Barracuda XT, Barracuda, Barracuda Green, DiamondMax and other desktop SATA and IDE drives

[LiftWare]

Hello everyone,

I am in need of some basic advice on how to proceed with a New 500Gb drive that I am trying to setup in my laptop as a replacement for my original 275 Gb Hard Drive. I bought an External SATA Enclosure so I could connect my new drive to my Laptop via a USB 2 connection. I wanted to Format my new Hard Drive. Here's the Problem:

I connected the new HD to my laptop and the laptop (I am Using Win XP) recognized the  "new" hardware and said it was ready to go, but I cannot see the new Hard Drive in My Computer Hard Drives Listing. I went to the My Computer>Manage>Disk Management. The new HD shows up as as a "Not Initialized"  Disk 1 with the 465 GB capacity listed. The Drive shows a Black Stripe at the top of the Box for the Disk 1.  The info shows the drive is UNallocated.

What should I do to get this drive to be recognized ?

As you can probably tell, I am new to this issue, so if you can help with any of the issues you can see that I am going to have problems with. I am just wanting to format this New 500Gb Hard Drive so I can install it in my laptop and then reinstall my software from a backup program.

I am hoping all I need to do is click on the "Initialize" so  my laptop will recognize the new Hard Drive and I can begin with my reinstall but I cannot find info on how to proceed. Thanks any and everyone for the help in advance.

[fzabkar]

How to partition and format a hard disk by using Windows XP Setup program:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/313348

[LiftWare]

Thanks for the reply.

 I have already looked at the pages you linked to. I have found nothing on what to do if XP does not show the Drive in My Computer and going to the Manage>Disk Management  shows the drive but it says the drive is UnAllocated and the only choice I really have is to Initialize the Disk Drive.

I am wanting some explanation on what the Initialization does to the drive. I didn't want to just push the "Initialize the drive" button without knowing what that does to a drive. All the explanations assume you can format the drive. That option(format) is not availablle and I am hoping that Initializating the drive will allow it to be formatted.

LiftWare

[fzabkar]

See the section entitled "Operating system preparation instructions":

http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.jsp?locale=en-US&name=Jumper_Settings&vgnextoid=ead1d0afa77a1210VgnVCM1000001a48090aRCRD