Hello. I’d like to replace my single-bay version 1 firmware 4.0 hard drive with a larger capacity one. I have a SATA to USB adapter where I could put the new drive and transfer all the information I have on my current 600GB hard drive. The new drive would be 2TB. Can this be done using commands? Do I have to format the new drive in a specific format? Thank you.
You can use any free or paid cloning software or backup software to clone the old drive to the new one. If the clone is properly done the new drive should be partitioned and formatted along with all data copied over that was on the old hard drive. Note that typically you will have to either do a System Only Restore or 40 second pin reset after cloning to have the My Cloud OS properly expand the new hard drive’s data partition to it’s full size. Or use a computer program on Windows, Apple or Linux to expand the data partition (EXT4) to the full capacity on the new drive. For example one can use Gparted on Linux to expand the EXT4 data partition on the new drive to the full drive capacity.
Examples of free cloning programs (or backup programs that include a clone feature):
Clonezilla
Hasleo Disk Clone
EaseUS Partition Master Free
MiniTool Partition Wizard
AOMEI Backupper Standard
Note: The new hard drive should not be an SSD drive. People have reported SSD drives fail to work in the first generation single bay (v4.x firmware) My Cloud enclosure after having the old drive cloned to the SSD drive or being unbricked using any of the unbrick methods.
PS: certain external USB to SATA multi hard drive docking stations also include a stand alone clone function to clone a smaller drive to a larger drive. So if you have a external USB to SATA multi drive docking station, check that station to see if it supports stand alone drive cloning.
The problem is that I only have one hard drive docking station to install the new drive, so I can’t clone it directly since I don’t have another SATA drive. I was wondering if it’s possible to use a Linux command like dd to transfer the entire existing hard drive to the new one via USB in the SATA dock. Would that be possible? Do I need to format the new drive in NTFS or FAT32?
Hi Bennor. Regarding the last question I asked about transferring information from one drive to another using the dd command, is this feasible or not effective? Could you help me with this?
A search for using DD and the My Cloud turns up this old thread:
No idea if it works. Many backup programs and cloning program allow one to clone a drive to an “img” file. This would allow one to extract the My Cloud drive, attached it to a PC, clone the drive to an “.img” file saved on the PC. Then remove the My Cloud drive, connect the new drive to the computer, then using the clone or backup program, restore the “.img” file to the new hard drive.
Or just use one of the various “unbrick” methods to properly format and install the My Cloud OS to the new drive. Once the new drive is in the My Cloud enclosure and running properly one could copy the user data from the EXT4 data partition of the old My Cloud drive that one attaches to their PC to the My Cloud.
One popular method of unbricking the first gen single bay My Cloud:
Replace HDD - English.txt
https://wd.hides.su/fox_exe/WDMyCloud-Gen1/Backups/
https://wd.hides.su/fox_exe/WDMyCloud-Gen1/
That last option, creating a new drive for MyCloud using the Fox manual, is what I was thinking of doing as a last resort. I’ll probably end up doing this process, although to copy the information between drives, I’ll have to do it in Linux because Windows doesn’t recognize the new drive in the SATA drive because it was formatted in Linux. I’ll report the outcome. Thanks.
Known issue of Windows not recognizing Linux formatted drives without using third party drivers or software. Couple of examples of such third party driver/software for reading EXT4 on Windows:
https://www.paragon-software.com/home/linuxfs-windows/
https://www.ext2fsd.com/
Another other option, on Windows, is to use a Linux boot disk to temporarily boot into Linux. Example using Ubuntu:
I was aware of this issue with Linux and Windows. I’ll try transferring the information from disk to disk using Windows, using the ext4 partition of the data storage drive on the new disk. I’ll report back on the results.
