wd500h1cs-00

Hi I’m new to this forum. I have 2 WD500h1cs-00 I’ve had for 10 years now. I have gone to the new windows 10 pro now on my 2 computers will they work on windows 10? do I need to format them and how to do that? can I use them for back up? and can I set them up to boot from if needed
thank you any help or info about them would be helpfuf

Hi,

Welcome to the WD Community.

To be honest, I haven’t try using a home edition on a windows 10 Computer. Now, this unit came out a long time ago and using the USB connection, is as normal as a plug and play device.

The unit documentation says that the system compatibility is Mac OS® X, Tiger or Leopard and Windows Vista®/XP.

Anything besides that, might or might not work.

Hi @cobragt - Based on the model number those are WD My Book Home Edition drives. The drives should theoretically work with Windows 10, although we have not tested them with the OS so can’t make any guarantees. The software that came on the drive most likely won’t work so you’d want to use Windows File History or a third party application to create your backups.

Please also keep in mind that the average lifespan of a hard drive (regardless of who makes them) is somewhere between 3 and 5 years even if unused. You’ve been extremely lucky that neither of these drives have failed in 10 years and are essentially “backing up on borrowed time”. Prices of external drives have dropped an incredible ammount since that time - I personally would purchase a cheap drive for $50-$100 that would have 3-6 times the space those two have:

Here’s a quick example:

http://store.wdc.com/store/wdus/en_US/DisplayProductDetailsPage/ThemeID.21986300/categoryID.13093700/subCategory.58843900/parid.13092300/catid.13092800/WD_Elements_Desktop

I have a question when I back my stuff up will it back up my o/s so if my main hard c fails can I start a new had drive c using a my UBS back up drive to restart my system and copy it to my hard c

That depends on the software you use.