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My USB-connected external hard drive/enclosure is not being recognized in Windows Explorer. A few important details:

  1. I just build a new machine from components for the first time. Other USB related functions seem to be working fine, though
  2. The hard drive, enclosure, and USB cable all work fine and read my disk appropriately on my old machine
  3. Under Computer Management, the disk shows up, as "Not Initialized". It seems to act like it's not even formatted
  4. A generic hard drive does get listed under "Safely Remove Hardware"
  5. I looked and found a driver for my enclosure, but that didn't make a difference.

I read in one forum that initializing doesn't format the drive, so that makes me think that perhaps I could just run the initialize routine under Computer Management. But I certainly don't want to mess it up!

What is the problem and how do I fix it?

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    Do you know what filesystem is on the usb hard disk, and how it was partitioned (if it was)
    – Paul
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 4:36
  • Ugh, Mac OS Journaled. Forgot I did that.
    – pc1oad1etter
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 5:00
  • To initialize it, you'll lose all the data on it then. Do you want it to be used by both OSes? Format as FAT32 on the Mac. Otherwise, NTFS
    – Canadian Luke
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 5:57
  • Put in an answer for me to accept if you like. I overlooked the type, or simply forgot what it was.
    – pc1oad1etter
    Commented Nov 4, 2011 at 6:43
  • Unspecific, but it may be worth trying: Troubleshoot: Windows Won't Recognize Your USB Drive / Fix Unassigned Drive Letter
    – Peter Mortensen
    Commented Nov 18, 2011 at 21:37

1 Answer 1

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To initialize it, you'll lose all the data on it then. Do you want it to be used by both OSes? Format as FAT32 on the Mac. Otherwise, NTFS for Windows NT or 2000 or later. It will be readable natively on the Mac, but can't be written to without extra software/hacks

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  • Don't forget to upvote too :p
    – Canadian Luke
    Commented Nov 22, 2011 at 6:49

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