" Is there any benefit to FAT32. "

The only benefit to FAT32 that I can think of is that it's compatible with some older Windows versions that aren't based on NT (such as Windows 95 or Windows 98).

"Does the entire drive have to be the same format? "

No. You could create a 32 gig FAT32 partition and make the rest of the drive NTFS. But I don't see a reason for that unless you need to share with an older system that can't read NTFS.

"why would I want partitions? "
You have to have partitions. At least one partition, anyway. But I don't see any advantage to having multiple partitions on the external drive.

"So should I reformat the entire drive to NTFS? "
I would do that if I were you.

"I also wonder about retrieval of data from the external hard drive. For instance, if I want to put some music from there on my Ipod, do I first have to transfer it to my PC's main internal drive? Same with Tivo - if I"m transferring shows back to my Tivo, do I have to add steps to retrieve it from the external hard drive? "
The external drive appears as just another drive, so you can transfer something directly to it from Tivo or ipod.

Thanks BP. I'm going to reformat the entire drive to NTFS now.

Lynn.

yep exactly what I would do, mine is a seagate and it comes set up as NTFS but some do come as Fat 32. For any newer pc usage you would be better off with the NTFS.

I would also back up any firefox profiles and bookmarks files also your IE stuff too.

I reformatted the My Book - which went smoothly. The copied a short video. Again - worked well. Now I'm copying a whole bunch of videos - and it's taking time. I'm copying about 10-15 hours of standard definition tv shows. So far, it's been over an hour. I have no idea how long it will take via USB2 connection. The 30 minute video took less than 5 minutes.

I have follow-up questions. I wonder what the best way is to back up these files. I just opened up My Documents and right-clicked one at a time - then chose the option to "send to" and selected drive e: my book. I'm sure there's a better way to do this, but I don't know what it is. I tried to highlight more than one file at a time (using the shift key) - but it didn't seem to want to let me highlight more than one at a time.

I also wonder if I send a file to MY Book - does that mean it's moved to My Book and the original isn't on my PC - or is it copied there?

Raven - I know I should know this by now, but I don't. How do I find my firefox profiles and bookmarks files so I can copy them to the external drive?

Lastly, is there a way to copy files to the external drive in such a way that I can get prompted if the file already exists? so I don't make a copy and have 2 copies in there? with many files (like pictures), I may get a prompt that says the file already exists - should I overwrite it or skip. Is there anything like that when copying files to the external drive?

At some point, should I bite the bullet and buy a software program to do this. Western Digital tries to give trial periods for the following software :
Memeo Autobackup, Memeo Autosync. Any reason to get these? Or any other software?

Also, when I reformatted the drive, it wiped the drive clean. Is there anything (drivers, software?) I would need to download from Western Digital (to replace anything I might have erased). I know that the proprietary software that's sometimes loaded with these things (like cameras, printers) may not be necessary at all.

Thanks.
Lynn.

Cut and paste removes a file/folder from the existing position to the place you paste to.
Copy and paste leaves the original there and simply copies another instance to the new site.

How I copy files and folders is to use Windows Explorer - right click Start, click Explore.

We'll assume your external drive is E: so to copy various files from a folder you can click the first one, hold down the CTRL key and click any others you wish to copy to the external drive. Once selected release the CTRL key, right click on any highlighted file or folder, click Copy. Look down the left side for E: then righ click on it and click Paste.

If you wish to copy the whole contents of a folder but not the folder itself then highlight the folder on the left side. Now click on the top item on the right side, hold down the Shift button and tap the End key (next to Delete on the keyboard) or click the last item with the mouse. Right click on the highlighted files, click Copy. Right click on the appropriare file in E: and click Paste.

But if you wish to paste to an existing folder on E: then click the small plus sign beside E: to drop down the contents below but still on the left side, right click on the folder to paste to and click Paste.

If there is a file or folder already inside the folder you are pasting to with the same name you will be notified and given to option to overwrite or not paste that particular file/folder. If the same name file or folder is inside a different folder you will not be asked of course.

Owbist - thanks. Those instructions were fabulous. I never know about how to organize folders using Explorer. This brings up more organizing data questions but I think that's best done on a separate thread. I want to organize my data before I transfer it.

Although I could ask here about which programs, drivers, app's I should back up and how. Do I do all - and is there a way to do that? Or do I select? I do have the program disks that came with the computer 17 months ago - of course, that doesn't include updates, and other programs I've added.

Thanks.
Lynn.

In my opinion, it's a good idea to make a complete backup every once in a while and backup changes in between full backups. The best way to do a full backup is to buy a program that creates an image of the drive.

There's a free program that creates an image, but I can't remember what it's called (maybe drive image xml?).

A few commercial programs that do this are "a href="http://www.acronis.com/">Acronis True Image, Norton Ghost and Terabyte Unlimited Image.