Need help with setting up external hard drive

I have read through the topics on here but a lot of it is over my head as I just use the computer and dont really know about the workings of the machine.

I have a new Samsung external hard crive but its not being recognised by my Desktop (Windows ME) I know its an old OS system but its working perfectly fine and I cant afford a new one so bought the external HD to gain more memory.

Its not showing up in "my computer" but the toolbar at the bottom of the screen is showing up as a USB mass storage device. Someone suggested that I need to download a driver for it to work but when I went on to the Samsung site it only had drivers for XP and Vista.

No instructions came with the external HD so I.m at a loss at this stage.

 

You will need a driver if you want to use it under Windows Me.

Me is an older Windows OS that doesn't have robust USB support. Many newer USB devices will not work under Windows Me without specific device support.

AFAIK, you will need an external device that specifically supports Windows Me. Your options are very limited.

 

Okay, thank you for that information. The spec did say it was compatible with windows ME may have to return it if I can't get driver. Where would be the best place to search for drivers for old OS ?

 

Also make sure the external is formatted as fat32. Windows ME won't recognize NTFS.

But since you said that the drive shows up as a mass storage device, it means Windows ME recognizes it(no drivers needed). What you need to do is go into computer management/data storage/ and find the external drive there. Next add a drive letter to the external drive. Without a drive letter the external drive won't showup in "my computer" , this even happens in xp and vista.

It's quick fix.

 

Thanks for the correction. I "bypassed" using Me and didn't know if they actually enhanced the USB support.

It appears that most external drives are shipped as FAT32, but to tell you the truth, I don't know where you would go in Me to make a drive letter assignment if the OS doesn't it automagically.

 

I think I'll just give up, I have spent hours over the past few days trying to get this thing working. Although the bar at the bottom of the screen is saying there is hardware (the symbol you have to click before unplugging hardware) running, there is nothing in the Device Manager that I can see that could be this external HD. When I opt to unplug the hardware thats running it comes up as being the original internal hard drive which is Hitachi and the number matches so dont think this is the external drive as thats Samsung.


Have read all through the info on the PC and its saying that Windows ME supports USB plug and play devices.
I cant locate a driver for my system and now I see Microsoft Support no longer gives updates or support for Windows ME so I think i've hit a brick wall here.

Wonder is it possible to plug the device into one of the PC's in work and if it works then I could copy the driver/installation onto a memory stick and try load that onto this old PC?

 

"When I opt to unplug the hardware thats running it comes up as being the original internal hard drive which is Hitachi. . . "

That shouldn't be a valid option. Unplug hardware running should only give you unpluggable devices, and the internal hard drive isn't (shouldn't be) one of them.

One way you can tell if that's the hard drive is to open the unplug hardware window and then unplug the USB HDD without stopping it and see if the device disappears. If it does disappear, then that is the hard drive in question and then you will know which drive you are working with.

In device manager the device should show up under USB devices as a USB mass storage device and under hard drives as "whatever HDD it is".

 

I hope that this is allowable.

I get all my bootdisks from www.bootdisk.com

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

 

Thank you all so much, I have it working properly now.

I realised that the Samsung HDD I bought from China was actually a Hitachi, no wonder I couldn't find it in Device Manager. It was listed in the Disk Driver section.

I discoverd this after reading comments from people who had bought similar Samsung HDD's from China, they said it was probably a copy, it was actually Hitachi product. Lesson learned for me for the future.
I dont mind what make it is so long as it does what its supposed to do.

I then followed Jony's instructions and gave it a letter and it showed up in My Computers, it then gave me the option to format it and its up and running perfectly now.

You are all great on here, this it the third time I have found answers to problems on this site.

Thank you