[Effexion]

I am trying to reinstall windows on my old laptops HDD and have it plugged in to the USB. I formatted it to NTFS and now I can't see it in explorer.

It is visible in disk manager but no where else and I need to install on to it. I have found I can install on to a pen drive and just move the files over to make it bootable but I need to see it first.

Can anyone help?

[⁠Cammy]

Format it again in the disk manager and assign a letter/name to it

[Malicious Intent]

You need to format it correctly and create partition first. Pay attention to flags and make sure you set it as boot. I recommend gparted for the job.

[Effexion]

Worked a treat, thanks once again. Will it work if I just move the files over from pen drive?

[Malicious Intent]

Worked a treat, thanks once again. Will it work if I just move the files over from pen drive?

I doubt it. Boot might fail as you won't be able to move the boot partition.

[⁠Cammy]

Worked a treat, thanks once again. Will it work if I just move the files over from pen drive?

If you mean the the whole windows installation then my guess would be no.

Better off just doing a clean install to avoid any potential issues anyway, that's what I would do

[Effexion]

Format it again in the disk manager and assign a letter/name to it

I doubt it. Boot might fail as you won't be able to move the boot partition.

How else could I do it as Windows Multimedia Tool doesn't see my drive. Just my flash drive.

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If you mean the the whole windows installation then my guess would be no.

Better off just doing a clean install to avoid any potential issues anyway, that's what I would do

Screen broken on old laptop and the HDD is slim as opposed to the one I am using which is fat. So relying on using it through the USB. However, WMCT won't see it nor will Rufus. I can see it in explorer now though, thanks to you :).

[Malicious Intent]

How else could I do it as Windows Multimedia Tool doesn't see my drive. Just my flash drive.

Try to play around with bios settings. You should be able to see this drive as a usb device. Then just install it to it. Honestly i don't know if its a good idea tho if you are planning on using it as an external drive. Windows installer will install drivers for the device you are currently using so if you try to use this drive with different pc/laptop you might get BSOD (blue screen of death) as drivers won't match the hardware. Not sure what your goal is tho.

Edit: Format it to fat32 and then you should be able to see it. Format it to ntfs during windows setup.

[Effexion]

Try to play around with bios settings. You should be able to see this drive as a usb device. Then just install it to it. Honestly i don't know if its a good idea tho if you are planning on using it as an external drive. Windows installer will install drivers for the device you are currently using so if you try to use this drive with different pc/laptop you might get BSOD (blue screen of death) as drivers won't match the hardware. Not sure what your goal is tho.

Edit: Format it to fat32 and then you should be able to see it. Format it to ntfs during windows setup.

I can't access the BIOS on my old system for some reason. The system I am using is connected by a VGA cable and I can see the BIOS on this.

[Malicious Intent]

You mean external screen? That makes no diff bro. Bios will be the same no matter what screen you use. if you can use external screen with old laptop simply put the hdd back into it and fire it up along with windows install cd/usb.