WD My Book (New) 4TB, Dell XPS 8700 will NOT boot

WD External Drives External Drives for PC
1

I see others here have similar problems and I read those and made suggested changes…

Now what transpired.

First I should note I had a Seagate Backup Plus 4TB External drive connected and everything worked as far as boot was concerned. Drive had intermittent problems and might also have had a problem with Paragon programs I had and was getting DISK errors showing in the Event Viewer randomly. So I returned it YESTERDAY and got the My Book.

I’m using Acronis True Image 2016 (not the WD version) and had no problems backing the PC partitions/drives up to the My Book. 202GB backup file in 27 minutes.

I believe but can’t be sure I did REBOOT the PC a few times with the drive connected.

This morning I go to boot the PC and the Dell logo appears and then NOTHING!!! Wait for minutes, no activity on the DISK light? Press the power button and the PC shuts off instantly. What is going on? I decide to remove the USB (3.0) cable from the My Book. Power up again and the PC boots.

Come here and see others with the same problem. The suggested fix I can only 1/2 do.

  • Moved the USB boot down after the DRIVE boot. Not sure why I’d have to do this as the Seagate worked fine like it was.

  • Use Legacy boot, didn’t do that, USB wireless keyboards.

Without the My Book in I can boot. However once the drive was NOT recognized once plugged in and did NOT show in Device Manager?

I rebooted with the drive disconnected and when it came up again I plugged in the drive and it connected with the same drive letter as before.

Since the Seagate 4TB allowed me to boot (and it was on the SAME USB 3.0 Port) why does the WD My Book (New) not do this? It can’t be Windows or USB drivers I would think?

Once the drive is up WD Drive Utilities sees it and the SMART test passes?

Oh, one last thing. When I was in the BIOS and changing the setting to move down the boot to USB under the Hard drive I went to the EXIT page. Since I wanted to see if that was the fix I plugged the My Book into the PC again. For some reason my KEYBOARD went dead! I could not exit and had to press the power button to turn off the PC. Then disconnect the My Book again, go back to BIOS and make the change and save it. As I was starting and saw Windows activate I plugged back in the My Book. That is when it wasn’t recognized in Disk Manager. Had to unplug it again, reboot, wait for the PC to finish boot and then plugged in the My Book. Then it was recognized!

I do have an OLDER My Book 1TB on another computer. I’ve used that on this PC before and had NO problems booting with it connected and the USB Boot ahead of the DISK boot. I also have a USB Flash Drive I can and have booted from. Also other USB Flash drives that are NOT BOOTABLE and the PC always boots to the DISK. What is so ‘special’ about the My Book (New) that I can’t leave USB BOOT ahead of DISK boot in BIOS or even BOOT when it is connected to the PC? Do I have a BAD one?

2

OK, I’ve made a test that works fine. I have an older WD Essentials 2.0 1TB drive. It is USB 2.0 though.

I disconnected the My Book 4TB (New) and put that one on and rebooted. WORKED FINE!!!

What is the MAIN differences (I put the Essentials in a USB 3.0 port):

  • USB 2.0 vs. 3.0

  • My Book (New) formatted exFAT, Essentials formatted NTFS, as was the Seagate 4TB I had that could boot.

I also found this link, http://batcmd.com/windows/10/services/exfat/, and wonder if I require this fix? I’m on Win10 1607 which is listed on that link?

From the link:

=========
Default Behavior
The ExFAT File System Driver service is a file system driver. If
ExFAT File System Driver fails to start, the error is logged. Windows 10
startup proceeds, but a message box is displayed informing you that the
exfat service has failed to start.

Isn’t ‘exactly’ what I’m seeing though? Could be that I had entered Windows and it hung immediately?

Thoughts???

3

Hello,

Could be an issue with the file system of the drive? Have you tried reformatting the drive in to NTFS and testing that again?

4

Yes, I think it is.

I’ve copied all the files and folder off to another drive. Will do that, but I had written email to WD and was hoping to hear from them before I do that.

Worried about voiding a warranty of it the drive IS bad, being able to return it to Staples where I bought it.

I’ve seen some reports of exFAT has caused this. The supposed fix was to change the boot order so the disk was ahead of the used (did not work) or disable Secure Boot (did not work). Need the Legacy USB support as I have a USB wireless mouse and keyboard.

I don’t even think this is a W10 problem. I can’t even get into the BIOS with it plugged in. Could be the Dell BIOS for all I know?

5

FIXED!!! :grinning:

Short version, re-formatted the drive to NTFS and it now works fine.

Long version:

Was called by WD Support. Got my email and had read the forum here.

We discussed what was happening and then went into BIOS and tried every possible combination of boot order, Secure Boot, USB Boot Support, and Legacy settings. None fixed the problem. Also tested while in BIOS of powering up and connecting the My Book and it immediately lock up the PC when this happened.

Next tried USB 2.0 port and the front USB 3.0 port on the PC, still had a problem.

Last we decided to boot to Windows, insert the My Book and then bring up Disk Manager and right click on the drive. Decided to go with DELETE PARTITION and FORMAT to the default settings for NTFS. Bingo, on reboot the problem went away. Reset the BIOS to the settings I had before and it still worked.

Problem solved.

Suspect Dell’s BIOS is the problem here, not the drive. After we got off the phone I remembered that Dell has an F12 BOOT menu. I suspect no matter what, when the PC starts up, it reads ALL devices to see if they can be on the boot menu. Since the native BIOS probably can’t read that device it hangs. BIOS was last updated on the 2 1/2 year old PC was July of 2015 which I have. I wouldn’t expect Dell to take care of this problem.

6

This is due to Dell being ■■■■ that won’t boot even into the bios or boot into any OS unless the drive is reformatted to NTFS.