"

thanks again matey

Some people might not want the drive automatically partitioned and formatted

 

[skanky]

many thanks, it's sorted now. I must say, I thought Vista was supposed to be clever, I would never have guessed that series of steps unless someone had told me

sigh, but can't these things just "work"

thanks again matey

its clever, not a mind-reader, else i would've tried to search for "this weeks lotto numbers" already.

 

[Jimi]

A welcomed addition to the Windows disk manager is the ability to extend and shrink your partitions in my opinion.

But the OP could have just typed format in Help and Support and would have easily found out how to do it.