I was talking to a nice woman the other day and she was having a trouble with her External Disk Drive. Below is the chat log I had with her:

"[15:31] <tallmacgirl> i think ive made more trouble trying to fix the glitches . I just want it to run right anymore
[15:32] <darrglud> well u have the model?
[15:32] <tallmacgirl> the external drive?
[15:33] <darrglud> yeah
[15:33] <tallmacgirl> if its the drive, will it work at all?
[15:33] <darrglud> u could try it in the other system?
[15:33] <tallmacgirl> or could I have formatted it incorrectly?
[15:33] <darrglud> what partition type is it set to?
[15:33] <tallmacgirl> ive never had an external drive before now
[15:33] <tallmacgirl> type?
[15:34] <tallmacgirl> hmm, it was some mac thing
[15:34] <darrglud> yeah, like fat32 or resiers
[15:34] <tallmacgirl> there were 3 choices
[15:34] <tallmacgirl> and the one it was originally defaulted to wouldnt be recognized with photoshop
[15:34] <darrglud> did you ever have it working?
[15:34] <tallmacgirl> so i reformatted it and it showed up in photoshop
[15:34] <tallmacgirl> yeah
[15:35] <darrglud> could you write to it and the whole works?
[15:35] <tallmacgirl> but then my mac got a kernel panic
[15:35] <tallmacgirl> So i called up the mac guy who told me to do an archive install
[15:35] <tallmacgirl> with my original disk, which was a previous OS
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> so now its more screwed up than ever
[15:36] <darrglud> what version?
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> OSX
[15:36] <darrglud> is it tiger?
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> i was using panther
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> whichever is the newest one
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> tiger?
[15:36] <darrglud> and the guy shouldn't have told you to do an archive install
[15:36] <darrglud> tiger is the newest
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> no kidding, i know that now
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> freakin guy was from india
[15:36] <darrglud> was it tech support?
[15:36] <tallmacgirl> yes
[15:37] <darrglud> apple?
[15:37] <tallmacgirl> yep
[15:37] <tallmacgirl> so now its a mes
[15:37] <tallmacgirl> s
[15:37] <darrglud> i thought they were in the us, because when i used the online chat they had good grammer (which is suprising with people from india)
[15:37] <darrglud> have you tried calling leo?
[15:37] <tallmacgirl> i could tell the guy was from india
[15:37] <tallmacgirl> i called him a while back
[15:37] <darrglud> oh on the show?
[15:37] <darrglud> today?
[15:38] <tallmacgirl> but now its so screwed up, i dont think i could explain it right
[15:38] <tallmacgirl> not today
[15:38] <tallmacgirl> last month
[15:38] <tallmacgirl> i just asked about the external drive
[15:38] <darrglud> how big is the external drive?
[15:38] <tallmacgirl> i think i need to sit down with someone
[15:39] <tallmacgirl> 500 gigs
[15:39] <darrglud> well then i would recommend you format it on the pc (using ntfs), if it works, then that tells you it's something to do with the mac, also check to see if the packaging claims it
[15:40] <tallmacgirl> my mac is an imac 1Ghz
[15:40] <darrglud> it's* compatible with the mac
[15:40] <darrglud> imac g4?
[15:40] <tallmacgirl> it says it IS
[15:40] <tallmacgirl> yeah
[15:40] <darrglud> do you have the model?
[15:40] <tallmacgirl> sure
[15:40] <darrglud> of the drive?
[15:40] <darrglud> could u tell it to me (i will ask on a tech forum, and next week, or if u give me ur email address i can send u a link)
[15:41] <tallmacgirl> mmm its an iomega silver firewire/usb 500 g
[15:41] <tallmacgirl> let me check for the model
[15:43] <tallmacgirl> it just says an item number on the iomega site, and its a silver 500GB Professional triple interface "

Any help would be highly appricated, and I think the woman would be really happy if i found a solution for her.

Thank You,
DarrGlud.

Is she sure she has the correct drivers installed onto the computer? Otherwise that HDD ain't gunna work

well she formatted the drive as the mac format (she said one of the three).

Well from my knowledge, formatting the HDD just removes everything that is on it. ask her if you can, if the external HDD came with a CD. This probably has the necessary drivers on it for the HDD to run.

well she said she did a archive install, and it screwed everything up

archiving for installing??? what on earth?!?
Never heard of an archive install.
That as you said would be the cause of the problem, try to get her to delete where the archiving went, may help.

No is a type of install. It means the system will do a fresh install, but keep all of the data intact.

Ah, still i don't know about it.
She could try to install by not archive installing.
Otherwise take the HDD back to the place of purchase, say it didn't work and get money back or a replacement,
OR
go to a tech place (PC world, any tech centre) and get a professional to look at it.