Hey, I am having trouble formatting my 60gb external HDD. Its a USB2.0 exteral drive. It installs correctly, its recognized by the computer and it shows up in my computer and the disk managment folder. But when I try to format it, it looks like it is finished formatting but then it says 'formatting did not finish successfully' I do not know what the problem is, it is plugged into the USB port and the power is turned on. Can someonw please help me? The HDD brand is Western Digital 60gb Thanks

if you did it yourself format it in your computer b4 putting in the enclosure, if its a factory assembled unit try these instructions from WD's website The external hard drive should be recognized and ready for use. Occasionally, the factory partition may not be recognized in Windows. If that is the case, you will need to partition and format the external hard drive. To do so, follow the steps below: Click Start and select Programs, then MS DOS Prompt. The MS DOS screen appears. From the command prompt, type FDISK and press ENTER. Answer Yes when asked to Enable Large Disk Support. The Microsoft Fixed Disk Utility will open. Choose 5 Change current fixed disk drive. If you do not see 5 options, your external drive is not being properly detected. Check your cable connections and verify that the power is on. Select the external hard drive from the list. Your main internal drive will be Disk 1. If you have only one drive in your system, then drive 2 will be the external drive. If you have multiple drives, make sure the drive you select is your external drive. After selecting your Western Digital external drive from the list, press ENTER to proceed. WARNING: FAILING TO SELECT THE CORRECT DRIVE MAY CAUSE PERMANENT LOSS OF DATA ON YOUR OTHER HARD DRIVE(S)! From the FDISK main menu, select 1 Create DOS partition or Logical DOS drive. Three menu items now appear. Choose number 1 (Create Primary DOS Partition), then press ENTER. When prompted with Do you wish to use the maximum available size for the Primary DOS partition?, answer Yes. To complete partitioning, press the ESC button twice. You will see a message that you must restart your computer. Hit the ESC button once more to exit the FDISK program. At the MS DOS command prompt, type EXIT to close the MS DOS Prompt window. Click on the Windows Unplug or Eject Hardware icon in the system tray and select the Western Digital external drive from the list and click Stop. Unplug the data cable from your computer and reboot. Reconnect the data cable once the computer has fully booted up. After plugging the drive back in, double-click the My Computer icon. You should have a new drive icon for the external drive. Right-click on the drive icon and select Format. Select Full under Format Type and click Start. You will see a warning that all files will be destroyed. Click OK to proceed. This process may take several minutes. The external hard drive should be ready to use once the format is complete.

Thanks, does anyone know where I could get a MS DOS prompt from? I think it was deleted from my computer before, and I dont have a way to get to command prompt to use the fdisk

A short-cut to the command prompt is now in the Accessories folder... Or you go: start\run and type: command prompt in the dialogue box, and press Enter. Either route will/should bring up the "DOS" window

Ok, I have gotten to the command prompt, but when I type in 'fdisk' it says "'FDISK' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file." and the it goes back to just C> So whats wrong?

Fdisk is part of the utils on a standard dos/'9x(ME) boot-disk. Haven't played around with USB external hard-drives, so regretfully I can't really help you in that regard, other than to offer one possibilty below... Is there any chance to remove the drive from the external (USB) housing, install to the host PC as a Slave (or stand-alone/Master drive), and then boot with '98 boot-disk and run Fdisk/format utils that way. Then restore drive to its external (USB) housing and proceed from there?

Boot with your xp disk then delete partition,create new partiton,reboot machine.Click on My Computer and format drive there.