Thanks Boogieman_WD for your educated response. It's Windows XP 32 bit,. I tried on 4 physical machines and with a VMWare virtual machine. The driver is old, it's the standard disk driver in Windows XP (Microsoft 07/01/2001 version 5.1.2535.0) The funny thing is that Seagate has nothing about this on their site. They have that page I posted that talks about them switching to GPT formatting and PHOTOS of the drive that would work and those that won't work (without reformatting!) So I asked them on Facebook: This was Seagate's answer:
Hello Jerry,
Unfortunately, we do not support this Expansion drive on XP systems.They are supported for Windows 7 and above. If you are unable to see the drive, even after partitioning the drive to MBR on another computer, then unfortunately we would not have additional suggestions since this is an unsupported operating system. We apologize.
That's all they had to say! On the box it shows Windows 7, 8 and 10. Putting a label or notice "NOT COMPATIBLE WITH WINDOWS XP AND SOME OTHER DEVICES" would have saved a lot of people much frustration. It's possible that some revisions of the product did work with reformatting, but obviously the current revision doesn't work and Seagate tech support has no clue why because "well it's not supported." Welcome to the stupidity of the computer industry!!!
A person can easily be misled to buy this drive thinking it should work fine on XP since on Amazon, there were some answers that said yes, and some reviews like #6 which describe a waste of time trying to get it to work. Amazingly the Seagate page I mentioned seems to indicate it's just a matter of reformatting the drive to a lower capacity, or using one of Seagate's software products. Seagate doesn't even bother to go and state on Amazon that this drive won't work with XP. The don't care if people buy the product and waste time with it. Very disappointing, and I've been dealing with computers all my life... This is just totally not respectful to customers.
1. Question: does it work with windows xp
Answer: Yes. I still have XP on my desktop PC too. Hard drive driver loads and works fine.
By Gary on August 22, 2016
2. Question: Is the seagate steb3000100 compatible with windows xp
asked by Larry E. on July 26, 2015
Answer: Its pre formatted to windows formate. Yes.
Gadgetlover answered on July 26, 2015
Answer: yes
Cyber Trading SELLER answered on July 26, 2015
Answer: Yes, of course.
MussSyke answered on July 26, 2015
Comments:
Larry E. said on July 26, 2015
Thanks! I really appreciate all of your quick responses.
Larry E. Robertson
Jeremias Murillo said on June 27, 2016
My windows XP does not recognize it.
MussSyke said on June 28, 2016
Check to see if another Windows machine recognizes it. If it is not recognized at all, it may be defective. If it recognizes it but does not read it, you might try re-formatting it with disk manager.
MussSyke said on June 28, 2016
You may have to go to Disk Manager just to see if it is listed there to see if it is recognized.
4. Question: Does this product work with windows XP ??
Answer: yes
By Tri State Camera on September 1, 2016
Answer: Yes
Joe Martinez answered on August 31, 2016
5. Review: * Does not work with XP
By G. Ratcheson on June 20, 2016
6. Review ** Not Recognized By XP Computers
I've had good luck with Seagate in the past, but not this time. The disk works fine with my 4 Win-8 machines but isn't recognized by either of my Win-XP machines. In the Device Manager it appears in the USB Controllers list and the Disk Drives list, and they say everything is working properly. BUT, the drive doesn't appear in My Computer or in Disk Management in Manage My Computer.
Per the Seagate website troubleshooting instructions I deleted and reinstalled the driver and installed their Extended Capacity Manager program. It says everything works fine and the computer can see the full 5TB, but of course the computer still doesn't recognize the disk. Their web site troubleshooting instructions were a waste of time.
By Mom with 2 boys on May 13, 2016
7. Review *** Not compatible wiht windows XP!
This product is in fact not compatible with windows XP!
By Eddie Castillo on May 13, 2015
8. Review *** Won't work with Windows XP
Be aware that even though this is a fine hard disk drive, it is not as advertised. Both Amazon and Seagate say that it is compatible with Windows XP sp3. However, it is not recognized by Windows XP nor by some Samsung Televisions.
In the words of Seagate technical support:
This new model comes set up GPT instead of MBR. GPT formatted drives will encounter restrictions on Windows XP operating systems. To get this drive working on Windows XP systems you will need to DiskPart and erase the drive.
It turns out that this erasing and repartitioning cannot be done on a Windows XP system but must be done on a later version of Windows.
By Duane Bristow on April 19, 2015
9. Review * It does not work on Windows XP, Vista.
It does not work on Windows XP, Vista.
That is a lie.
Return my money, is not real product information. I am very angry, I feel cheated.
Someone has to explain .. Amazon or Seagate
By Yael E. on September 15, 2016