I have connected up my new HDD -- the same make and model as the one that apparently failed. I put it in my desktop as a second drive, worried that my caddy is chewing up my external HDDs.
Unfortunately this, too, got the same rejection: a panel saying it needed formatting -- even though I had already formatted it. Looking through the formatting options, I see that things have changed. Now you need to create a partition; Windows (I'm on XP, by the way) needs an allocation unit size and a file system on your new storage device. In the end, after much struggling with trying to overcome the problem of putting all my data on a mere 39.5 GB partition, I found out I would have to go for the 'Extended Partition' option.
So are all my problems of HDD apparent unreadablilty down to nothing more than some Windows update, do you reckon? (The explanation that it was down to my root hub being at low voltage doesn't seem to tally, as my caddy always had its own power supply, even if the connection was irritatingly loose.) What say ye? [It's been an expensive business...:-(.]
With many thanks in advance.
