External HD problems... aaarrrgghhh.

Wiggynut

http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000WP0NM8
Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

I brought the above the other day and so far it's proving to be a right pain!
my computer will only recognise the external HD if I switch the pc on and then plug the HD in... rather than the HD automatically turning on at the same time.

I've tried drag and dropping my files onto the hd and it justs freezes my pc so I have to reboot everything.

and sometimes after rebooting my pc comes up with a blue screen and nothing else so have to reboot AGAIN!

I'm thinking that I might return this and get something else!!

I'll be swapping to an iMac soon so maybe I should wait until then (to buy another external HD) - I wont be buying the apple HD which does look nice but is double the price really and can't afford that.

Is this normal or am I doing something wrong... all I have to do with this HD is plug it in... so there's not much I could get wrong!

*sigh* nothings ever simple! (or I've dropped a couple of brain cells somewhere!)

M4RKM

could be a faulty

a) drive
b) usb cable
c) usb port

try the drive on a different computer, try a different USB cable

i have loads of external HDD's plugged into my imac, and don't have any issues... i don't have any apple hard drives, apart from what is inside. I have a freecom 500gb, and then some caddy's that i've just slotted hard drives into, got an icybox for 2 sata hard drives on one usb cable.. works wonders...

M

P.S the acronym is HDD for hard drive (as in Hard Disk Drive), as the HD acronym is used for High Definition.

Anthony2oo5

Why are you moving to a Mac ?

Wiggynut

markymoo wrote: »

could be a faulty

a) drive
b) usb cable
c) usb port

try the drive on a different computer, try a different USB cable

i have loads of external HDD's plugged into my imac, and don't have any issues... i don't have any apple hard drives, apart from what is inside. I have a freecom 500gb, and then some caddy's that i've just slotted hard drives into, got an icybox for 2 sata hard drives on one usb cable.. works wonders...

M

P.S the acronym is HDD for hard drive (as in Hard Disk Drive), as the HD acronym is used for High Definition.

oops, yes it is HDD! lol, I'd forgotten about that.

I'm wondering if the usb 2 card I put in my pc might be the problem.
I'm sure I've had issues with that before - do you think I can test the HDD on the USB 1 ports and if it shows any issues then it's the HDD? (I'm assuming it will just be slower on a USB 1)
The only other pc I have access to at the moment is my work computer which has USB 1 ports)

let's hope it just that... if I know the HDD is ok then it will be fine once I get the iMac.

Thanks for your help
:beer:

Wiggynut

Anthony2oo5 wrote: »

Why are you moving to a Mac ?

I've always wanted one and I can't wait :j
I'm looking forward to not having the base unit on the floor with loads of cables attached too!

I'll be a mature student soon and I'll be studying Digital Arts - all mac based (uni and most jobs I apply to are mac based - some pc but still mostly mac)