External HDD refuses to work on my XP PC

[nightrnr]

So I bought a rather large (as in 5TB) external Hard Drive (Seagate Expansion Desktop model STEB5000100)
or just this:


I got it for gaming and music backup purposes (among others). I would like to finish backing up my GOG collection, for instance.

My Windows XP PC refuses to load the thing. It powers up, it shows up in Device Manager as a disk drive, shows that it is working properly in properties and seems to load as a USB device. But the actual drive is nowhere to be seen; not in My Computer and not in Disk Management (so I don't even have the option to initialize, format or assign a letter to the drive on this PC).
Plugged it in to a Windows 8 PC and there's nothing wrong with the drive itself. Loads up fine, I can copy things, reformat, everything.

I really would like to use this on the XP PC, as I want to install things from the USB drive and I do a lot of backup work with programs that prefer the XP environment.

I have tried EVERYTHING. I have uninstalled/reinstalled drivers, restarted many times under different conditions (for example, disabling my integrated USB Card reader hub), reinserting the USB cable in different ports, consulting the Seagate site and it's worthless troubleshooter, and even reformatted the drive on Win8 with a small partition (Fat32 with default settings, was on NTSF, which is obviously preferable). Nothing will get my PC to recognize this drive.

I did read that it may be incompatible with some motherboards, so the issue may not even be with Win XP or my software/drivers.
And that's what I've concluded .

But dang it,it's an "Universal Serial Bus" . It should work across anything. There is nothing UNIVERSAL about this to me and really limits what I want to use it for.

I'm about ready to crack the thing open and put the HDD in an enclosure that I KNOW my PC likes.

Phew, sorry for all the ranting,
but anyone have any better ideas?

[emwearz]

I'm about ready to crack the thing open and put the HDD in an enclosure that I KNOW my PC likes.

The issue has nothing to do with the bus, you are using a 5TB drive on Windows XP 32Bit, which has a 2TB limit per volume due to the management scheme it uses, it has been corrected in future OS releases.

You are using an operating system that is 13 years old, long before 2TB drives were even a pipe dream for the commercial market. I know there were some motherboards and drives that addressed the issue, no idea which ones did, but Windows XP (32bit) did not natively support drives larger than 2TB.

Upgrade your OS, even to the 64bit version of XP and the drive will work without any issues.

EDIT: Quick google gave me this, should tell you everything you need.
http://carltonbale.com/how-to-break-the ... tem-limit/

[nightrnr]

Ah!
You'd think Seagate would've mentioned that in the troubleshooting section.
I didn't seem to come across that bit of info in my searching. I thank you for the enlightenment.

I don't suppose if I partitioned everything to smaller chunks (less than 2TB each) that it would make any difference?
I will have use for drive, but that's unfortunate, as the reason I like XP is for it's compatibility with certain things. The 32Bit is a crucial part for me.

So, I will stick with 2TB and less for my backups there. I do have a 2TB Drive in an enclosure that boots up fine, but was intending that for another purpose. Maybe I'll get another one.

I WILL upgrade someday...

[Exhuminator]

I've read that 32-bit XP SP3 will read two terabytes per volume, but not more than that.

What you can do is setup a personal NAS. Something like this:



Not necessarily that particularly unit, but whatever model you'd like. XP can use external storage of whatever size without issue, insofar as it sees the storage as a server. Here's some info on that:

https://superuser.com/questions/212911/ ... sp3-32-bit

[emwearz]

Ah!
You'd think Seagate would've mentioned that in the troubleshooting section.

They do list the supported operating systems as Windows 7 and 8, but in general that doesn't mean it wont work with OS' before those releases.

As I said I know there are workarounds of sorts, but nothing native to WinXP (32bit).

[Anapan]

I know Western Digital has a driver "WD SES" for large hard drive support. Have you tried SeaTools? I used 3 and 4TB Seagate drives in 32 bit XP. Do you have Service Pack 3 installed?

[nightrnr]

Thanks for the advice guys

I think NAS options might not work for me, and would require me to bust the enclosure open (which I may consider at some point). But it negates the convenience that I am going for and I still have a lot to learn about networking in general. Plus, I think I'd have to find an extra HDD and mini motherboard for the OS or whatever. Although, I do have a mini PC box that would be perfect for it. So maybe...

I know Western Digital has a driver "WD SES" for large hard drive support. Have you tried SeaTools? I used 3 and 4TB Seagate drives in 32 bit XP. Do you have Service Pack 3 installed?

I DO have SP3 installed. I will try Seatools; but even if it does work, I've heard it is a little buggy (as mentioned, it's not natively supported in XP). But I'll give it a shot and judge for myself.

Seagate does mention that XP drivers shouldn be sufficient. So even if 2TB was the limit, it should recognize the drive and/or partitions up to that size.

On a semi related note: anyone know of HDD limitations for win98? My 98 PC seems to only recognize flash drives (with a driver) formatted to FAT16. I plan on putting a 40GB or 80GB drive in that one, limiting the partitions to under 32GB each.

[Anapan]

For 98 install these 2 addons:
98SE Generic Mass Storage driver (nusb31e.exe)
98SE Unofficial Service Pack 2.1a.exe

The first is from 2007, the second from 2011. If you have trouble finding them PM me. They should fix your OS up.

edit: looks like the unofficial sperice pack is up to 3.45...

[nightrnr]

I have the USB driver installed (so handy).
Didn't know about the service pack, so I'll look into that. Thanks!

Well, Seagtools for windows just hangs on "USB: Scanning for supported drives" drives when I try to open it (with or without my External drive attached), so that doesn't work for some reason. It even lists it as XP compatible on the website.

I think I give up for now.

[samsonlonghair]

Don't give up too quickly, nightrnr. I think you were on to something when you asked about dividing the 5TB drive into smaller partitions. Try formatting the drive into three partitions roughly 1.67TB each. WinXP should be able to read/write to those partitions.