Solved WD External HD and Windows 7

[jack1953]

I got my WD EHD today. Plugged it in, Windows saw it, I started to clone with Macrium. After seeing the posts in here on cloning vs imaging, I cancelled the clone and was going to image instead.
Now I can't get Windows to see the drive. I've rebooted and tried other USB ports.
What should I try next?
Thanks,
Jack

 

[marsmimar]

With the WD plugged in, open Disk Management and post a screenshot. It's possible that cancelling the cloning operation might have changed something. Perhaps the WD no longer has drive letter assigned, or something else. Please note Step 5 in the tutorial.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[alan10]

I suggest that the new HDD was given the same disk identity as the HDD from which it was being cloned.
Windows would put it OFFLINE as soon as it sees that.
InDisk Management, select the word "offline" and right click andf choose "online" and it should then be given a new signature and come online.

 

[jack1953]

Update: First let me say what an incredible forum! The stuff I've learned in ALL the online forums are priceless!! Kudos to all!!

I wanted to let everyone know what transpired with my problem here and see if I did what I was supposed to do correctly.

I went to the WD website and downloaded and installed the drivers and updates again. That, in and of itself, was able to let Windows see the drive.

Part of that process was running a WD FAT32 format program.

However, when I went to try and image the drive with AOMEI, it wouldn't let me and told me it needed to be formatted in the NFTS format.

I did a google search and found a link that gave a me step by step on how to go into W7 and do that. I did that successfully, and was able to image the drive with AOMEI, and went ahead and purchased Nova at Newegg for $19.99.

My learning curve question is what is the difference between FAT32 and NFTS? Now go easy on the explanation keeping in mind I'm a novice!

 

[mjf]

My learning curve question is what is the difference between FAT32 and NFTS? Now go easy on the explanation keeping in mind I'm a novice!

Google helps.
However..unless you have some very good reasons to go FAT32 then go NTFS.
- FATxx are older file systems. MS have the ownership of the NTFS file system standard which puts some vendors off including some game machine makers.
- For FAT32 you will need to use 3rd party software (not Windows) to format large partitions. This is no big deal and will be recognized by Windows but the file system restricts files to 4GB.