I've had to do it to a number of brand-new supposedly pre-formatted drives before. Beforehand they don't want to play, after re-partitioning and formatting all is sweet. This method will work fine via USB.
If you don't understand all this, then it's a good idea to read up on Windows partitioning before attempting any of this. I don't want to be the one responsible for causing you to lose data
XP has a built in partitioning tool.
Right-click 'My Computer' and select 'Manage'. In the left pane of the window select 'Disk Management'. From here you can add/delete partitions from ANY drive connected to your PC.
*** Be very careful. Make absolutely certain you do not delete any partitions on your other hard drives otherwise you will lose the data contained on them. ***
You will be able to spot your Lacie drive in the Disk Management list by the drive letter and the size which should be around 300GB.
To delete a partition, right-click it and use the pop-up menu. Same goes for creating a partition. The moment you delete a partition, all data contained on it is effectively gone. Like I keep stressing, be careful. I normally use NTFS so I don't know if you'll have issues with other filesystems. Also, make sure you create it as a Primary partition.
After you've deleted and re-created a partition on your Lacie, exit the Disk Management tool and use Windows to do the full format of your new partition.
Hope this helps
If you don't understand all this, then it's a good idea to read up on Windows partitioning before attempting any of this. I don't want to be the one responsible for causing you to lose data
XP has a built in partitioning tool.
Right-click 'My Computer' and select 'Manage'. In the left pane of the window select 'Disk Management'. From here you can add/delete partitions from ANY drive connected to your PC.
*** Be very careful. Make absolutely certain you do not delete any partitions on your other hard drives otherwise you will lose the data contained on them. ***
You will be able to spot your Lacie drive in the Disk Management list by the drive letter and the size which should be around 300GB.
To delete a partition, right-click it and use the pop-up menu. Same goes for creating a partition. The moment you delete a partition, all data contained on it is effectively gone. Like I keep stressing, be careful. I normally use NTFS so I don't know if you'll have issues with other filesystems. Also, make sure you create it as a Primary partition.
After you've deleted and re-created a partition on your Lacie, exit the Disk Management tool and use Windows to do the full format of your new partition.
Hope this helps