Topic: ISO External HD help please

[Chad]

I just bought a 1394 external drive and can't seem to figure out how to access it.

When I connect to the PC, XP recognizes it. But when I open up my computer ther is no new drive listed.

Any ideas? Thanks.

[fozzy]

probably have to format it.  right click on my computer go to manage.  click on disk administrator and you should see it in there

[Chad]

thanks fozzy, i think i got it. says it's formatting anyway.

i've never used one of these external hd's before. any tips?

[dmonterisi]

make sure that if you ever have to disconnect the drive or unplug it or remove power for any reason, before you do it, you use the Windows "Safely Eject Hardware" function that can be found in the system tray.  Otherwise, you run the risk of corrupting the entire drive and losing everything.  i lost a drive because of this exact issue and have stayed away from externals because of this.

[sygdwm]

make sure that if you ever have to disconnect the drive or unplug it or remove power for any reason, before you do it, you use the Windows "Safely Eject Hardware" function that can be found in the system tray.  Otherwise, you run the risk of corrupting the entire drive and losing everything.  i lost a drive because of this exact issue and have stayed away from externals because of this.

qft. also, IME, dont move massive amount of data at once. i tend to copy and paste only a couple gigs at a time just to be safe. and dont just leave data on there even externals fail. archive, archive, archive. like damon, i once lost 120gb of pre-suckage wsp shn/flac's cause i left it on the hd w/o archiving.

[Chad]

oh my, that all sounds scary. do i have to  "Safely Eject Hardware" any time i reboot or shut down the pc?
or just when i turn off or unplug it? what about the firewire cable? is it ok to plug/unplug it any time?

i was hoping to just make this my mp3/video/etc. storage drive. so you would not suggest leaving any thing
on the external hd for to long?

thanks much for you alls help.  +T's

[Chad]

i also wanted to store this 25 g of merlefest i just taped from the xm merlefest feed.
guess i need to get my ass to archiving.

[dmonterisi]

oh my, that all sounds scary. do i have to  "Safely Eject Hardware" any time i reboot or shut down the pc?
or just when i turn off or unplug it? what about the firewire cable? is it ok to plug/unplug it any time?

i was hoping to just make this my mp3/video/etc. storage drive. so you would not suggest leaving any thing
on the external hd for to long?

thanks much for you alls help.  +T's

not when you shut the entire PC down...i don't know about removing the firewire plug, but i would check the manual.

[sygdwm]

oh my, that all sounds scary. do i have to  "Safely Eject Hardware" any time i reboot or shut down the pc?
or just when i turn off or unplug it? what about the firewire cable? is it ok to plug/unplug it any time?

no. yes. same. no.

i was hoping to just make this my mp3/video/etc. storage drive. so you would not suggest leaving any thing
on the external hd for to long?

nope. archive if it is important to you.

thanks much for you alls help.  +T's

backatcha

[heath]

if you leave lots of data on there, be sure to exercicse the drive about once a week or so.  (ie. spin it up, access a few files, etc).  Only takes a minute and will extend the life of your drive.

fwiw, we have about 100 external 200gig drives down here with archives for BMG and Universal.  We exercise them and everything is stored in triplicate.  we have not had one drive failure in 1.5 years.

h

[krebsy]

Heath,
  Are you using an off the shelf type external, or something exotic? We have some data at work (photos) backed up primarily on Lacie externals in duplicate. Nowhere near 100 drives, but the same basic concept I suppose. They have proven quite reliable so far.

[Chad]

is it ok to leave the external hd powered on constantly or should i only use it when i need it?

[sygdwm]

i only turn it on when i need it.

[heath]

Heath,
  Are you using an off the shelf type external, or something exotic? We have some data at work (photos) backed up primarily on Lacie externals in duplicate. Nowhere near 100 drives, but the same basic concept I suppose. They have proven quite reliable so far.

We are using Quantegy firewire drives primarily.  We recently moved to a new drive that I really like-- Avastor.  A little bit smaller footprint, and a lot quiter.