external hardrive problem

[mikeyb30]

hi all im new to the forum:D

as i have very little knowledge of computers im hopeing one of you experts can help me!
im running vista home premium and Ive been trying to transfer all my old files and pics from a external hardrive which is hitachi ide that was out of my old laptop running xp
when i plug it in through the usb and look at my computer its not recognizing it but when i look in storage in computer management at the botton it says unknown disc not initialized so i am unable to browse the hardrive

any help would be great thanks

 

[pacinitaly]

Hi,
right click on the drive in the manage drives area and choose activate

 

[kavita]

Hi,
right click on the drive in the manage drives area and choose activate

Its not Activate, its Initialize.

 

[mikeyb30]

Hi,
right click on the drive in the manage drives area and choose activate

it wont let me do either

 

[dinesh]

Hi mike, can you post the screenshot of your disk management?

 

[mikeyb30]

yes

 

[Jerin]

Can you check weather the External Hard drive is detected in device manager - and if not check weather the USB port that you connected the drive is working - check weather the USB controllers are Enable in BIOS

 

[mikeyb30]

ooops

 

[mikeyb30]

yes in device manager it says[ generic void disk usb device

 

[Jerin]

Now you see the Unknown Disk1 right click on it and click on Initialize and then check weather you are able to see it in My Computer.

Hope this Helps.

 

[mikeyb30]

it says the device is not ready

 

[pacinitaly]

maybe try to right click in the gray area and choose format then Initialize.

 

[mikeyb30]

no it wont do it

 

[mikeyb30]

maybe try to right click in the gray area and choose format then Initialize.

i still cant get it to work