wd usb hard drive from Mac to PC

[rattwater]

I have a western digital USB hard drive model WD1200U017-001 that is now redundant from my wife's Mac Computer, where she had been using it on her "time machine" backup. I would now like to use it as an additional backup drive on my PC. However, when I plugged it in, my computer did not respond. The little blue light came on on the hard drive, but no response at all for my computer, and the drive was not visible when I clicked "start/computer". I am running windows 7 ultimate. My research on this hard drive indicates that it should work on a PC, so it is probably just a formatting problem. But how do I get it recognised in order to reformat it? Any ideas?
Robert

 

[Dzomlija]

I have a western digital USB hard drive model WD1200U017-001 that is now redundant from my wife's Mac Computer, where she had been using it on her "time machine" backup. I would now like to use it as an additional backup drive on my PC. However, when I plugged it in, my computer did not respond. The little blue light came on on the hard drive, but no response at all for my computer, and the drive was not visible when I clicked "start/computer". I am running windows 7 ultimate. My research on this hard drive indicates that it should work on a PC, so it is probably just a formatting problem. But how do I get it recognised in order to reformat it? Any ideas?
Robert

You have two options.

1) Find a Windows 7 driver that allows Windows to read/write Mac formatted hard disks

OR


2) If you have no data on there that you want to keep, you can re-partition and re-format the drive:

1. Click the Start Orb
2. Click "Control Panel"
3. Click "System and Security"
4. Click "Administrative Tools"
5. Double-click "Computer Management" (You may need to respond to UAC)
6. In the left pane, click "Disk Management"
7. In the center pane, in the bottom half, locate your drive. All the option you need to remove the existing volumes and partitions will be available in the right-click menu of you drive's graphical representation. Since I don't have a Mac drive here, I'm not entirely sure what the process from here on would be. But you'd generally need to first delete all existing partitions, then create new ones and format them. THIS WILL WIPE OUT ALL EXISTING DATA - YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

 

[rattwater]

Thanks for the suggestion, but I still could not see the WD drive under "disk management". I then reconnected to a Mac, deleted all the FILES and tried re formatting to FAT 32, but my PC was still not interested in it. Re your first suggestion, I see a program called macdrive 8, but as I don't really want the versatility to use this on both computers, I would really prefer not to purchase that software. Any other suggestions? Thanks and regards, Robert

 

[Jonathan_King]

Just be warned that the Time Machine backup replaces any other data on the partition. In other words, if you try to store anything else there, it will stay only until she does another backup.

As for the connectivity problem, try using a different USB port.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello rattwater, welcome to Seven Forums!


Have you done a restart after the HDD is plugged in to see if Windows will recognize it?

 

[rattwater]

I tried all those things, but to no effect. So I e-mailed the question off to western digital. They informed me that this drive is not supported by windows 7.!!$! End of story. Questioning closed. Thank you for your help any way.

 

[WindowsStar]

I tried all those things, but to no effect. So I e-mailed the question off to western digital. They informed me that this drive is not supported by windows 7.!!$! End of story. Questioning closed. Thank you for your help any way.

Hummmm...that does not make sense. Have you tried it on an Windows XP machine. If it works there it will work on Windows 7. So far I have never come across a drive that worked on a MAC that did not work on a Windows Machine once it was re-partitioned and re-formatted.

 

[Fumz]

I tried all those things, but to no effect. So I e-mailed the question off to western digital. They informed me that this drive is not supported by windows 7.!!$! End of story. Questioning closed. Thank you for your help any way.

That's non-sense. Hard drives are not built OS specific.

Zero the drive, then go back to the disk management tools and you'll see it: Active@ Kill Disk Hard Drive Eraser. Low Level Format.

 

[rattwater]

Thanks for your further encouragement. I will persist. We must beat it. But before I download that Active@Kill… How will it be able to see the drive in order to do its thing if I can't see it even under Disk Managment? And I haven't yet tried it on an XP machine.

 

[Fumz]

Because it's a dos app that doesn't rely on your operating system to tell it what hardware is present. If the drive is plugged in, turned on and recognized by your bios, it will show up.

 

[rattwater]

For your information, this is the response that I received from western digital. Should I still go ahead with the Active@Kill… download?

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your reply.

You can still use it with another computer but not with Windows 7.

If you have any further questions, please reply to this email and we will be happy to assist you further.

Sincerely,
Reyniel S.
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com
Customer (Robert Attwater)

02/23/2010 11:13 PM​

Thank you for your reply, Reyniel. No, the drive does not show in disk management. I guess it is into the bin then, or onto that endless storage shelf of redundant computers & bits. Oh well, it was worth a try. Thanks again for your help. Regards, Robert.
Response (Reyniel S.)

02/23/2010 09:02 PM​

Dear Robert,

Thank you for contacting Western Digital Customer Service and Support. My name is Reyniel S.

I sincerely apologize for the inconvenience.

Unfortunately, this hard drive, is not in the list of compatible drives with Windows 7.

It could work but we don't guarantee.

Does it show in Disk Management?

Answer Title: How to access Disk Management in Windows 2000, XP, or Vista to manage your hard drives
Answer Link: http://wdc.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/wdc.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=1284



Sincerely,
Reyniel S.
Western Digital Service and Support
http://support.wdc.com

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello mate.


One question/ statement, if you don't have anything to lose why not zero the drive and see if Windows 7 will recognize the drive? Does the machine BIOS "see" it?

 

[rattwater]

Okay. I will download the Active@Kill… app and see what happens. As you say, nothing to lose.Ta

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Okay. I will download the Active@Kill… app and see what happens. As you say, nothing to lose.Ta

Don't forget to post back with how it sorts out.

 

[Fumz]

Can you link the drive in question?

The notion that a hard drive is "incompatible" with any version of Windows, or any version of any OS is, to me, rather absurd, since USB is a standard that's going to be the same across all platforms.

They "may" mean that you can't use some of their tools built into the firmware... that's possible... but as far as just using it for storage, I can't think of any reason why this should not be a really simple procedure. :huh:

 

[rattwater]

Thanks for your continuing interest and support guys. I downloaded the Active@Kill… app, windows version, and fired it up. Unfortunately, it also failed to recognise the western digital drive. I have not been game to burn a bootable disk and do a computer restart with that. This isn't worth risking my computer over, but I would still like to beat the *******! Maybe I should find an xp machine and try it in that first?? I know there is nothing wrong with the drive, as it works fine in a Mac. It is frustrating that western digital was not more knowledgeable in their response. I don't understand what you mean by "link the drive".

 

[pdxireland]

Hello,

Hook the drive back up to the Mac.
IF YOU NEED NOTHING ON THE DRIVE proceed to Disc Utility & erase/zero it out.
Then plug back into the W7 PC.
Reboot

fmg

 

[Fumz]

... I downloaded the Active@Kill… app, windows version, and fired it up. Unfortunately, it also failed to recognise the western digital drive. I have not been game to burn a bootable disk and do a computer restart with that. This isn't worth risking my computer over, but I would still like to beat the *******! ...

...

Until you create a bootable diskette/floppy/cd and run the program on a reboot, you're not actually doing anything. Of course it won't recognize the drive.

 

[rattwater]

It's looking more like a trip to the local store to buy a new one. But it is frustrating to fail on those matters. In response to your advice, I have again cleaned the drive on a mac via utilities/erase (also checking that the drive works just fine on the Mac, which it does), then connected it to my PC and rebooted. But still the drive was not recognized. So I thought it was time to create the rebootable kill disk. But alas, thwarted again! The bootable… creater programme insisted that my drive was A:! I do not have A! My RW drive is D:! But it would not let me specify that. So I tried a USB device. But while it recognised its correct location, F:, it claimed that it had the wrong "handle",! Any other ideas before I take it for a swim with me tomorrow! Thanks anyway. Robert

 

[eheffa]

Fix for this

I had the exact same problem.

MacDrive8 fixed this & allowed me to see the Mac formatted disk & reformat into NTFS format.

I was only using the free trial but it did the trick.

-evan