Storage

[classfour]

Buffalo DriveStation Axis HD-LB1.0TU2 1 TB External Hard Drive shows up in control panel/device mana...

I have changed USB ports, switched USB cables - and the drive is not there. In the manual, the software on the drive, and the drive itself should be available once windows installs the device driver. I downloaded the software suite from buffalo's support - and none of the software "sees" the drive, either.

I can hear the drive spin up, etc., and doubt there is a mechanical problem. I really don't want to format it, as it is a new drive - and I don't want to void the warranty.

I've had tons of external drives, but none acted like this.

[Jotin · Accepted solution]

Formatting the drive will not void your warranty. Please go to start, then right click on my computer and choose manage. In this new window go to disk management. Do you see a drive thats around 900GB? If you do go ahead and try and format it or initialize it. 

[classfour]

Thanks: I went ahead and brought the drive around with Acronis (personal preference).

The FAT32 format wasn't working for Vista - once I went NTFS and set the drive letter, all is well.