External harddrives

[Bernard]

As the title suggests, I'm looking to buy an external HD.
I only have 80GB on my PC at the moment and would like to increase that without spending too much.

I'd say between 500GB and 1TB should do it, any recommendations?...brands to look out for ect.
Here's what I've found on Komplett.

[CJ]

Iomega, WD etc are all good. Go for 1TB, better value for money. I bought this recently, good piece of kit.

CJ

[Bernard]

Cheers CJ, think I'll take follow suit.

[adrian]

CJ, is that powered or USB powered/ I have a 300GB WD one, USB powered... so handy.... but 1 TB would be excellent to have

[CJ]

CJ, is that powered or USB powered

Powered as in an external PSU is supplied.

CJ

[Dragonheart]

I bought one from a hong kong seller on ebay Bernard for E80 including P+P, 250Gb drive, USB.

[Bernard]

Ebay's an option but as CJ said, 1TB for €99 is serious value.

[colm_mcm]

nothing worse than a crap hard drive. go with a brand you know.

[finers]

Hey Bernard I would highly recommend purchasing one with an ESATA connection especially if you want to fill 1TB drive + its defo going to be the new standard soon.

Its far faster then the old IDE drives USB 2.0 fireware etc.

SATA 3.0 – 3.0 Gbps

may need to purchase a pci card from ebay if your computer does not support esata dirt cheap on ebay talkin 4 euro incl p&p.
All the esata drives also take usb etc..

Few friends already have these im defiantly purchasing one when i need another HD.

[Bernard]

Cheers but I'm all out of card slots, I recently swapped out the 56K modem for a USB2 port card...

My PC's a bit of a donkey... a hand-me-down.

[finers]

Ahh well allot u linked to in Komplett has esata, look at is as future proof trust me u won't regret it

[Bernard]

Cheers CJ, think I'll take follow suit.

Well I bought this one and all was good for a while, now I'm getting a "delayed write fail".
I had a look online and found that disabling write caching on the disk can help which it did, for a few minutes.

I tried to run disk check but got no joy, although it did work when I plugged in into a W2Kpro machine
I'm not too keen on formatting it as most of the stuff I had put on it I have deleted from my system (needed space), but if needs must.

Any thoughts/advice?

[CJ]

I tried to run disk check but got no joy

As is chkdsk? Run chkdsk y: /F /R /X (where y = the assigned drive letter) from a command prompt and see if that helps.

Which disk did you go for? Does it have external power? If not, make sure and use a double-ended USB cable.

CJ

[Bernard]

I went for the one you linked to, iomega 1TB.
So it has external power.

As is chkdsk? Run chkdsk y: /F /R /X (where y = the assigned drive letter) from a command prompt and see if that helps.
CJ

I'll try that, the check I did was the error checking option in disk properties.

[gfalls]

Good plan is to buy a really good HD and then a seperate enclosure to put it in. That way you know exactly what your getting. Some of these manufactureres put cheap HD's in fancy enclosures. makes you think you're getting a bargain.

get a HD that spins at 10000rpm, and feel the speed..!

[Bernard]

I got no joy with chkdsk.
However, when I plugged the drive into a USB1 port it worked perfectly!
It seems I've lost a few files but nothing major, I even left it turned on for a few days and got no problems.

So, is it some compatibility issue or is it my USB2 card?

[CJ]

So, is it some compatibility issue or is it my USB2 card?

Could be the card alright (I assume its an add on?). I've a mutifunction USB\firewire card and I have no problems with external drives. Long shot - have you tried a different USB cable?

CJ

[Bernard]

I'll gave another cable a go (think the satnav might fit) failing that I'll just replace the card.
One port never worked anyway and they're only a few quid.

Thanks for the help.

[gfalls]

If you've got an add in USB card. The best thing to do is uninstall ALL USB devices. Go to device manager and delete each one in turn. Reboot PC and they will all be reinstalled. This usually sorts them out