Are there any external drives that work with Windows xp?

I was using the My Passport Ultra on my desktop of with Windows xp and I just purchased another one of the same external drive and find out it doesn’t work with xp anymore. Is there any xp compatable drives anymore?

All the new WD Passports are formatted GPT Partition Style
which is not compatible with Windows XP 32-Bit (which only supports MBR Partition Style)

So, you can reformat [or convert] the Hard Drive to MBR (NTFS,FAT32 etc) and it will be compatible with XP 32-Bit (but, realize … MBR only supports a Maximum Capacity of 2TB)

Windows XP 64-Bit, Windows 7,8,10 all compatible with GPT (and MBR)

I’d say buy a new, yet older model HD from any reputable HD maker no larger than 2TB. Be sure they are USB2 only models (for the XP). You will likely find things like this at eBay where lots of sellers sell old inventories. Look of older model WD Passports, Seagate GoFlex model drives, Toshiba drives and Hitachi drives. I have USB2 drives by all of these makers and they all worked with my XP.

Another tip. XP is ancient history and not even supported anymore. If you are serious about using a computer, you really need to modernize at this point.

slightly disagree with that … i recently purchased a WD Elements 2TB Portable Hard Drive USB3.0 Model: WDBU6Y0020BBK

I formatted (converted) it from GPT to MBR (NTFS) and copied over about 1TB of data

When visiting a friend last weekend who is still running Windows XP 32-Bit (Service Pack1) on an OLD PC with USB2.0

The computer had No Issues recognizing the drive and copying the data (which was pretty slow compared to USB3.0) but the Fact is … the New Model/ USB3.0 WD Drive worked Fine with Windows XP :slight_smile:

Personally, i’m running old Windows 7 (made the switch from XP because of GPT and i want to use large capacity hard drives)

Agree, since USB 3 is compatible with 2. I was just trying to help the guy stay out of murky waters. Constraint is 2TB or less capacity.

true for portables … but the exception is WD Desktop Hard Drives

Have a couple of USB3.0 3TB and 4TB’s which work fine with Windows XP (MBR, 4K sectors) :slight_smile:

Like I suggested, upgrade from XP to a newer computer (even an old Win 7) and solve lots of problems.

agree, that’s what i nagged my friend to do :smile:

I have Windows 7 on my laptop but I still like working on a desktop. I have to return the drive I bought because it won’t install using Windows 7. Just gets hung up on the progress bar. It shows in my computer but when I try to safe remove it comes up greyed out with no option for that. I see that I can convert the drive for xp in Windows 7. Looks pretty easy. It is looking like It’s time to upgrade the os now.

Hi Mike, having same problem, though I can use my Windows 10 laptop, but what I want to do is get my files off of my XP, so we can get rid of computer. So if I was to get a older version flash drive USB2, and managed to download my files, would I be able to use it on my Win 10 laptop?

Sheila,
I believe you can transfer files on an XP to a Win 10 PC without any problems with a flash drive. Here’s why I say this:

Flash drives are formatted differently than the hard drives we have been talking about here. You don’t need a USB2 flash drive (also likely hard to find any today.) You can use a USB3 flash drive since USB3 is backward compatible with USB2 devices (as the XP is). Also, your Win 10 PC is a USB3 device, and you will want to use it before and after doing the transfers from the XP.

A lot will depend on what kinds of files (and their sizes) you want to copy to the flash drive. Most flash drives are formatted FAT32 or maybe ExFAT (so they work with PCs and Macs).If any of the files are larger than 4 GB size there would be limitations with the drive unless you reformat it to NTFS, but we would only go there if we had to.

Most photo, music and MS Office-type files are not this large. Only full-size video/movie files can be larger than 4GB. Let’s presume you do not have large video files on the XP, then you would be good to go with a flash drive, unmodified. Get a USB3 one with enough capacity so your back and forth copying would have as few a steps as possible, so a flash drive capacity from say 64GB to maybe 132GB should do the job.

Let me know your conditions, and I can let you know my “final” reply.

Thank you Mike, all this technology goes over my head and you have explained it really well. I will have to have a look at my files, but I don’t have any movies/ videos. It is mainly photos and things I have downloaded from genealogy sites. So don’t think they are going to be very big. I bought the WD Passport and haven’t been able to install it either on my XP. I was going to take it back, but it is ok on my laptop, wondered if after I get a flash drive, would I be able to upload files from that to my Passport?
Will let you know how I get on with flash drive when I get around to it.
Thank you again.

So if I were to buy one of these new 4TB portable drives and converted it to MBR, it wouldn’t work with XP? I have a 3TB external HD (MBR, 4096 bytes) that I bought back in 2013 and it works with XP. This is what confuses me.