No Backup, Connect Error
Background: I purchased a Western Digital 6 TB MyBook external drive for data and system backups on my Windows 7 laptop. I did so because my wife has a Windows 10 desktop with a Western Digital MyPassport that uses WD Acronis True Image 2016 Edition successfully.
The 6 TB MyBook arrived with exFAT formatted disk, and the WD utilities will backup successfully for data files, but not for either a Windows System Image or a WD Acronis True Image. I always get a Connect Error and system image is never backed up.
I discovered that my wife's MyPassport is formated NFTS. She gets both data and systems backed up successfully using Acronis and/or other backup routines.
Should I abandon the exFAT formatting on the WD 6 TB and reformat to NFTS? I have no idea how to correct Connect Error from Acronis to exFAT formatting or if there is another solution to this.
My laptop is Windows 7, Home Premium Edition, 64 bit system, SP1, fully updated.


- Accedi per poter commentare

It looks like Exfat is not supported as a destination for disk or partition backups
https://kb.acronis.com/content/48458
- Accedi per poter commentare

This is not a surprise, as exFat was (if I recall correctly) developed for (and optimised for) media files (video and photoes) and is less robust than FAT or NTFS.
Ian
- Accedi per poter commentare

The external drive is connected via USB cable with independent power plug. Yes, I installed WD utilities directly from the WD drive, and I have copied those to my desktop for now. Those are allowing file backup. The drive did not come with the WD version of Acronis. I downloaded that from WD support site. When I encountered the problem, I then downloaded trial version of Acronis 2017 from Acronis site. Both WD and Acronis versions present the connect error problem. I did online updates for both before trying to use them. Wife's Win 10 works fine with WD external drive using Acronis, and it is NFTS, so that is why I have wondered about reformatting my drive..........but I have never done that before (I know how to do it), but did not want to do so if there were other operational issues I might not know about.
Thanks for assisting.
- Accedi per poter commentare

You should be fine in formating the drive to NTFS. It will take some time to do that on a drve that large. Since you have copied the existing utilities off of the drive you will have those if needed later. Formatting the drive will remove all data from the drive.
As Bobbo pointed out exFAT is not a supported file system for True Image 2017. As I stated earlier WD uses the exFAT file system to enable larger than 4GB file sizes on these drives to retain both Windows and MAC compatibility.
- Accedi per poter commentare