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I'm used to backing up data from my Xp computer to external usb hard drives every now & then. Recently I bought a new 3TB WD external hard drive but once I plugged it to the usb port, strangely enough it just appeared in the list of device manager (I can safely remove it from system tray) but not in the list of Disk management nor in the explorer!! When I try it on a Windows 7 computer it worked effortlessly. I'm suspicious that it is the transition from 512 to 4k sector size. Is there a trick that would enable me to use the device in Xp too? Would it work out if I reformatted it using Windows 7 utility to any specific allocation unit size?

Please help, Thank you

2 Answers 2

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Any large-sector disks, such as 4K native, 512E, or any non-512 native disks, are not supported on any Windows XP version.

However, WD quick format can fix this:

Please check the WD official documentation

Just follow the guide and select Window XP compatibility when formatting the drive. It should then work.

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  • Thank you so much man, you saved me, I was just too busy these days that I'd try your unbelievably creditable solution but finally I did & it worked like a charm. Now Xp explorer put up this brand new external hard drive as soon as it's plugged in :-)
    – Ali
    May 31, 2017 at 14:55
  • Glad it worked !
    – Overmind
    Jun 2, 2017 at 8:58
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I disagree slightly with @Overmind. While Microsoft may not officially support large sectors on XP, that doesn't mean it won't work. I can successfully use a Seagate 8TB drive on Windows XP SP3 because it has 4K Native sectors. In other words, because it identifies as having 4K sectors, Windows XP is able to use it normally.

Based on your description, the issue I believe you're running into is that the drive is formatted with GPT. That would explain why it works on Windows 7 but not XP. If you want it to work on XP and be able to access the full 3 TB, then you need to verify the sector size in msinfo32. Just run msinfo32 and navigate to Components->Storage->Disks, then find your external drive in the list. If it says, "Bytes/Sector 4096" then it is XP-compatible and just needs to be reformatted with the WD Quick Formatter as Overmind suggested. If it says, "Bytes/Sector 512", then Windows XP will not be able to access more than the first ~2 TB or so.

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