I have owned this drive for a few years. It was originally used with an XP Toshiba laptop, worked great. Later it was used with an HP Slimline 3750 CTO running 64 bit Vista, also worked great. I upgraded the Slimline to 64 bit Windows 7 and the problems began. Here is the skinny.
When I plug the drive in USB or firewire it works for 2 - 10 minutes, then stops. When it stops it hangs the entire computer. Unplugging the USB or firewire frees the computer. When plugging the drive back in it repeats this process. Basically I am plugging and unplugging this thing trying to get my data off.
It does not matter if it is firewire or USB, issues still occur. I do not have both firewire and USB plugged in at the same time, it’s one or the other.
Installed the Microsoft hotfix for 4gb computers running Windows 7 64 bit with nvidia chipsets, issues still occur.
I don’t have problems with any other USB devices.
I checked the Western Digital Windows 7 compatibility list and my drive is not on it so it appears I have to accept that.
It is disturbing to me that my drive is rendered useless since I decided to upgrade to Windows 7. These things are not cheap and I don’t consider it disposable. I will continue to fight with it until all my data is off it. At the rate I am gong, it will take about a month.
I believe some kind of update is in order. I don’t think I should have to buy a new drive just because I upgraded to 7. I don’t think I should have to fight with it to get my data.
Should I just lose my data?
Should I have to use a friends XP computer to get my data?
Should Microsoft and Western Digital work together to solve this?
I have searched this and found hundreds of posts from people having similar problems.
I think WD owes it to their customers to get this straight. I know it s not my problem, my computer works fine, my USB works fine, it’s just this one thing, please fix it!
