Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with external

Ahh, Vista... how I won't miss you.

NotMyselfRightNow — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 17:38:14 -0800

Questions about hard drives, enclosures, and other ways to survive a blue screen of death. I have a HP desktop running Vista. I went to do a SP1 upgrade ahead of a potential change to Win7, something went off course, and now I own a desktop that won’t get past a blue screen of death when I try and start up. I’ve tried a handful of things to resolve the issue to no avail, and at this point, I’m just ready to get a new desktop (had been thinking about it anyway, so I figure this is a sign from the computer gods).

99% of my data was backed up ahead of the upgrade. However, I would like to be able to access the data on the old HP just in case. Limited technical knowledge, but a history of reading AskMe questions, leads me to believe that I can remove my HD from the old desktop, place it in an enclosure, and access it like an external drive.

How complicated is this? Is it really that straightforward? Anything I’m not thinking of?

EIEIOmega

rleamon — Fri, 04 Dec 2009 15:04:20 -0800

My Iomega external hard drive died... Any chance of getting it going again? Or getting the drive(s) out and into another case? It's an Iomega HDD2H, 640GB, silver case, and I'm pretty sure it's two 320GB drives in a RAID 0 configuration. (Specs are hard to come by for this, sadly.) The case has four screws attaching the outer enclosure that mainly serves to provide feet, but the inner enclosure holding the ddrives defied my initial attempts to open it -- no apparent screws or other modes of ingress. I found a suggestion to try another external power supply with it and happened to have an exact twin that came with another drive -- but no go.

I'd rather rescue the data somehow and have a hard time believing the drives themselves are the problem; it seems more like a power issue. But even if I could get the drives out, what are the chances I could use another RAID enclosure (which I happen to have) and retrieve the data?

Lastly, yes, it's out of warranty, and Iomega quoted a minimum $900 to get the data back. Yikes!

External USB drive, Linux machine, POST/mount woes!

xmutex — Sat, 21 Nov 2009 11:11:39 -0800

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. :( So if USB legacy is enabled and external drive is connected, the machine sits at pre-POST testing forever. It won't get past it. If USB legacy is turned off, it boots, but Linux (ubuntu 9) cannot mount the drive. So what I have to do is keep USB legacy off, and when the machine boots, unplug/replug the drive- then run mount manually.

This situation sucks cos the external drive is my backup. I don't want the machine to boot w/o it connected, and don't want to have to manually intervene.

Is this more an issue w/ the machine, or the drive? It's a Buffalo 1TB external USB drive - this dude.

Any tips? Thanks!

Looking for an external hard drive

The Lurkers Support Me in Email — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 14:35:40 -0800

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. I’ve been using an external enclosure for the last year or so, but shortly after I bought the drive it started taking a long time to spin up (10+ seconds) before making a loud click sound and finally starting to read/write, during which time the app accessing the drive beachballs. I think it would be a good idea to replace the enclosure with an actual external disk instead of the Super Nintendo-esque setup I've got now, but I'd like to run my criteria past the hive mind to get some advice first.

Key points:

I want something whisper-quiet. I live in a very small apartment and can't imagine how I used to put up with a noisy dual-GPU tower machine now that I have an iMac.

The current drive is 1TB, but I'm considering going with a 2TB drive for a bit of extra space. Depends on the severity of the price jump.

I want something reliable. My belief is that all consumer-grade hard disks are ticking timebombs that will all fail at some point, but I'd like to avoid buying another IBM Deathstar.

Physical size is irrelevant; I'll be sticking it behind my display and never looking at it again. Performance is also a non-issue as it will only be used for Time Machine backups and bulk data storage.

eSATA is unnecessary as my iMac doesn't have a connection, but it does have an unused FireWire port that I'd like to take advantage of (freeing up a USB port in the process).

I live in Canada and will probably be ordering from there, but I don't think there's much difference in cross-border product availability these days.

How to speed up a file transfer between two external hard drives?

matkline — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 13:11:13 -0800

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?

My external hard drive wont work

sockpim — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 13:23:24 -0800

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

Using netbook as external monitor for laptop

Charmian — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 03:57:12 -0800

Can I use a netbook as an external monitor for a laptop? If so, how? Would I need any special equipment for this, such as some kind of hardware or special software?

It's too late for a witty title. Please forgive me and help fix this thing

theichibun — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 20:47:36 -0800

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. I tried Google, can't remember at all what I searched for to figure out how to make these things appear in the first place.

They're not shortcuts. Somehow I added fake folders that seem to be mirrors of these external hard drives.

I went to delete them and I got the "Are you sure you want to remove the folder and all it's contents?" message, which combined with the fact that the folders aren't there when the hard drive is unplugged makes me think that would be a very bad move.

There are two reasons I want them gone. The first is that XP sits for what seems like forever on the Windows Loading screen (like I start it up and then take a shower and when I get out it's still loading or at best it's just starting to load my profile slow). I unplugged the hard drives before I got in the shower this morning and XP loaded in what seemed like no time at all.

The second is that Ad-Aware goes through these like regular folders (which make up about 96% of my hard drive space) which makes me scan go from 33 gigs of space to almost 800. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with my drives be scanned. But if I can do it one drive at a time it would be so much easier.

So in short, I want these things gone and I'm feeling like a real idiot for not remembering how I got them there in the first place. I'm also accepting reasons for why I should keep them and/or add the other external hard drive to the C folder in the same way.

Fixing multiple monitors position changing after waking from Sleep in Vista?

wastelands — Thu, 07 May 2009 07:56:05 -0800

Annoying Vista bug: monitor positions change after waking from Sleep mode. How can I fix it? I have an external monitor plugged into my laptop via the VGA port. I use both screens (laptop + monitor), with the external on the left, and have the "Drag icons to match your monitors" in Display Settings to match and "Extend the desktop onto this monitor". Works great.

Yet whenever I wake from Sleep, I have to rearrange the monitors in Display Settings. Every single time. It's so annoying. Some googling led to this post:

http://www.vistax64.com/vista-general/97955-multiple-monitors-change-position-after-sleep.html

But I do not have such a task in my Task Scheduler.

I'm running Vista SP1 with all Windows Updates installed. NVIDIA 9600m GT video card with latest drivers installed.

What graphics card do I need?

drjimmy11 — Wed, 06 May 2009 23:35:18 -0800

What graphics card do I need? I am doing some fairly advanced video editing on my Intel Mac Pro tower (about 2 years old). i thought I had the setup I needed- quad core, 8gb RAM, eSATA external drives.

But I'm getting an error message, specifically calling out my graphics card as not being able to render certain effects with the "size and depth of video" I'm using. In addition, I would like to be able to use my Oleva flatscreen tv as an external monitor, and cannot currently do so due to lack of compatible outputs from the computer.

Is there a card i can buy that will solve both these problems? Also, do I replace the current card, or just add a new one in an empty slot? I know a fair bit about computers, but my ignorance of graphics cards is almost total.

thanks!

Hello, external harddrive? Can you hear me now?

veryhappyheidi — Sat, 25 Apr 2009 15:53:59 -0800

How can I get my mac to recognize my external hard drive again? Disclaimer: I'm pretty new to macs, but would consider myself a competent user.

I have an WD 500gig My Book external hard drive that I use on both my macbook pro (running Mac OS X 10.4.11) and PC. I don't remember ever formatting it, it just worked on both as soon as I plugged it in.

A few days back, the hard drive accidentally unplugged from my mac (aka, I did not eject it). When I plugged it back in, the hard drive would not pop up on the desktop. I'm 99.9% sure that all the hardware is fine-- it still works on the PC, and lights and spins when I plug it in-- and when I go into the System Profiler, the USB says that my external hard drive is attached. (One forum said you can click and force it to manually mount the drive, but I can't figure out how to do that.) I also installed Disk Warrior, which recognizes the hard drive, but says "The directory cannot be rebuilt, the file system is unsupported." There are bullets under that that say " This disk is not a Macintosh disk; This disk does not appear on the desktop; This disk is 465.75GB in size."

Every similar problem I've read about (including this one) turns out to be either hardware or fixable by Disk Warrior. Please help!

Why does my File Browser keep opening?

carsonb — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:49:44 -0800

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? It's been going on for about a week now. My external drive is a 500gb WD network drive that's been ripped out of its original case, rehoused in a new external enclosure, wiped and repartitioned as ext3, and plugged directly into my desktop. I keep my music collection on it, and about a week ago Amarok totally forgot that I have any music files. I checked the path marked for the collection; Amarok still knows where the files are, and will play them if I drag/drop them from the browser into the playlist, but it doesn't report that I have a collection. Oddly, saved playlists still work.

Then, yesterday, the drive wouldn't even mount. Every time I tried I got an odd error message that didn't turn up many results in the Google. (Hasn't happened today and I don't have the text of the msg saved.) The only concrete suggestion I got from searching was to try testdisk to root out any bad sectors, find missing partitions, etc. So I ran that, didn't really find any problems, but had the program re-write the partition table anyway. The drive mounted after I did that, but has so far continued the original bad behavior.

I've banged on all the relevant keyboard keys; it's not a stuck key. I've unplugged the drive to let it cool down and plugged it back in. I've tried prayer and idol worship and what seems like a million other things. I'm running out of ideas here.

What's going on? (4 more File Browsers have opened in the background while I typed this.) How do I make it stop? Do I have a virus? (My computer is acting like I never expected a Linux desktop to, coming from buggy, virusy Windows.) Is my drive dying? How can I get Amarok to recognize my collection again? Failing relevant answers to the above, what's the easiest way to close a zillion (but not all) windows at once?

Apple Says It Should Copy ... Why Won't It?

Gingercat — Tue, 03 Mar 2009 18:26:21 -0800

Why Can't I Copy My iTunes Library to an External Drive? Hi, I'm trying to back up my iTunes library to an external (WD MyBook) 320 GB USB drive (because I'd rather back it up than do the cumbersome method of backing it up to DVD/CD that iTunes 8 provides. For some reason, every time I try to copy the folder over, Windows XP Pro SP3 (on my laptop) insists that it can't copy it, but the error doesn't specify the specific folder or file it's hanging on.

I'm running off my Administrator account on the laptop, so it shouldn't be a rights/permissions issue. I'd really like to back it up in case I ever have to upgrade, so if someone could suggest why Windows isn't allowing me to copy the folder over, I would appreciate it.

My hard drive is too big for your enclosure.

meantime — Thu, 19 Feb 2009 10:31:36 -0800

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. The drive is a Hitachi Travelstar 40gb 5400rpm. I bought a Vantec NexStar SX external 2.5" Enclosure.

Not only does the drive not fit in the enclosure, but the connections are not the compatible. I'm not sure if this helps, but here are the best pictures I could find online.Here is a picture of the inside of the enclosure. Here is a pic of the drive.

Is there a different enclosure that I should be using? Or can I fix the current situation somehow?

Vista 64bit stopped recognizing and connecting to external drives...

pghjezebel — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 19:59:18 -0800

Vista 64bit has recently stopped recognizing my iPhone and WD MyBook external HD...please help! I have a WD 500GB MyBook and an iPhone. Both have connected without problems to my Vista 64bit machine. Now, I can no longer access them.

My PC on some level still "sees" the devices because the iPhone will connect and sync with iTunes and the HD is listed in the device manager. However it is listed as "This device is not configured correctly." I've tried uninstalling, disabling, reinstalling drivers, different ports and have had no luck getting my machine to see either device.

And I've verified that there is nothing wrong with the HD or the iPhone. Both connect flawlessly on my husband's Vista (non 64bit of course) machine.

Any suggestions would be appreciated! Thanks!

Data Storage Appliance

Area Control — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 08:18:38 -0800

Anyone own one of these? MvixBOX. I'm wondering if it lived up to your expectations.

USB Drives disappear from AirPort Extreme

krunk — Thu, 29 Jan 2009 17:41:17 -0800

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? Is this likely a problem with the AirPort Extreme, or the $10 USB hub I'm using? The hub is unpowered, but since the devices all use their own power I don't think it's necessary to have the hub run off the mains.

VGA-output woes with old laptop connected to HDTV

kampken — Fri, 23 Jan 2009 11:11:22 -0800

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. I've tested the cable and tv with my Eee netbook and it works perfectly.

The PB laptop has a few hotkeys for switching screens but all they do is disable the laptop screen and nothing happens.
In Windows it only has 1 screen installed in Device Manager and Display Manager, which is the laptop LCD instead of having 2 screens like on my netbook and other computers. I suspect the problem is here.

I went to the Packard Bell website and got a list of all available drivers/utilities and reinstalled without any change. I think there is some sort of ACPI utility missing which would enable the hotkey function. However all the other hotkeys work just fine..so im not so sure. I no longer have any driver/restore cd's from the manufacturer so i can't reset the computer (cause i faintly remember it used to work back then)

I tried to install some Linux distros via LiveCD to see if the VGA-port would work there, but so far i've been unsuccessful since the cd-drive is malfunctioning and the BIOS is too old to boot from USB-drives. I've also checked the BIOS to see if the VGA-port is somehow disabled, but everything seems fine there.

So what are my options? I hope someone has a solution :)

What are external links, and what value do they provide to my site ranking?

Nixie Pixel — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 12:07:40 -0800

What are external links, and what value do they provide to my site ranking? Are they important? What are external links, and what value do they provide to my site ranking? Are they important? I understand the basics of external linking, but I'd like to know a more in depth explanation. Thanks a lot in advance! =)

Which USB Mass Storage Device is which?

msbrauer — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 16:19:26 -0800

How can I change the generic name "USB Mass Storage Device" in my Vista system tray "Safely Remove Hardware" dialog? It's not uncommon for me to have a couple of external harddrives plugged in to my Vista laptop alongside a memory card and an mp3 player. While all of these devices have unique drive letters and unique names in windows explorer (one of the drives is always called 400gig, for instance, another is always called 500gig), they're all called "USB Mass Storage Device" in the system tray's "Safely Remove Hardware" menu. So when I need to unplug one but not all, I find myself taking a stab at which device is which and usually I pick the wrong one. I can solve the confusion easily enough by opening the "my computer" window and figuring out the drive letter from there, but that's an extra step that I'd love to get rid of. Ideally, the dialog would always say something like "Safely remove 400gig - Drive (x:)" and stay the same for each device each time it's plugged in.

So, is it possible to change the menu options from "Safely remove USB Mass Storage Device - Drive (x:)" to something unique for each device?

Will operating an external hard drive at a 45 degree angle reduce its life?

pseudonick — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 21:29:26 -0800

Will operating an external hard drive at a 45 degree angle significantly reduce its life? I'd like to tuck an external hard drive into a drawer, but it will only fit at a 45 degree angle. It works fine now, but are external hard drives sensitive to angle of installation? Will this greatly increase my likelihood of the drive failing?

It may fit somewhere else at a 90 degree angle (flipped on it's side) though this would be slightly less convenient for me. Would this be better than the 45 degree installation?

Portable Media Centre

edbyford — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 02:46:22 -0800

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? At home I use XBMC, and I love it!

However, when I'm playing movies etc. on someone else's computer, I don't want to have to install XBMC on their computer to get the same functionality.

Is there a program designed to be lightweight, portable (and preferably open source) which I could store on my external drive and just run it when playing back movies on someone's computer?

How do I boot off of someone else's internal hard drive on my laptop?

senterstyle — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 19:00:13 -0800

Running XP on my computer, off of someone else's internal hard drive I'm trying to clean up a friend's desktop from a nasty virus infestation, so I snagged his hard drive out of the case. I am using an adapter to connect it via USB, but was wondering if there is a way to virtually (or perhaps boot off of) this drive. I know that it would be incompatible with my hardware, but I wanted to run some more things from my end, rather than driving to his home. He has XP.

How can I monitor a disc rewrite process in Ubuntu?

carsonb — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 07:45:38 -0800

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?

Best setup for external drive for Macbook Pro?

semblance — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 15:29:59 -0800

What kind of external drive setup should I use for my new Macbook Pro? I'm a musician and Mac newbie. Having just made the switch to Mac (I love it, BTW, don't know what took me so long!), I'm pretty ignorant of the available options. It needs to hold hundreds of GB and it needs to be speedy (suitable for use with Kontakt or other software samplers). Smaller physical size is better, but speed is more important. What are some reasonable choices? USB? Firewire? ExpressCard/34? ....?

Thanks!