Earlier postings and articles recognize this problem in smaller drives. Article says “The My Book is formatted with ExFAT by default and is incompatible with some computers when Legacy USB Support and Boot from USB Drive is the first option configured in the BIOS.” Were earlier WD 4TB and 3TB drives formatted with ExFAT? All my earlier drives have worked with no problem, have never prevented Windows 10 from booting up. Why now?
WD tech rep says “it’s a power problem” and tells me to return the drive. But drive works fine if I plug it in after booting Windows. Doesn’t seem like it should be “a power problem.” Opinions?
Advice I received from a knowledgeable friend turned out to be better than that provided by the WD Help Tech, who, as noted above, told me to return the drive to the vendor because of a “power problem.” In fact, earlier people posting about this problem have discovered the real cause, and it’s disappointing that the tech rep didn’t recognize this cause. The 8TB My Book uses the ExFAT format, and this is apparently incompatible with Windows 10, preventing Windows 10 from booting up. (Windows works fine if you plug the drive in after Windows has booted. There’s no evidence of any “power problem.”) So with my friend’s guidance we reformatted the 8TB to the NTFS format used by all my earlier WD drives. Windows and the drive both now work fine. If I had returned the drive as the tech rep told me to do I would just have started all over with another 8TB ExFAT-formatted drive, almost certain to cause the same problem.
