External Hard drive-advice

schnauzer said:

l have finally bought a WD My Book Essentials 1TB with both USB 2.0 and USB 3.0.Can anyone help me re setting this up or is it simply plug in,connect and off you go?
l have a Desktop Computer running Win 7 Professional and the main reason l bought this 'external Hard drive' is l am sick of the alarming amount of discs l have accunulated over the years for my Backups.
Another concern l have is that some people have had external drives crash and their data l do not think can be retrieved-am l correct on this?
l am not a heavy user so there has never been a real necessity to purchase an external HDD and l do realize l could have simply got the WD Elements for Desktops or even the Seagate Freeagent again for Desktops.No l did not want anything portable as have several memory sticks if need be.
If anyone has some suggestions re installing etc l would appreciate the help as l am terrified of any pitfalls l may come across like when l had Vista (not my choice)
Thanks in anticipation.

Hi Schnauzer - I just got a WD Essentials 3 TB Drive for pretty much the same reasons. I am using the USB 3.0 interface - works great !!!

If you haven't already done so yet, hook up your new drive and run disk management (right click My Computer and select Manage). All the drives hooked up to your computer will be displayed.

Then right click on an unallocated region of your new hard drive (you will be able to tell which one it is because of it's size) and select "New Simple Volume" from the drop down menu. In the new simple volume "wizard" click "Next" then accept the maximum default size and click "Next" again. Accept the default drive letter (or choose a new one) and then click "Next" yet again.

Finally, in the "Format Partition" dialog box click "Next" to format the new Drive for the maximum partition size and the drive letter you've chosen. To complete the operation click "Finish" to finalize setting up your new Drive.

You should now see your new drive in My Computer as a blank, brand new drive. Backing up is a Very Wise idea. The biggest danger isn't that you're going to "lose" something, the biggest danger is that the Windows OS can become "corrupted" and this cannot be repaired. If Windows becomes corrupted you would want to restore everything you had on the drive at the time you made the last back up.

Everybody has their own philosophy to "backing up". As for myself, I usually don't try to back up individual files. I just backup the entire contents of the OS Drive - it's called a "Mirror Image". You can use "Windows Backup Image" or you can buy a separate program like Norton Ghost 15. There are lots of different backup programs. I like the Norton one because its easy to use. I also make backups with the Windows Image Backup utility. I do both just to be safe. I have too many hours invested in installing and setting up all my programs to lose everything - better to be safe than sorry as they say.

And make sure you create a Windows Rescue Disk in the event that you are unable to boot into Windows at all (when you buy a product like Norton Ghost the Install Disk doubles as the bootable rescue disk). To boot from any bootable rescue disk you'll have to hold down F12 as the computer boots so that you can change the drive boot order so that the computer boots from your CD drive. Thats unless you had already configured your drive boot order so that the computer tries to boot from the CD first.

Good luck, and if you are very lucky you'll never have to do a disk image restore. But chances are, sooner or later, you'll have to. Hope this was of some help. :):):)

By the way, you will probably also want to keep your last two or three backups on the new drive and to cover all your bases make a copy of your latest good backup, put it on another removable drive, and keep it separate from your computer in the unlikely event your WD Essentials Drive fails. :):):) All bases covered now.

Just plug it in a deal with it like a folder. I would not partition it - just define folders as subfolders of the drive. That is a more fexible use of the drive.

Along with windows system image, you can use the free Macrium and Western Digital has a download of a scaled down version of Acronis you can download. I use all 3.

Don't worry quite so much. If you have problems you can't fix just come back here. We will help you fix them. That is what this forum is for.

Just remember, computers are like life. You learn the most when you make mistakes and have to learn to correct them. I think most of us here were where you are at one time. I have had to re-install windows hundreds of times. Mostly because I messed it up myself. But, in the process I learned what not to do and how to fix it. We are here to help if you have problems, so just enjoy your computer and have fun.

Just take one step at a time, ask questions here and someone will help you through it.

Let us know where you are at now, have you plugged in the USB cable to the computer?

Dont be "gobsmaacked" - The only way to learn new things is to try them :):):)
Good Luck