If your PC recognized all the HD space then the complications I mentioned are not an issue. For future reference, they can be caused by older versions of XP and/or not service pack 2, older bios versions, older driver versions, and incompatibility with some PCs that have special drive overlay software installed. Although I have never come across the latter.
You could try using a third party drive utility to confirm it's actual workability. You may also have a copy of the old FDisk DOS utility laying around. That would allow you to make a small 32GB partition and then format it in FAT32, just to see if the drive works at all.
If it were an older IDE drive I'd say check the pins to see if it is set for slave or master, etc. but that is not a concern for you.
Not much of that is useful but I did have this thought.
Is the USB port you plugged the drive into a fast USB port, USB ver 2.0 If it is 1.0, it will not only be painfully slower but I have found it to have similar speed issues beyond even what it should do when formatting a drive.
With SP2 installed, XP is normally compatible with USB 2.0 but some models, like an old Dell I had, required special USB port drivers installed after the SP2 install, otherwise they still acted like 1.0
I used to recommend DEll to my friends years ago but lately they are starting to build thier PCs way to proprietary. I'm very surprised. they should have learned a lesson from Compaq. They were the kings of business PCs for a long time until they started building way to proprietary and IT departments rebelled against them because of the difficulties keeping track of all the special drivers needed and the inability to swap in common parts.
I think Dell's current sufferings are due to this similar strategy. Off topic rant over....
