Gericom 250Gb External Hard Drive At Aldi [CLOSED]

martint123

Thanks for that link (perusing in a moment), but its for the ATA interface rather than via USB so its still in the air a bit about size limits. I suspect USB will not have a limit - much like networked drives and only devices supported by the BIOS will/may have limits.

Ref the earlier post about partitioning down to less than 137gb - that didn't work - the overwriting was on a physical rather than logical level - i.e. filling a second partition beyond 137gb would overwrite the first partition.
The drive ended up in a linux disk server box I made up of an old P3.

springbok

I bought the previous Gericom from Aldi which had a 160gb disk in it.
It works fine through USB2, full 160G capacity shown.

I also have 2 250gb external disks mounted in cases as well and they are fine.

I did try putting the 160gb drive internally into the desktop for fun and it then had a 137G limit.

As the previous poster said, you'll get all you need to set it up, power supply usb cable etc.

MoneySavingGenius_2

Guys if Windows XP only recognises the drive @ 137gb you can run this tool to get rid of the limit: http://www.maxtor.com/portal/site/Maxtor/menuitem.3c67e325e0a6b1f6294198b091346068/?channelpath=%2Fen_us%2FSupport%2FSoftware%20Downloads%2FATA%20Hard%20Drives&downloadID=11
I think you'll still need XP SP1, but most people should already have this by now.
Easier than messing about in the Registry.

jampton

In my experience it's worth partitioning the drive (at least one partition in this case - it will appear in windows as two separate drives of around 120GB) before you put any data on it because even if your system takes sizes greater than 137 GB there are a lot of machines you may plug it into that will be unable to read the drive at all.

Hotblack_Desiato_2

The IDE/ATA limit only applies to older controllers, and what you're buying is a regular HD with a USB to IDE/ATA bridge. So its not your problem.

USB supports bigger drives than 250Gb.

HTH

HB

MoneyMachine_2

Could I plug this into a desktop on a wireless net and use it for the other desktop and laptop in my house over the network then??
I realise the Desktop its plugged into will need to remain on but not sure if there would be problems neworking an externl hard drive. Can any one enlighten me??
Thanks

ffacoffipawb

Would this work on a 4 year old PC with Windows ME and USB 1.1 ?

springbok

MoneyMachine wrote:

Could I plug this into a desktop on a wireless net and use it for the other desktop and laptop in my house over the network then??
I realise the Desktop its plugged into will need to remain on but not sure if there would be problems neworking an externl hard drive. Can any one enlighten me??
Thanks

Yes you can, you can 'share it' on your wireless network. I do this to watch divx's on the laptop downstairs.

I would have thought (although don't know for certain) that a 4 year old desktop with ME should be ok with it.
My desktop is about 4 years old, it used to run ME but I upgraded it to XP.
I also installed a USB2 PCI card to allow faster access to the hard drive. I would have thought USB1.1 would be quite slow for transfering large amounts of data.

mike_the_bike_2

And the next question...

I have a Sony Laptop 3/12 years old..It has USB1 & one firewire connection..

Will this drive run really slow because of my usb1 connections or should I be going for a drive with a built in firewire connection ..and if so are they available??

thanks..

Trog

Firewire would be much much (200 or 300 times I think) quicker than USB 1.

Trog