ROCK External hard drive recognized but not accessible by my laptop

I have plugged in the Rock Mobile Disk using the 2.0 USB hub into my Windows XP Compaq laptop. No need to install any drivers so that is clear. I have tried to partion the drive and it won't let me. The kicker, is I have used the drive with a MAC and it plugged and was recognized easily, and was usable. Now with the Compaq, it makes the noise as if it has been plugged in but does not show up on the drives list or anything. What to do....

 

When connected to the MAC what filesystem did you use to format. XP only recognizes FAT and NTFS, neither of which is native to the MAC.

I am fairly confident that there is nothing wrong with the drive but if there is DATA on the drive you wish to keep/backup then tread carefully.

If you're happy to start afresh then look at disk management.

Start -> Run

Type

Code:

diskmgmt.msc

Make sure you don't touch your primary hard drive but you can reformat (wipe clean) your removable drive from there. If that's what you want.

 

follow up

I cleaned off the external hard drive onto the mac. I would like to be able to sue the thing for both mac and pc if possible (can I do that). When I plugged it into the Mac, I did nothing, it simply recognized it and became operable. On the PC howerver, for example whne I go to the disk management, I can click on the drive, but all my options to click on are grey and not clickable (if that is a word). In the Disk Management tool it is listed listed as Disk 1 online, like the C: drive which is listed as Disk 0 online. It says GPT protective partition, so I imagine that is what the deal is huh? How do I change that? It appears as if I should have done my homework before buying a junk drive like the Rock. What is a good drive to buy? Something I could use with both?

 

I wouldn't say it's a junk drive, the problem is filesystem not hard drive.

If you wish to use a removable drive on both systems (ie MAC & PC) then initially format it on the PC. Although NTFS (filesystem) is not native to Mac's they can read/write to NTFS volumes whereas XP systems cannot read/write the various filesystems that MAC's use without additional software.

I'd recommend backing up any data required on the MAC (which I think you've done) then reformatting the drive as NTFS on the PC.

After this both systems should be capable of reading and writing to the drive.