Formatting USB Hard Drive

[Wdw0528]

I have an HP Pavillion Laptop model XH555. I recently purchased an external USB drive to use with the laptop (WinXP) and my desktop (Win98). I was unable to format the drive with the laptop. Contacted HP who said the drive must be bad. Contacted the vendor of the drive who said the laptop had problems. Bottom line we got it formatted in Win98 format so the drive proved good. I still can't get it to read from the laptop. In device manager I can see it and it indicates it is functioning properly but the assigned drive letter doesn't show in my computer. Any suggestions??

[krusty]

As far as I know, USB drives on Win98 requires a driver to function. My USB drive came with a Win98 driver. It should work fine on W2K/XP without needing additional drivers. I would check with the vendor on a driver. Also remember to use the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon in the system tray before removing the device, as you can corrupt the drive if you don't.