I needed a haircut before embarking on the attempt to install a simple new hard drive installed in an external enclosure. Now, after downloading software from the drive manufacturer and searching the web for the last 3 hours, I am not sure there is any left to cut. I installed a Seagate cuda 80gig HD in an external USB2/Firewire drive enclosure so that I can move all my chip, astrophotography, vegas travel... photos off of my notebooks main drive and free up some space. I plugged it in and Windows identified the new device and installed drivers and says everything is operational. However the drive does not appear on the directory tree in Windows Explorer.

As I understand my problem it can't have a drive letter because it is not formatted. I am guessing that I can't format it because it doesn't have a drive letter.

The drive is NEW and came with no instructions as did the enclosure. Actually the only instructions were on a label on the drive that told how to set the jumper for my situation. That was simple enough, Remove it.

The question here, if someone has the experience to know it, is How do I get this drive formatted and, I guess partitioned. Someplace I recall mentioned DOS and using FDisk(?) I also recall seeing select the drive letter and right click and select Format. However, as is obvious with the windows procedure, and I assume with the DOS solution, don't you need a drive letter to use FDisk?

Thanks for any thoughts or help, I would appreciate it. Now I am going to get a sandwich. My nerves are killing me. Will check back soon.