[SOLVED] How to get a drive acknowledged with out formatting

[DepressingSalad]

I bought a HDD with backup software already on it, and I’m assuming I will lose said software if I format the drive, but that is the only way I know how to get my computer to recognize it

 

[popatim]

If you can see the software is on it then it's already formatted.
I'm assuming this is a new external drive and not a new drive that you put into an external HDD enclosure.

Open Disk management (run diskmgmt.msc), if it is NOT shown as 'unallocated' then you may just need to right click on it and select 'Change drive letter and...' (even if it doesn't have one already) and then give it the letter you want to use for it. Windows will write the selection to the drive so when you use it on another PC, it will try to give it the same letter - unless that letter is already in use...

if it is showing as unallocated the take a screenshot of the window, with the drive in question showing in the lower half, host it on an image sharing site such as imgur, and then post a link to it here for us please.