External HD won't work

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Dejavu - May 5, 2009 at 11:50 AM
 Madan - Aug 1, 2010 at 12:21 AM
Hello,
I have a 60GB external HD that was given to me with my Mac Mini. It works great on the mac and will let me moved files to and from but when I plugged it into my pc to try to move files, the pc won't pick it up. I get the clicking sound that says something is connected to the port but it doesn't show up in the "my computer" file as an E: or F: drive or anything. I can't find it in hardware or program files or anything. What can I do? I run windows XP on my PC.
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5 responses

Keep in mind that FAT32 can only format up to 32GB so you will need 2 partitions
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xpcman Posts 19530 Registration date Wednesday October 8, 2008 Status Contributor Last seen June 15, 2019 1,825
May 5, 2009 at 03:03 PM
It sounds like the drive is formatted for the Mac. You can reformat it on your PC using FAT32 then it should be readable by both computers. Good Luck
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how do I reformat it when I can't find it?
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xpcman Posts 19530 Registration date Wednesday October 8, 2008 Status Contributor Last seen June 15, 2019 1,825
May 5, 2009 at 08:47 PM
connect the external drive
right click "My Computer"
select "manage"
select "disk Management"
it might take a while to search for all hardware - you should find a unknown drive in the graphical display on the bottom right. If you are lucky you can right click and "delete partition" and then right click and create a new partition and again right click to format (using FAT32).

If XP did not find the drive or will not delete the current partition you can try the following free partition software: Easeus Partition Manager - download and install it on your XP computer:

https://download.cnet.com/EaseUS-Partition-Master-Free-Edition/3000-2248_4-10863346.html?tag=mncol%3Bpop&cdlPid=10898593
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XPCMAN, Why is i purchase a 8gb card and after creating a new partition and fat32 format i only have 1gb total space? Thanks Glen
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MochaLatteLala
Aug 30, 2009 at 06:08 AM
There is nothing about fat32 which prevents anybody from formatting it to higher than 32Gig. Win98 was able to format harddrives in fat32 to 128Gigabytes (ho would ever want a partiton bigger than 128 Gbytes :D ), and the specs allow for partitons up to 8Terrabytes.

Microsoft put a cap on formatting (but not reading) partitions in fat32 to 32gigabytes simply cause they wanted you to start using the new ntfs. Don't blame fat32 for something it aint to blame for.
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if there is a "clicking" noise, there is a high probability that the hdd has gone for a toss. try and backup the disk as soon as you can.
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