Arlo backup disk not recognized in Windows 7 after Fat32 formatting

[NoJoy]

Attached a WD easystore 2TB USB drive that I had been using with Windows 7 to the Arlo Pro basestation to serve as backup.  As instructions indicated, Arlo requested and I approved reformatting of the drive.  The drive shows as Ready and reads 1.82TB when viewed from the Arlo web tool.  Arlo instructions say the drive should be readable when I plug it into my Windows 7 PC, but it does not show up as a mounted drive.  I can locate it under devices and Windows says it is working normal and has the best driver, but when I list the properties, there is no volume number and it doesn't get mounted as a drive or appear as a drive icon on the PC. The Map Network drive command only looks for network drive, not a local USB drive.  I tried rebooting but the drive is still not recognized.  What am I missing?

[steve_t]

Perhaps format it with windows and then attach it to the base station without reformatting it and see if it records videos to it then

[NoJoy]

My understanding is that windows can't FAT32 format disks bigger than 32GB.  In any case, I got access by using Windows disk management tool, diskmgmt.msc, to assign a drive letter.  The other problem I discovered is that the Pro-1 camera records to the backup but the Q-1 camera does not even though both are registered.  Is that a limitation of the Q-1?

[NoJoy]

By the way, the Windows disk manager has to be used to assign a drive letter to the backup disk every time it is attached to the PC.  Kind of a dissappointing annoyance to go through every time you want to review the backup log

[jguerdat]

How to format FAT32 on large drives in Windows:

https://www.howtogeek.com/316977/how-to-format-usb-drives-larger-than-32gb-with-fat32-on-windows/

[NoJoy]

Thanks for the pointer on FAT32 formating larger drives.  However, downloading a third party app poses a potential malware risk, and the other method of using command line seems even more onerous than assigning a drive letter with the disk management tool.

I realize having a Windows version vs. Mac version disk formating capability imposes a cost/logistics version on Netgear, but how many users are they going to frustrate who buy the system and find out they can't access the backup drive

[steve_t]

Sorry I can't be more help. I only have a 16GB thumb drive in my Pro base station and it seems to keep recordings for quite some time before they're overwritten. Haven't checked how long it is but since my internet is very reliable, I don't take it out to check very often. Might consider 32GB only because they're so cheap.
I still wish we could access the drive through the unit rather than having to remove it and plug it into a computer