I've recently bought an external USB2 hard-drive box and have installed a 2.5" Seagate Momentus HDD. The OEM drive is supplied without any partitions. I've had a look at the Seagate website and they offer their 'DiscWizard' package for drive initialisation. However, this makes the assumption that the drive is on an IDE channel. Is it possible to create partitions etc whilst the drive is connected over USB?

When I plug in the external HDD box via USB, WinXP recognises the device and installs drivers. However, it doesn't assign a drive letter. Reading off the device properties does yield the device info (model, size etc) and also confirms that 100% space is unallocated. I'm confident that the device is working OK. But... how do I create partitions? I don't have a IDE to mini-IDE convertor, so would like avoid buying one if I can.

 

Use the Disk-Management utility, when you right-click My Computer and choose "manage".

Steve.

 

Thanks, BuRR. I didn't realise it could do that. I thought that app was restricted to devices on IDE channels. However, I just plugged in a USB 'keychain' disk to the PC I'm at now. Lo and behold! It recognises the drive. Cheers matey... I'll try that tonight.

 

Worked a treat, ta!