External Hardrive

[Paul-F]

Anyone have recommendations for a portable hardrive or external hardrive? My laptop has 1 g left of room. So if I get a portable hardrive that'd be smart right? It'd save some money and I need one anyway. Good idea? Any you like or know are good?

[monosodium]

There's not much in it between manufacturers, especially at the budget end of things. All the brands including the cheapy ones use a mixture of other manufacturers components so you've no real idea of what you'll really be getting until you get it in your hands.

I'd recommend looking somewhere like ebuyer.co.uk or scan.co.uk price-wise they've always been pretty good even if you only use them as an indication as to if you're getting ripped off or not.

The interfaces are all standardised so pretty much whatever you get you just plugs into USB port, power up & go.


External drives tend to be a pain in the backside when you're on the road so if you are going to need the files all the time then an extra drive in your laptop may be a better bet.

[Mr A]

around a year ago i got the western Digital 250 GB external HD from amazon
easy to set up, just plug it in, and it automatically installs the correct drivers ...and then you're away.

i've never had any problems with it
and it cost me only 55 quid which is not bad for the size of the HD

i don't know about other harddrives but i would definately reccomend this one

[raliy2k]

I strongly recommend you not to buy external hard drives from Packard Bell. I have brought one a year ago and now its dead.

[cosmicB]

I found that external hard drives are just a Huge pain in the butt...
Software doesn't load proper.. Wires crossing their wires really screws up the data streams.. They don't last long.. They piss you off more than they're worth... I tried Lacie external hd's, and all I got was grief, especially during system reloads... I tossed the g-dam thing in the trash pail... Better is to get a larger hard drive...

If the local collage has a "computer library", you might get one free there... Or if you find who is recycling electronics in your area, they might give or sell you what you need cheap... Simply offer them a couple hours of your time, in helping them recycle what they do, and they will probably let you take a full box full of computer parts for free... You would be amazed at what's being chopped-up for recycling these days.. even multi-gig XP's are in the bins for recycling.. but no flat screens yet... maybe in a couple years free flat screens too...

In doing the new larger hd install, be sure to run the restart in dos "fdisk" settings for large hd's...


Another cure for that lack of hd room is to do a general massacre in the hd, destroying everything you don't want in it... I did it with W98se, in an 800-meg hd.. using Uninstaller's powerclean to strip out everything I didn't want, including software uninstallers, read me's, system pix, links, etc... and "free window registry repair.. But it's a touchie risky project.. because if you aren't super careful you can fry your OS in a second... But just chock it up as a learning experience if you mess up...
I managed to get 1500-megs of preferred softwares on the 800 meg hd that way.. with 300-megs of free space... It was a sterretch...


Another cure that really works, is to download a copy of "Window Washer" trial download... I've seen that one strip out 3-gigs of space wasting junk from people's PC's... I read that a US president presented that software writer with an award for Window Washer...

[azraelle]

What I did is several years out of date, but the idea may still be usable. I bought a then-new Compaq laptop in January of 1999, with Win98 on it and a 4 GB HDD, an anemic 380 MHz AMD K6-2 cpu

I eventually downloaded instructions from 2 obscure sites, took my laptop apart, installed a 20 GB HDD (the largest the BIOS would recognize), "ghosted" what was on the 4 GB HDD to the 20 GB one, replaced the proc with a 450MHz AMD K6-III+, that I overclocked to 550MHz, and installed Win2Ksp2.

I assume you might be able to do something similar, either on your own, or thru a computer service center.

[boingo]

I've got an El Cheapo "Laser" branded external enclosure. I've only got a tiny 10 gig HDD in it (From an old PC) that I only use for backups. This one isn't designed for laptops because it uses the physically larger hard drives usually used in desk top models.
It didn't need any software to install it because it's certified to work with WindowsXP, which means it uses standard XP drivers, so there's no need for installing third party products.
I've never had a problem with this one and I've been using it for about a year; with that old hard drive from about four years ago.

[Salsito]

I have used a netdisk for years now (network attached rather than usb) and the same one is still going strong, never had a problem with it. http://www.ximeta.com/web/technology/ndas/technologie1_en.php

[jonnyboy]

I've got 3 Lacie external drives. Never had a problem with them. Yuo can get 500gigs for about £80