WD Live unable to see my 4 and 5TB drives

Hi all.

I have four  yes four WD Live boxes. However the one im currently using does not seem to be able to read my two new 4 and 5 TB external hard drives.
They are both Samsung and Seagate . 3TB is fine. I know in the past with all of these boxes I have to unplug the USB 3 cable a few times for the box to read any Hard drive. The firmware says its up to date.

Any info would be great :slight_smile:

Cheers people

I don’t know ther version but the PN is WDBGXT0000NBK-01

Hope this is enough info :slight_smile:

Welcome to the WD Community. 

Have you tried resetting the unit? 

Make sure to connect the power cable directly to the wall outlet to avoid a power issue.

Hi

i reset it to default a few times but its still the same issue. All 2 and 3 TB drives work.

mrgzola25 wrote:

Hi all. I have four  yes four WD Live boxes. However the one im currently using does not seem to be able to read my two new 4 and 5 TB external hard drives.

yup well, what format are they ?  what partition type are they ?

my 4TB WD HDD is recognised fine on the WDTV  (Format: NTFS       Partition Type: GPT (GUID Partition Table)

Hi there

They are all NTFS  Both the ones that work and dont work are MBR partition

Thanks again :slight_smile:

2 questions

  1. Are these “External HDDs”  actually “Internals” and you’re using an External “Enclosure” ?

If so, have you checked the “Enclosure” supports 4TB and over HDD’s ?   Not All of Them Do

2. 4TB and over HDD’s must be GPT Partitioned     (not MBR)

1 Like

I found it was MBR under the hardware tab. It seems every external hard drive I have is MBR. Even the new ones I buy 4 and 5 Tb. Any easy way to convert them to GPT?  :slight_smile: partition.JPG

no easy, way, you have to reformat

which of coarse will erase all data, so first step is to back everything up to somewhere else

Correct me if I’m wrong but doesn’t MBR work on 4k drives with these sizes?

if they are Avanced Format 4Kn

my statement about GPT was refering to Internal drives which can be used in an enclosure

i have a 4TB WD Internal HDD (which i’m using in an enclosure, the only way to get full capacity was GPT)

i probably went off-topic …

but my 3TB WD HDD (yes, MBR) works fine on the WDTV

Hmmmm.

I have a Seagate 5TB drive.  Just checked, it’s formatted as MBR and is working fine.  I took it out of the box, loaded it from a Win 7 laptop, connected to the WDTV SMP and it was immediately recognised, didn’t reformat it or anything before using.  There’s about 4TB already used.

Running firmware 1.16.13 if it matters.

my 1,2 3 TB EXTERNAL DRIVES work fine in MBR . 4 and 5 TB don’t .    I have no idea why

I was never talking about internal drives. External drives only. :)   So is MBr meant to be ok then on these?

No issues working on the PC using Windows 8.1…Its my WD lIve box can’t read them.

I formatted the drive and added an MKV movie on there. however the WD Live Box will not read the 4 or 5 TB drives. Must be the drive as the External drives connect fine to the PC. the partitions on an external drive is not an issue. They are mostly all MBR.

Any ideas? :slight_smile: