I am using WD Smarware version 2.4.10.
Now my Computer uses 1 Hard Disk with 2 partitions: one for system and the other for Data
My system : Windows 8.1
I am searching for a possibility of saving the the 2 partitions
Can you help me?
Thank you
Hi,
Welcome to the WD Community,
It’s not recommended to use WD Smartware with a drive with multiple partitions since the software will not identify the drive properly.
As a recommendation, reformat the drive into a sigle partition to use the software correctly.
>>>It’s not recommended to use WD Smartware with a drive with multiple partitions since the software will not identify the drive properly.
I’m confused by this statement. Most computers purchased with Windows # preinstalled have multiple partitions. For instance the Dell Latitude I’m using at this moment has 3 Windows partitions :
- 1 fat 16 (probably MBR)
- 1 NTFS labeled Recovery
- 1 NTFS labeled OS
Please clarify.
The first two there are “hidden” partitions, used for system stuff and recovery (storing the install image of Windows, so they don’t have to give you separate media like DVDs). Only one (the OS one) will have a drive letter and will be actively used and accessed day to day by the user. Hence it is the only one that the OS sees, and will be the only one that would need any kind of backup.
The original comment would relate to having two “active” partitions on the same physical hard drive, such as an OS partition but also a data partition. It’s quite common to set Windows up that way (I often used to do it when installing earlier versions) as that way if you need to update or reinstall Windows then you can do it on the OS partition without having to worry about the safety of the data.
Of course newer versions of Windows make that less easy as they can themselves mess around with partitions and screw things up, but that’s a side-rant.
1 Like
Thank you for the clarification!
>>>The original comment would relate to having two “active” partitions on the same physical hard drive…
So having 2 physical hard drives shouldn’t be a problem … correct? The reason I ask is that I’m having some extreme slowness issue with a Windows 7 installation on an internal SSD, and an external ESATA drive formatted NTFS that’s used as a shared data drive for a Linux install on the same machine installed on a third internal drive formatted ext4 so I’m pretty sure that drive is unrecognizable to smartware.
I have an old WinXP machine which has two physical hard drives in it (both NTFS, one partition per drive) and Smartware happily backs both up. But yes the original comment will relate to two active partitions, as Smartware distinguishes initially by drive (by the drive ID number iirc), and as both partitions would of course have the same one (as they’re on the same physical drive) then problems may arise.
As an aside, there are software solutions which will allow Windows to see and access (mostly read-only, but some programs offer more) EXT4 (or EXT2 or 3) drives from Windows. Examples include Linux Reader, Ex2Fsd and Ext4Explorer. I use Ex2Fsd occasionally when I’m playing with microSD cards for my Pi on my Windows netbook. Not sure if it will help with Smartware, but I mention it as you brought the topic up.
