Thanks everyone.
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Geek-9PM, I'll say I'm a beginner who's very reluctant to delve into the registry let alone inside of a computer. I'll read your links.
Understood.
Let me go bask to my first suggestion.
Ask the vendor for a refund, exchange or warranty service.
Here is why. The vendor said it will work with Windows XP, On that basis he should send you a unit that just plugs into you XP machine and starts a friendly program to help you set up the drive. That is what some othes have done. There is software that does make it easy to use a over 2 TB external drive usable on Windows XP 32 bit SP3. It is not brain surgery.
You did not say what make and model of the external unit. I know that
Seagate has ate has software that does the job. If you had been a Seagate, the software would have started up and asked u what you would like to do.
Which leads in to another thing. Once the drive has been set up, the t friendly message will disappear. Just bedsore that, it would also have copied the install package somewhere on the system hard drive.
Based on the above thought, it maybe tha vendor has sold you an 'opened package' product. That is a unit somebody using Windows 7 or 10 returned after starting up the process and then decided to send it back. In that case the 'Welcome' software would not start up and you would not see anything . The first user did not use Windows XP, but stated a process that made the drive not visible to XP.
That point I want to make is this: That best why to resolve this is to find out from the vendor why he said it would work on XP. You have resewn to contact the vendor and complain loudly. I also am an old XP user, an d I do not like it when a vendor does not understand my position.
At this point, I do not think you need to do anything other than talk to the vendor.
Also, the software used by Seagate has its counter part from other drive makers.
