NEW HDD cant recover disk image WD passport not recognized

easysqueezy · 10 Sep 2015

Hi
I got a new HDD on my HP notebook. I boot to the WIndows Recovery CD. It asks me what image to restore since the HDD is blank. I have backup images on my WD Passport external drive. However it says to install drivers. I have been to the WD website and made a CD by extracting the file they have available for downlad from another computer (which is XP) and tried to use those files on the Recovery Mode however says not recognized. I am finding myself stuck with a blank new HDD and no way to get windows 7 or my image back on there. any help greatly appreciated. thanks

mjf · 11 Sep 2015

If your ext HDD is connected to a USB3 port then try connecting to a USB2 port if you have one. If you want to use USB3 for system image restore with Windows 7 then you need to add the USB3 drivers during the restore.

If this isn't the problem then although you shouldn't need to format the new HDD you may want to try formatting it to NTFS primary using a bootable CD
Bootable Partition Manger | MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition
then see how you go.

easysqueezy · 11 Sep 2015

Thank you! I had been adding the drivers after it booted and decided to add the usb/hdd to the boot device option in the bios. It automatically detected my recovery image and it restored! Thank you so much. Have a blessed day

mjf · 12 Sep 2015

easysqueezy said:

Thank you! I had been adding the drivers after it booted and decided to add the usb/hdd to the boot device option in the bios. It automatically detected my recovery image and it restored! Thank you so much. Have a blessed day

It's good that you can restore your image. Is the USB/HDD you refer to your external drive? If so then I'm puzzled how adding it to the boot device options made the difference.