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Thread ID: 64895 2006-01-01 05:27:00 External Hard Drives - What Can they do etc? Ginger Boy (9518) Press F1
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417059 2006-01-01 05:27:00 I have been seeking out an external hard drive - firstly the branded ones such as Seagate Barracuda Combo.......Iomega External Hard Drive.......and the Maxtor One Touch II. (With USB and Firewire connections). All are pricey so for this outlay want to be sure it will do what I need. In all cases the advertising plays mainly on it being used as back ups for photos/music/videos etc....and that's fine. But paramount to me is that I want an external hard drive that I can use in the same way as any internal one - that includes installing software on it and being able to access that software at any time. The software will include Windows utilities software (and games), not operating systems except my own system as a back up .
Presumeably that will mean that desktop p.c's (running Windows XP) will need to fully recognise the external drive and it will show with its own drive number.
To enable an understanding of this need - I do not use laptops and move from place to place frequently using desktops and want to access not just my own files and data but some specific software not available on the desktop being temporarily used. (Hope that makes sense).
If the answer to these types of drive is that they will do the job - does anyone have experience of the listed brands as to which may be the better (grade them maybe!)
Second part - would the external drive enclosures, with a standard internal hard drive I presume, also do the job and, if so, would it do it as well or better? They don't come with 'back up ' software though?
I am only a short time computer user so need help - prefer without terminology I don't yet understand?? Many thanks for all help offered.
Late thought:
Could I start Windows XP (boot?) from these external drives??? 		Ginger Boy (9518)
417060 2006-01-01 06:06:00 The cheapest way to do it would be to buy an HDD - and an external enclosure.
Same thing really.
Regardless its just a drive whether its internal or external. Of course you can treat it the same.
Yes you can install stuff on it but be aware that if the installed program requires Registry entries for instance and you try to run it connected to a different PC without those registry entries - then it won't run.
It all depends on what exactly you want to install.
A lot of programs run quite happily just from the files within its own folder though.

And yes while (depending on your motherboard) you can boot off an external drive, that would only work if the 2 PCs you want to use this with had identical hardware etc.
Windows XP will not load correctly if you installed it on whatever drive on one PC and then tried to boot it on another with different hardware. 		pctek (84)
417061 2006-01-01 20:45:00 gidday,

as pctek suggests you may find an external hard drive a a bit limited,
when accessing different computers. a flash drive, may be a worth
a thought.

cheers,

Robby 		Robby (3123)
417062 2006-01-02 00:52:00 You may want to look at removable drive enclosures, as just recently discussed.

www.promise.com

Installing software on non RAID external drives is not really recommended, as external drive letters can change and almost all complex software will place some parts of the software in the local registry, and Windows system directories.

If you just want to move data between PC, a 2.5" laptop disk and a USB hard enclosure will do the trick. Except for possibly Windows 95/98 and non-Windows PC, it pretty much guaranteed to work with anything, and pretty small.

Not as small as a flash drive, but cheaper per megabyte, and pretty robust.

Two pieces:
2.5" IDE to USB 2, Drive Enclosure, down to $65
2.5" IDE drive, laptop drive, down to $126

www.amselectronics.com 		kingdragonfly (309)
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