Unable to initialize external USB drive - it says 'drive not ready'

[anasttin]

Hi,

I bought a brand new Toshiba USB 3.0 & 2.0 1.0 TB drive online but can't get it going.

I put the drive in and it goes through the driver installation okay and says 'Driver installed successfully'.

Then I go into 'Administrative tools', then 'Computer Management' then 'Disk Management'. Then I right-click the unknown Disk drive (which is the USB drive), and select 'initialize' as it says it's not initialized. I select 'MBR' for Master Boot Record, then hit 'ok' but it says 'The Device is not ready' and that's as far as I get.

Am I doing anything wrong? Can anyone assist?

I'm running Windows 7.

Many thanks in advance for any help and HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Ana

 

[iPwn]

The only time I've received that error was when the drive was not getting enough power. Are you plugging this into a laptop? Some laptops have a dedicated USB port for high power demanding drives (indicated by a lightning bolt). There could also be a USB port that is blue. They typically provide more power over USB.

 

[anasttin]

Hi and thanks for the advice.

No it's not plugged into a laptop, it's into a desktop and I get the same problem using the rear USB port and another person's computer.

Do you think it might just be a dead drive?

Is there anything else I can try?

 

[~mr mixx~]

Then I go into 'Administrative tools', then 'Computer Management' then 'Disk Management'. Then I right-click the unknown Disk drive (which is the USB drive), and select 'initialize' as it says it's not initialized. I select 'MBR' for Master Boot Record, then hit 'ok' but it says 'The Device is not ready' and that's as far as I get.

This may be a shot in the dark, but do the same thing as you did before only this time select "GPT" instead of MBR. if you get an error, try MBR again and it might work.