32 bit external HD on a 64 bit os?


  1. Brorin
    Posts : 1
    64 bit Windows 7 ultimate
       New #1

    32 bit external HD on a 64 bit os?


    Hello Everyone

    I have recently ran into a problem that is new to me. My wife has a 2tb external hard drive that she initially installed on her 32 bit vista laptop. She backed up lots of important files on the hard drive. Her laptop has recently crashed so I moved the external hard drive to my 64 bit windows 7 desktop. I cannot access the files on the external hard drive. Initially, it continued to say that a partition did not exist on the drive. I then went to disk management and selected the drive to be active and assigned it a drive letter. It now shows up fine but when I try to access it, it asks me to format it. I have scoured the internet trying to find a solution and I have no clue how to access these files on this hard drive. Does anybody here have any suggestions on how to get a 32 bit external hard drive to work on a 64 bit os?
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  3. AddRAM
    Posts : 13,576
    Windows 10 Pro x64
       New #2

    Only an Operating System is either 32 or 64 bit, not the files on your external. You should be able to connect your external drive to any computer and use it.

    You should not be making it active, and windows will give it a letter, you don`t need to do that either.
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