Windows 8 and external hard drive

Daisy03

I recently bought a new windows 8 laptop and want to back up my old files to an external hard drive.

I bought a Samsung M3 external hard drive online which was described as compatible with Windows XP, Vista and 7. However, after some googling it appeared that it was also compatible with windows 8.

I'm new to external hard drives so maybe I'm doing something wrong but the Drive Manager won't install although it is recognising that it is plugged in. Has anyone else had problems with windows 8 and the Samsung M3 or indeed any other external hard drive?

Can anyone recommend an external hard drive that is compatible with windows 8?

stanley1

have you formatted it to fat32.

Daisy03

Stupid question... But what is fat32?

It may be that the Drive Manager software isn't compatible with Windows 8 but the drive itself should work no problem. You may just have to use the Windows 8 Disk Management utility to format it. I think it's in the menu if you move the mouse to the very bottom left and right-click.

stanley1

right click on drive and you should have option to format.

matt-dublin

You don't need the drive software. Don't format it if there's any data on it already as you will lose everything on it.

When you plug it in the new drive should just appear in explorer

GreenWolfe

Unless the drive has to be compatible with a TV or something, there isn't a good reason for it to be FAT32 formatted.

Daisy03

Thanks. There was nothing on it so I formatted it and its working now.