New Hard Drive - No Volume, Can't Format

[confusedbutnotbeaten]

Hi, I hope someone can help with a frustrating problem. I've searched google but haven't found a satisfactory answer that worked.

I've just bought a new hard drive 2TB Western Digital Blue. Primary use for back-ups, I plugged it into a working USB external drive dock that I have used with a similar HDD I already have.

The disk shows up in Windows, but I can't access it. I was able to change the drive letter, but I cannot format it. In Disk Management there is no volume and no option to create one or format it.

I hope I'm just missing something really simple as I have bought hard drives before and just been able to plug them in use them, but I feel like I've missed a crucial but easy step here!

Thanks for your help.

 

[USAFRet]

Please show us a screencap of your Disk Management window.

 

[confusedbutnotbeaten]

Problem solved.

I've absolutely no idea what changed, but I unplugged the hard drive. Plugged it back in and in Disk Management I received a pop-up prompt that the drive needed initializing before I could format it, followed the prompt and then formatted it in under 10 seconds.

Sorry to create another thread on here and waste peoples time, but maybe someone with the same problem will see this post and try just removing the drive and plugging it back in - It worked for me!

 

[USAFRet]

Alrighty then!