I had the drive attached to an XP computer. I want to use it with windows 7 on a new computer.What is the process please?
For use via Windows Explorer, you should be able to just plug the drive in as before. If you have been using WD SmartWare, you will need to install SmartWare on the new computer. The connection should still be the same.
EDIT: It has been pointed out that you may need to set Windows options to Show Hidden files. With SmartWare you may need to run a backup from the new machine to make older backups visible. (These are points I have just learned about. I am phasing out SmartWare in my particular circumstances, so I am only reporting what others have said.)
Doing the same…migrating from XP to 7…Newbie question…how many backups can you put running WDSmartware? If I run a backup upon new installation onto 7, will it overwrite what I had on there from XP?
thekabuki wrote:
Doing the same…migrating from XP to 7…Newbie question…how many backups can you put running WDSmartware? If I run a backup upon new installation onto 7, will it overwrite what I had on there from XP?
You will want to be cautious in this situation. There are some different possibilities.
One is that SmartWare settings includes a “number of file copies/versions” (something like that), which determines how many times it will back up the same file before it starts discarding the oldest version.
The other question is whether the computer under 7 has the same name as it did under XP. If you look at your drive in Windows Explorer you should find a folder named “WD SmartWare.swstor”. Inside this should be a folder with the name of the computer. Drilling down further should show you folder names beginning with “Volume.” (note the dot) followed by an alpha-numeric string. These will correspond to the different drives you backed up (if you have more than one drive.)
If your computer is named differently under Win 7 than it was under XP there should be no issue with previous backups being overwritten.
1 Like
Thank you. The two computers did have different names…simply by accident. The number of versions was set to 5…also by accident/default…so by accident everything worked out ok lol
