Hardware Drivers :: Boot Windows 7 From External Hard Drive?
Mar 16, 2013
I'm currently using a Dell Inspiron 3520 laptop with Windows 8 on it. I have an external hard drive from a Windows 7 desktop. It recognizes the external hdd right away and I can access it but I can't figure out how to boot Windows 7 as the primary. I've tried changing boot order in bios but I've had no luck as it still boots Windows 8 first. Is there a way to use the Windows 7 as the primary drive ? Even a way to temporarly turn off the Windows 8 hard drive will work. I just need to access the Windows 7 hard drive without having to navigate through program files to have to open something.
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Sep 15, 2013
HP Envy dv7, Windows 8
Seagate 2TB drive mounted in a Thermaltake, Max 5 enclosure. The drive does not show in Windows 8. Does show when running Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc) but shows as "Unallocated" without a drive letter. If run the Seagate drive tools, it shows up as unallocated, with drive letter "C". But there is obviously already a drive "C".
Disk Management does not present a means by which to assign a drive letter
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Apr 20, 2013
I recently purchased a WD 1TB external portable hard drive.When I first got it it was immediately recognised by my laptop (a 2 day old Asus Ultrabook S400C). This is my first time with Windows 8 so I am still learning to navigate it.
The first thing I did was transfer 650gb of movies and music across. I didn't format the hard drive first, maybe that was my first mistake. My files were still recognisable on my laptop and my WD TV Live media centre. The next day all of a sudden my media player wouldn't recognise it and when I plugged it back into my laptop it also cannot see it.
The device can be seen in device manager (when I click on properties it says it's working corectly), but not in the drives list in my computer. It is showing as "Disc 2" 'Not Iniitialised' and when I click on 'Initialise' and choose 'MBR' and hit OK it comes up with this error msg: 'The request could not be performed due to an I/O device error'.
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Nov 25, 2012
I just installed Win 8 last night and everything seemed fine before I turned off the computer. Now, I'm a student and I work a lot from my USB/HD. I have both my usb and HD connected to the computer but the computer doesn't read them now.
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Aug 17, 2014
My portable hard drive stops showing up all of a sudden. It is connected to a USB hub. When I go to 'Disk Management' in 'Computer Management', the hard drive shows up as Unknown - Not Initialised. Also this hard drive works while not using the USB hub, and the USB hub works as well with other devices.
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Jun 9, 2013
Is there a way I can back up my files from my 2tb WD My Passport External Hard Drive? I have a lot of files on there which I want to back up and convert to NTFS.
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Aug 10, 2013
I have a Simpletech Simpledrive External Hard drive. It works on my desktop running xp. When I connect to my Asus N56DP Laptop, I hear the binging and all. But I do not see it in my control panel. I can see it in the device manager. Not in Disc MAnagement. Is there something I can do to get it to install and be accessible? I have some race car pictures I would like to post to Facebook.
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Sep 15, 2014
I have an external harddrive on a USB2 port that I have been using for ages without problems. Yesterday it just stopped being accessible for no apparent reason. The machine "sees" it (as the F drive) but can't access it. If I try to double click on the F drive the machine takes aaaaaages (green "busy bar" slowly tracking) and then I eventually get an error that says "F: is not accessible" - as per this image:
So I assumed the drive had died. But to test that, I plugged it into my g/f's old XP machine and it accessed the drive with no problems whatsoever!
The only other thing I could think to try was to look in disc management. But even though the is an F drive showing in explorer (as per the above image)... it doesn't even show up in disc management!
So, in exasperation, I did a "refresh" of my system. A bit of a drastic step, but I thought maybe it was time for a cleanup anyway. But, after the refresh was done... STILL the same problem! Exactly as per the above images, the machine "sees" the F drive but nothing is accessible.
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Feb 5, 2014
I am connecting a 640GB Samsung G2 Portable External Hard Drive to my HP Pavilion 15 Laptop.
The external hard drive works on other desktop and laptop computers here at work, but when connected to the HP Pavilion (Windows 8.1 OS) it shows up as a Local Disk (H: but when trying to Open the drive it says:
"Location Not Available H: is not accessible The device is not ready."
What should I do?
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Jan 4, 2014
My Seagate Portable Drive seems to work as the green light comes on.
Screen shot of my Disk Management below. Am I missing something?
Other solutions have been to right click and assign a drive, but those listed below other that the C: don't allow.
Using OS Windows 8.1
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May 11, 2013
I have a USB hard drive which has two partitions:
1 x 100GB partition formatted as FAT32
1 x 900GB partition formatted as NTFS
(these sizes aren't perfectly correct, but it's a 1TB drive that's split in 1:9 proportions)
On my Windows 7 laptop, both partitions are visible in My Computer, and I can read/write with no problems. (On the same laptop, an Ubuntu install can also see and use them perfectly)
On my new Windows 8 laptop, the 100GB FAT32 patition appears under My Computer normally, but the 900GB NTFS partition does not. If I go to Computer -> Manage -> Disk Management, I can see the partition. It has no drive letter or file system listed, reports as "healthy, primary partition" and shows 100% free space. If I right click on the drive's entry in the list, my only options are "delete partition"; everything else is greyed out.
So, to summarise: One hard drive with two partitions. Both partitions work perfectly in Win 7 and Ubuntu. Win 8 can only see the FAT32 partition, and treats the NTFS partition as if it is junk.
way to persuade Windows 8 to mount this partition? I know that the drive and partition are fine, but for some reason Windows 8 isn't interested.
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Sep 8, 2013
I have been experiencing problems trying to back up to external hard drive this week and keep getting an I/O Error with various error messages including 0x8007045D My Hard Drive is "G" and I can see it through my computer no problem and I also have my ITunes library on it and the ITunes music is working fine.
I am getting a message in Action Centre saying my Back Up did not complete successfully and then I have the option of Try to Run Again or change back up settings. If I select Try to Run again windows cannot find the disk or network location and if I change settings "G" does not appear. It seems Back Up has detected an error on my "G" which is preventing it from running the back up.
Also in Disk Management I am prompted to initialise a disc before logical disc manager can access it so I select MBR and I get I/O device error and disk 1/G is unknown/not initialised.I have tried powering the external drive off/on and also disconnecting it from the computer but no difference and at present I cannot save anything to the external hard drive. There is a previous back up already on the hard drive but this is not accessible at present.clearing this error so I can back up again without loosing what is stored on the hard drive in particular my ITunes library.
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Oct 29, 2013
i accidentally dropped my hard drive its a 1tb buffalo hd-pntu3,,now when i go to disk management in my computer its showing up as disk 1 unknown allocated,,and when i try to initialize disk its greyed out!,,i have a lot of files on this drive
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Dec 26, 2012
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Essentials, it's filled with tons of old photos, movies, docs, games, and I'm scared to think of what else. The SATA to USB connector broke on it, so I took the drive apart and put it inside my computer. I opened up device manager because it wasn't showing up automatically and the 2TB is showing up as unallocated, I'm freaking out now because I'm scared the data was somehow deleted.What do I do?
edit: I realize also this isn't directly related to Windows 8 (besides the fact it's the OS I'm on), but I don't know where else to post it. I'd also like to say that I had a really deep feeling the drive was going to break continually for about two weeks before it happened, so if you have a similar feeling about something, don't ignore it!
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May 16, 2013
A few months ago my laptop broke and it needed repairs. The HDD was replaced and i got my laptop back with one new HDD inside and one "broke" HDD in a bag. Later the "Repaired" Laptop crashed again so i bought a new one and took the HDD out of the old laptop. I bought a HDD case with USB connection and both of the HDD's where intact. The oldest HDD contained windows 7 and the replaced contained windows 8. Now i want to sell the Windows 8 HDD so i want it to be clean of personal files but i want it to keep windows 8. I thought the solution was to run the windows 8 on the HDD so i can use the program deletation program of that windows 8. The problem is i dont know how to run windows 8 of a hard drive. I have searched the internet but with no success.
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Aug 23, 2014
My wife just got a new PC running Windows 8.1 Pro and she wants to re-connect her external hard drive that has all her game files on it to the new PC.
While the new PC recognizes the drive it states that it needs to be initialized , doing so would wipe the data currently on the drive which would be unacceptable. How to get the new PC to recognize this drive and its data?
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Apr 12, 2013
I successfully managed to create a virtual hard drive on my external drive to try boot windows 8 off it. I managed to boot it up and the login screen also appears as normal. I have a successful login, But on the second time login I am faced with black screen and the cursor. I'm aware that Microsoft has released a fix for this. I have attached the executable in the zip. I tried running this fix but it didn't work . After the black screen appears, even in safe mode I cannot run explorer.exe or open any folder to try running any executable files
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Apr 2, 2013
I have bought a 2TB western Digital external USB3 hard drive and installed the Asmedia drivers but windows never picks it up. See the screen capture. The drivers are the ASMedia USB 3 host controller but it seems to show up after a few seconds as USB Root Hub (xHCI) with a triangle. I have tried updating from there and directing it to the drivers and uninstalling and then reinstalling and the drive shows up long enough to copy but then disappears again.
I literally have run out of options.
It seems to be a common theme on the web and especially with Western Diital drives although I think it is windows struggling to recognise them and implement correctly.
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Oct 14, 2013
I am having problems with system imaging my Windows 8 machine to an external hardrive via a usb (??) cable.
First, as mentioned in another thread is the exceptionally long time. The external drive is a WD 1TB BTW. I have two older hardrives on the computer. Just installed the second, which at this time is not being used. Trying several several programs, Paragon Free, Easeus, Macrium Reflect and the built in Windows Backup I was getting 14 hour estimates.
The actual issue I wish to resolve is that during a over 9 hour backup of the primary drive with approx. 34GBs, I noted what appears to be a folder with the Windows backup icon called the name of my computer on my external drive. It contains approximately 3GBs of data in multiple folders. Windows backup is turned off. I did not have this file on the external hardrive and I didn't initiate the OS to perform this. It showed no indication of running and occurred during the Macrium backup.
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Apr 2, 2013
Can i install windows 7 or 8 to an external hard drive so i can take it to another computer, select it from the boot menu and it will boot up?
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Nov 4, 2013
I have two USB 3.0 ports on the front of my Dell XPS 8500 Dell desktop. Once again I have caused the USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller to stop working because I did not disconnect the external hard drive before shutting down, it seems. It reminds me of leaving in a floppy drive but at least the computer would not boot in that circumstance. Now, there is no warning whatsoever. Dell technical support's answer is to refresh or reset the machine.
Any way that would be less time-consuming than having to reinstall all of my applications.
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May 7, 2013
I have an external hard drive connected to my PC via hard drive dock on USB 3.0 port. Whenever I turn my PC on with the hard drive connected, my PC won't boot up because it is trying to boot up from the external hd where I have an image of both my Win 7 & Win 8 OS. How can I stop my PC from booting up from the external hd?
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Sep 20, 2014
I had a windows 7 laptop which finally died but before it did a made a system image backup to my external hard drive so I have all the files. How do I load that onto my new windows 8.1 laptop so I have all my files there?
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Jul 24, 2014
My old Sony Vaio broke the other day, so I've just got a new laptop. The Vaio was Vista, but now I'm on Windows 8.
I'd been backing up my Vaio to an external harddrive, but all I ever did was run the backup and let it get on with it. So for example, within the external harddrive now it just has a list of the dates I ran a backup, followed by 'Backup files 1', 'Backup files 2' etc. I'm hoping these include some of the documents/files I had on there, but I can't be sure. What exactly will have been backed up here?
I've been trying now to restore these files on my new laptop, but I can't seem to find a way. Is it possible?
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Dec 29, 2013
OS: Windows 8.1 Pro x86 WMC
External Hard Drive: Seagate FreeAgent GoFlex (No external Power Required)
Problem: I can't access my External Hard Drive.
See The Screenshot Below.
Solution Applied:
Drive letter changed. (Not Worked)
Also tried Properties - Security - Advanced - Owner to Everyone. (Not Worked)
Checked the HDD in another PC Windows 8.1 x64. (Not Worked)
I connected the HDD then I installed the "Better-Explorer" through that i can access my external hdd normally but If I Reboot my PC then same Problem with the "Better-Explorer". & If I install The "Better-Explorer" Then if I connect my HDD Then from the beginning i can't access the HDD.
In Tune-Up Utilities Their is Disk Explorer through that I can explore my Ex HDD Drive. I right clicked on my drive from Tune-up & checked the disk for error and then repaired it (Windows Error checking tool) and then reboot my PC but it is still the same.
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Jun 20, 2013
I just installed Windows 8. I used to have Vista. With Vista I could connect my Seagate external hard drive and then find the Backup function and create a backup. How would I do this with Windows 8?
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Aug 5, 2014
I'm running Windows Server 2012 R2 on a Dell Poweredge R310. I just bought a G-RAID 8TB external USB 3 hard drive. I plugged the hard drive in and when I switched it on the computer crashed.
I didn't notice right away since the computer is headless. But when I got back to my desk I noticed the computer was rebooting. When it fished POST it gave me some warning about IRQL_NOT_LESS_EQUAL and rebooted again.
I removed the USB drive and now the computer is running fine.
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Sep 16, 2014
I am trying to to back up my files, using file history, but the program will not recognize my Iomega portable hard drive.
I keep getting this error message every time I try to back up the files.
"File history does not recognise this drive"
There doesn't appear to be any problem with the Omega as I have copied my files to this and double Save when modified.
It seems this problem has been around generally for a long time now as W8.1 search turns many pages on this and I have tried several of the suggestions without success.
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Mar 4, 2014
I am reading up about optimizing of SSD drives and I'm seeing that Windows 8 is supposed to be pretty good with automatically deciding whether to optimize or defragment drives based on what they are (SSD vs HDD). But I have a problem. I just bought an SSD but under the Optimization menu it is showing up as a Hard Drive.
It's a brand new Samsung 840 EVO 500GB and I'm going to be using it solely for music and movies as an external drive. I also bought an Anker external SATA III to USB 3.0 enclosure. I have the drive recognized and everything under the File Explorer but I'm just a little nervous that it's listed as a Hard Drive under the Optimization menu. How can I get Windows to see that it's in fact an SSD?
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Jan 3, 2014
I was wondering what you'd recommend for the following:
I want a program that synchronizes my files with my external hard drive.
The client I use right now, Memeo Instant Backup, is decent, but has the following issues:
1. Takes a lot of resources to run
2. Is extremely slow
3. Doesn't mirror deleting files on my hard drive, keeps them on my external and causes it to get full
Is there a program I can use that just literally copies my user folder onto an external drive, and as I delete/move files on my hard drive, its mirrored on the external hard drive?
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Feb 18, 2013
Recently i upgraded my system to windows 8..N after clean install i backed up the copy of my C drive (Includes System Image) to my external 2TB Hard Drive.. It took around 250GB of hard drive space..Now since i am running out of space i decided to delete the back up copy from My hard drive.. I deleted WindowsImageBackup and all associated files using control panel..But around 150GB space is missing(not visible) from my external Hard Drive..
As You can see from attached pic that 125 GB free out of 1.81TB..But size of all files including hidden files is 1.53TB..
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