Hi I bought a used 2.5″ HDD and installed it inside an external enclsure. I want to wipe the drive clean and use it to transfer files between computers. When I plug the drive into my desktop USB port, the desktop says – as normal – new hardware found. While it sees the external enclosure controller, I can’t see the actual ext. HDD in Explorer, My Computer, or anywhere. I checked Hardware Profile using Control Panel and the enclosure controller was there and there was no conflicts indicated. I believe the HDD was a primary drive in a dead corporate Compaq notebook before, and still has Windows XP Pro installed on it. Being a corporate notebook it must have a Windows start password feature requiring a password to start Windows. Is that what’s causing my desktop to not “see” the actual drive even though it recognizes that a new hardware has been connected? But my desktop doesn’t have USB boot enabled? Also I have tried it in three other desktops that I have and ran into the same problem. So the problem is definitely not caused by the desktop. How do I get my desktop to “see” this external HDD so I can use Command Prompt/Format or Windows Disk Manament to wipe it clean? I don’t need to save anything from this HDD. Thanks.
