WD external drive works with XP, not with Vista

[Andy G]

I have a WD 250GB external hard drive, the MyBook. It works absolutely fine
on a HP laptop running XP, but on another HP laptop running Vista Basic does
not work properly. Symptoms as follows. Does not show in Explorer. Shows
in Device Manager and claims it's running properly, but shows no Volume
under the volumes tab. Shows in Computer Management, but no details and
cannot perform any operation on it, such as Change Drive Letter or Delete
and Create Volume. In Computer Management it shows as Disk 1, but has no
Drive Letter, and no status such as "Healthy".

Any help appreciated, I have no idea how to get the drive back again.

Andy G

 

[Curious]

When I upgraded from XP to Vista I had to get Vista drivers for my MyBook
from the Western Digital Website.

 

[Andy G]

Thanks for the suggestion but I already checked the WD website. There are
no Vista drivers for my particular model. There are about a dozen different
MyBook models. Mine is the "Essential".

 

[GTS]

Here are 2 items to try -

1. Delete the file c:\windows\inf\infcache.1

2. Check that the DevicePath registry key is present in
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion
and that it's value includes '%SystemRoot%\System32'

 

[Andy G]

Many thanks for that suggestion. Things are better but still something not
right!

I can now see the drive in Explorer under "Computer", but it's shown as a
Removable Disk and claims to have no media.... So if I right click on it
and try to Open or Format, system tells me there is no disk and to insert
one...

In Computer Management things have changed a bit too. The drive now seems
to have two listings in the lower half of the window. It is shown as Disk 1
(Removable G, No Media. To the right there is no information.

Secondly it is listed as Disk 2, Basic, 232 Gb, Online. To the right there
is the blue bar that denotes a primary partition and below a hatched block
showing the size, 232 Gb. Again I cannot perform any operations on it in
Disk management which gives a variety of obscure error messages when I try
to format or change drive letter.

None of this means much to me but I'm hoping something might ring a bell
with you? Any help much appreciated.

Andy G.

 

[GTS]

You're welcome. I suggest you now delete both partitions (Volumes), create
a new partition and then format it. I think you can probably do it all in
Vista, but if any problem, delete them on the XP machine.
--

 

[David Vair]

If it was formatted with NTFS there may be some ownership issues. Google
taking ownership of a drive and there are several step by step walkthroughs
to show how to take ownership of the drive.

 

[Andy G]

Cheers Steve, but the Partition Style is already set to "MBR". At least I
now know you can right click on the left section!

Andy G

 

[Andy G]

AAArgh. Prior to getting your latest post, I powered off the external
drive, ejected it, and rebooted the PC. When I reconnected the drive I'm
back to where I was before, it no longer shows in Computer and disk
management only shows one disk!!!!

Does this suggest anything to you?

I've tried deleting the volume in disk management, although it looks to me
like no actual volume is being recognised as it does not show in the list at
the top of the Disk Management window. After churning away for a while it
comes back with a message about "Cannot complete operation as Disk
Management Console is not up to date".

None of the actions it suggests achieve anything.

Andy G.

 

[Andy G]

Thanks, that sounds interesting. My problem is that I cannot see the drive
in "Computer", so I cannot carry out any of the stuff about taking ownership
as suggested on various forums.

The drive is formatted under NTFS as you guessed, but using a different PC
running XP, which I guess is causing the problem in Vista.

Would it be an idea to reconnect the drive to the old PC and somehow wipe it
clean without actually formatting it, then format it as if from new on the
Vista machine? Can you actually do this? Sorry if this sounds ignorant?

Andy G

 

[Andy G]

OK, I'm finding this hard to believe, after several months fruitless effort,
but it seems to be fixed. As I said in my previous post, it had reverted
and I could not do anything with it, but your suggestion got me thinking and
it seemed to be the way to go. So I reconnected the drive to the old PC
running XP, deleted the partition and created a new one but did not format
it. Then I connected the drive to the new Vista machine and formatted it.
It now behaves totally as expected, shows up everywhere and allows full
access.

Thank you so much for your suggestions.

Cheers

Andy G.

 

[Andy G]

OK, I'm finding this hard to believe, after several months fruitless effort,
but it seems to be fixed. I reconnected the drive to the old PC
running XP, deleted the partition and created a new one but did not format
it. Then I connected the drive to the new Vista machine and formatted it.
It now behaves totally as expected, shows up everywhere and allows full
access.

Probably obvious stuff to you but us mortals find it hard to sort the wheat
from the chaff when faced with uncooperative hardware... But why did Vista
not like the XP formatting. It's all NTFS?

Anyway, many thanks for your help.

Andy G.

 

[David Vair]

NTFS has a lot to do with it. When you first create the volume it is given
access permissions based on the machine and user it was created on. When
switched over to a different machine the access permissions are what is
causing the new machine not to see the volume.

 

[GTS]

You're welcome. I'm glad to hear it worked out.
--

 

[GTS]

David,

I'm admittedly puzzled what happened for Andy G, but I'm not sure your
assessment is accurate. NTFS permissions are applied on a file and folder
(which is also a file strictly speaking) basis and not on the volume per
se. I don't know how many XP formatted drives I've connected by USB to my
Vista system for service purposes (certainly dozens) and have never seen a
problem recognizing a volume because of permissions. (I have often had to
take ownership of files on the drive to access them, but that's to be
expected and a different issue.) I have seen some odd issues with certain
USB adaptors, though, that seem to work unpredictably. Perhaps that's
involved.

GTS
--

 

[Andy G]

If it sheds any light, I should add that I've had other problems involving
USB connected items, but also involving drivers where I would not expect a
problem.

For example, ever since a failed SP1 install, every time I boot up, system
tries to find drivers for the integral DVD drive. It always fails to find
any, but then the drive works anyway. Also an iPod and iPod Shuffle were
never recognised by iTunes under Vista, but worked fine on previous machine
with XP. Another problem, system will not recognise an HP flash drive,
(it's an HP laptop by the way!), which worked perfectly under XP.

The good news is that since applying your registry hack and the rebuild of
infcache.1 all of these problems have been resolved!

I now have a system working OK on all fronts, which I have never had since
buying the new Vista machine 11 months ago.

Going back to the external hard drive, it certainly seemed odd to me as an
ordinary user, that an external hard drive would be prohibited from being
moved from one PC to another. After all, what would be the point of using
it for backups, if you could not restore to a new machine if the first had a
catastrophic hardware failure?

Andy G

 

[Curious]

Are the drivers you are using the latest from the Western Digital Website?
If not and they are from WinUpdate that could be the cause of your problem.