i plugged the new 80GB portable drive into my laptop and installed the driver successfully. i then read the user manual but i do not know what ‘Confirm that the hard-disk is set as master mode’ means or what relevance ‘The new hard disk should be divided into sections with FDISK first’ has.
on each preformatted partition there is a Word file. Unfortunately, i got as far as Disk Management’ and found that these instructions then become redundant as if they are for an earlier operating system than Windows XP. there ws nowhere to right click and select ‘Initialise Disk’ but i clicked on ‘make active’ assuming that must be what it meant. however, i then realised that there is nowhere to select any of the further prescribed options because ‘Initialise Disk’ needs to be selected first and it doesn’t exist!
i have saved a folder of pictures onto the first partition but the contents of the folder cannot be opened or viewed. do i need to buy and install an operating system on the drive?