Fat32/IDE/USB drive not recognized by WINXP

ameshugena

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I have a functioning fat32 formatted ide drive running from an ide to usb interface/enclosure connected to and recognized by a win98se desktop. When I connect this to a winxp home sp3 laptop computer the drive isn't recognized. Was I wrong assuming that for xp this usb device should have been plug 'n play?? Recommendations??
 

ameshugena

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I have been writing data to a 2T HD connected to the laptop's USB port without any recognition problems. No error msgs when attempting to connect the external 300G IDE HD, just lack of recognition. Tried all variations of connecting (rebooting hot/cold, attaching the USB cable with the HD powered up before/after, etc.) Nothing worked.

I've been backing up data from the desktop's HDs to an external 2T HD via my local network. I would prefer to backup the desktop's external 300G HD via usb because the network's 28 Mbps xfer rate is too slow.
 

ameshugena

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Enclosure: Acomdata which has its own independent AC power supply (plugged in).
 

mak_Ini

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Hello,
I'm also having problems with my USB external HDD. WinXP doesn't recognize it but win 7 and Linux do. the drive has been formatted to FAT32
any suggestions?

western digital USB 2 External hard drive. USB cable connected, power is from adapter that came with the drive
 

ameshugena

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May 9, 2011

Thank you, mak_Ini, for posting your response to this important thread. FAT32 is currently the only non-networking means for attaching external hdds to both the windows and MAC platforms.

You didn't mention WIN98. Have you tried connecting your FAT32 USB drive to a WIN98SE machine?
 

mak_Ini

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The drive shows up in device manager. It appears just as a new drive would but it registers only the free space as unformatted and needs partitioning.
I didn't go any further as this would risk loosing the data I have on my drive
 


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