A friend of mine had an external WD drive that I could not get to work Under Windows 7. It worked under Linux, but not windows.

I finally found out that there was an incorrect drive letter allocation (stuffed if I know why). We frigged around trying to allocate a drive letter through admin settings. We finally got it to work, but it wouldn't recognise the file system. We reformatted it and it worked fine.

Then there was the time the keyboard wouldn't work under Windows 7. It appeared and disappeared. It also worked under Ubuntu.

The point is that your mileage will vary depending on the hardware and operating system. I find Linux easier to fault find, whereas Windows is a disaster to fault find. My Windows faults normally end up with "just re-format it and start again".