@Lolonois
Thanks for some more directions to go, as yours seem WD targeted i will begin with them in my troubleshooting process.

I was unaware that there was a particular issue with some pi4 models that forced me to use an official pi4 power supply. Perhaps I should attempt this first to resolve my issues or start here to eliminate the possibility.

I have just received my external usb enclosure and have shucked the drive. To my disappointment the drive has no data interface and in fact has an integrated USB interface.

I suppose to proceed with even considering putting this in an external sata enclosure I would have to match this hdd model # with another that has the actual sata interface pcb to use as a donor for this drive. I’m not even sure how well this would work but in theory it should. Does anyone have any other possible work arounds for this issue? I don’t even know when they started doing this, it used to be buy an external shuck it and put it in whatever device you chose.

Does anyone else have any input thoughts or ideas with this?

This has quickly gotten way over my head….maybe I will just buy a different hdd and move on I don’t know yet.

There’s no reason why 4tb won’t work, only that by default retropie installs into folders in the home directory of your user account ... so either you ensure there’s enough space partitioned there, OR you move the directory to a path with more available space and create a link in your home directory to that path.

@KN4THX you really can't beat them for the price.