Please hope me: my Linux machine cannot boot when my external drive is connected: it can't get past POST tests when USB legacy is enabled, but it also can't mount the drive when USB legacy is _not_ enabled. :( [more inside]
posted by xmutex on Nov 21, 2009 - 12 answers

My external hard drive has been making some very odd noises for a while and I’m looking for a good replacement. Your input would be appreciated. [more inside]
posted by The Lurkers Support Me in Email on Nov 18, 2009 - 12 answers

Why is it that when I transfer files from an external hard drive to my laptop's hard drive via USB 2.0, the speeds are so much faster than transferring files from one external hard drive to another (5 mins vs. a few hours for 1.5 GB)? I think it might have to do with the fact that the external drives use different file systems (NTFS vs. FAT32). Is there any software that could speed things up?
posted by matkline on Oct 21, 2009 - 11 answers

until today, my laptop wont read and open up my external hard drive. i haven't unplugged it without safely removing it or anything either. it also makes this constant tapping noise, like the sound of a tap dripping. (which it never used to make) does anyone know what i can do to make my laptop find my external or fix it? cheers
posted by sockpim on Sep 5, 2009 - 9 answers

Can I use a netbook as an external monitor for a laptop? If so, how? [more inside]
posted by Charmian on Aug 17, 2009 - 10 answers

I have these two "folders" in my C drive that are just two of my external hard drives. I would either like them gone or to be given a really good reason to keep them. [more inside]
posted by theichibun on Jul 13, 2009 - 4 answers

Annoying Vista bug: monitor positions change after waking from Sleep mode. How can I fix it? [more inside]
posted by wastelands on May 7, 2009 - 0 answers

What graphics card do I need? [more inside]
posted by drjimmy11 on May 6, 2009 - 7 answers

How can I get my mac to recognize my external hard drive again? [more inside]
posted by veryhappyheidi on Apr 25, 2009 - 16 answers

There are currently 4 File Browsers open on my desktop, all displaying either the contents of my external hard drive or the folder where it's mounted (/media/). I didn't open them—they just showed up. This morning when I woke up there was 40+ File Browser windows open of the same. Another window just opened; it seems to occur at random intervals. I'm running Ubuntu Linux 8.10, wtf is causing this? [more inside]
posted by carsonb on Apr 2, 2009 - 11 answers

Why Can't I Copy My iTunes Library to an External Drive? [more inside]
posted by Gingercat on Mar 3, 2009 - 11 answers

My hard drive is too big for your enclosure! My Thinkpad died. Fortunately, I think the hard drive is ok. I purchased a 2.5" external enclosure to try to recover the data from the 2.5" drive. It doesn't fit. What do I need? Details inside. [more inside]
posted by meantime on Feb 19, 2009 - 10 answers

Vista 64bit has recently stopped recognizing my iPhone and WD MyBook external HD...please help! [more inside]
posted by pghjezebel on Feb 8, 2009 - 5 answers

Anyone own one of these? MvixBOX. I'm wondering if it lived up to your expectations.
posted by Area Control on Feb 8, 2009 - 3 answers

I have an AirPort Extreme with a printer and two external hard drives connected via a USB hub. Quite frequently one or more of these USB devices won't appear in the AirPort Utility and I can't access them. Rebooting sometimes helps. Where does the problem lie? [more inside]
posted by krunk on Jan 29, 2009 - 10 answers

I've connected a VGA-cable from my old Packard Bell Easynote (Windows XP) laptop to my Samsung HDTV but it doesn't display anything and the tv detects no input from the computer at all. [more inside]
posted by kampken on Jan 23, 2009 - 8 answers

What are external links, and what value do they provide to my site ranking? Are they important? [more inside]
posted by Nixie Pixel on Jan 21, 2009 - 3 answers

How can I change the generic name "USB Mass Storage Device" in my Vista system tray "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog? [more inside]
posted by msbrauer on Dec 30, 2008 - 6 answers

Will operating an external hard drive at a 45 degree angle significantly reduce its life? [more inside]
posted by pseudonick on Dec 21, 2008 - 14 answers

I've just bought an external hard drive for carrying around my music, movies, and pictures. Is there a portable media centre program I could also put on it? [more inside]
posted by edbyford on Dec 16, 2008 - 7 answers

Running XP on my computer, off of someone else's internal hard drive [more inside]
posted by senterstyle on Dec 3, 2008 - 10 answers

I'm using Terminal (Ubuntu 8.04x64) right now to overwrite a 500g external hd with random information. There's been no action aside from a blinking cursor (by itself on a line, not in front of any prompt) since I entered the command yesterday afternoon:
[sudo dd if=/dev/random of=/dev/sdc bs=8m]

I understand it's going to take a while to finish. In the meantime, is there any way to monitor the progress of the operation?
posted by carsonb on Nov 8, 2008 - 18 answers

What kind of external drive setup should I use for my new Macbook Pro? [more inside]
posted by semblance on Oct 2, 2008 - 15 answers

Can I use B: as a drive letter, on a modern windows PC, without messing things up? [more inside]
posted by penciltopper on Sep 29, 2008 - 11 answers

What is the best solution for having a whole bunch of hard drives and being able to easily swap them around? [more inside]
posted by GleepGlop on Sep 7, 2008 - 11 answers

My external hard drive just crashed so can anyone suggest a Portland, OR, based data recovery service?
posted by tangyraspberry on Aug 25, 2008 - 9 answers

My Seagate FreeAgent external HD may have been damaged in a move. Making clicking noises and not being detected by my computer. [more inside]
posted by Mr_Crazyhorse on Aug 19, 2008 - 9 answers

Can I get my WD external hard drive back to the way it was? [more inside]
posted by droplet on Aug 19, 2008 - 8 answers

Great MeFites, I come bearing but a humble request. I bought a MacBook Pro about six months before Leopard was released. When it finally came out, I installed it on a partition on an external drive, which I would boot from (because OS X is awesome like that, amirite?) so I could test out all my apps. Now I'm ready to commit to Leopard full-time - what's the best way to go about transplanting my Leopard partition? [more inside]
posted by indiewizard on Aug 18, 2008 - 6 answers

Is there a desktop search solution that will index my external hard drives? So far I have had no luck with Google Desktop search.
posted by greenknightwatch on Aug 16, 2008 - 9 answers

2 laptops (Mac, fwiw) 1 keyboard/mouse. How best to make this work? [more inside]
posted by gen on Aug 10, 2008 - 11 answers

RAID HBA help sought: Server has its internal drives RAID'ed by an internal RAID card. I am trying to add another SCSI HBA card so I can hook up a nifty external SCSI-to-SATA RAID DAS tower. Problem is, however I install the new HBA, it "hides" the existing internal RAID card, meaning that the server doesn't find its own internal drives and can't boot. What to do? [more inside]
posted by bartleby on Jul 24, 2008 - 5 answers

I have a Fantom Drive 500GB 7200RPM USB 2.0 External Hard Drive - MDU500. The connection for the power cable came loose from the board and nothing I tried could get it to power up. I removed the drives and connected them to a Linux box running Ubuntu 8.04. It saw the two drives as one and even knew the drive name I'd given it. However I cannot get it to mount. The error message in Linux suggests trying SoftRAID or dmraid. Dmraid didn't work. (At least I couldn't get it to.) The message also suggested trying to access the drives in Windows. Windows XP will also see the drive as one unit but wants to format the drive. Can someone provide me some advice or direction in how I might get this drive to a state where I can move my data onto another drive? [more inside]
posted by s1gn1fy on Jul 24, 2008 - 5 answers

External hard showing "weird". Better known as, sharing an external/portable hard drive between osx and winxp. [more inside]
posted by jadepearl on Jun 23, 2008 - 10 answers

My external hard-drive's on the fritz. What can I do to make sure I get all my data off it before it goes? [more inside]
posted by djgh on Jun 3, 2008 - 5 answers

Tools > Photoshop > Batch... doesn't work when the selected files in Bridge are on an external drive? [more inside]
posted by JulianDay on May 17, 2008 - 1 answer

Can I use my external digital camera while its connected to my Mac? [more inside]
posted by duckus on Apr 27, 2008 - 6 answers

What kind of external hard drive should I buy? [more inside]
posted by missjamielynn on Apr 20, 2008 - 27 answers

I'm looking for some best practice advice in moving my iTunes music and my iPhoto images off my local hard drive. The 160GB drive on my Macbook is about full. I know I can use a USB/Firewire/Network-attached external hard drive, but has anyone had luck using a service such as Amazon's S3 for this. I know if works fine for storing the files, but how usable is it to actually 'get' the files? [more inside]
posted by namith on Apr 9, 2008 - 4 answers

What simple, cheap, rechargeable equipment will let me play mp3s out loud? [more inside]
posted by letahl on Mar 25, 2008 - 5 answers

I think I'm finally switching to Ubuntu on my main machine. I have two 160GB external drives, currently both with NTFS, currently mirrored (by software, not a RAID). With what and how should I format/use these guys? [more inside]
posted by tmcw on Mar 14, 2008 - 8 answers

External web page being displayed in an Iframe. How can I make the links in the displayed web page open in a new window OR make it such that clicking anywhere on the iframe opens the displayed external page in a new window. Could get a tad NSFW inside. [more inside]
posted by sandra_s on Feb 24, 2008 - 8 answers

I have a big external USB hard drive with three partitions for infrequently used files and backup. I was wondering what kind of file to make to have it automatically open a folder showing the drive when I power on the device and not ask me what I'd like to do with each of the other drives. [more inside]
posted by royalchinook on Feb 21, 2008 - 7 answers

I can no longer open a number of raw and jpg files in a single folder on an external harddrive. What's going on? Is my harddrive about to die? [more inside]
posted by msbrauer on Feb 16, 2008 - 5 answers

I am trying to find external storage that is accessible via wireless networking. One important caveat is that it has to be RAID-capable. [more inside]
posted by fusinski on Feb 12, 2008 - 15 answers

What kind of transfer speeds should I be expecting from my new external Firewire 800 drive? [more inside]
posted by Venadium on Jan 29, 2008 - 10 answers

I've recently purchased a new external USB DVD drive, as I do not have a floppy drive or internal CD/DVD drive on this windows PC. I am trying to set it up now for dual-booting Solaris+Ubuntu but, even after updating the BIOS (Phoenix 6.00) I cannot boot a USB drive. First, does anyone have a way I could somehow add USB drivers as a boot option (along with XP), so that I can then add Solaris and Ubuntu (making it four options at boot)? [more inside]
posted by christopherbdnk on Dec 26, 2007 - 9 answers

I want to get an external DVD burner for my new Windows laptop. Suggestions? [more inside]
posted by yoga on Dec 24, 2007 - 11 answers

I'm looking for an external storage solution that will play nice with an XP Desktop and a Kubuntu laptop...preferably at the same time [more inside]
posted by Rallon on Dec 16, 2007 - 10 answers

Calling to the hive mind! Is anyone aware of a (reasonably priced (sub $150)) external hard drive (or, better, HDD enclosure) that meets the following specifications? [more inside]
posted by TrueVox on Dec 15, 2007 - 6 answers