How to best use an external hard drive.??

18 years ago

After I got all the good advice and suggestions in my last post I thought I would try another question.

As is stated in that previous post I have purchased an external HD, 320gb. Here's my question..

There were no kind of instruction as how to use this equipment included in the package. I figured out how to move some of my files and pictures, and I know the difference between cut and paste and copy and paste, but I don't know when to do cut and when to copy. Will programs like Photoshop.5 run from the external hard drive and I can take if off my C drive completely or how does that work.........?? Is this external HD just for backup and won't run programs or what? What do you have on your external HD?

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Comments (6)

cboy
18 years ago
I save a copy of my Desktop and Documents on my exterior hard drive. It's easy for me. All I have to do is push a button on
my Maxtor 3 one touch.
I also save and extra backup of my complete hard drive useing
Acronis True Image 10.0
(I have this same backup on my interior hard drive in the
Acronis Secure Zone.
biwako_of_abi
18 years ago
Do you need to copy and paste things on the external HD? I shouldn't think so. Apart from the automatic backing up we have it set to do, if there is any individual file or folder we want to put on it, we simply left click on the file's or folder's icon and drag it to the icon for the external HD and it gets copied there.

We installed the entire Oxford English Dictionary program on my husband's computer's external HD and it works fine, but a couple of other programs just wouldn't run right when we tried to install them on it. Come to think of it, the OED has a verification process by which you have to show the computer that you actually possess the CDs for it, and that may be why the company doesn't mind which drive you keep it on.

We haven't tried downloading any programs to the ext. HD yet, but it seems likely to me that many--especially the expensive programs that don't provide for periodically proving that you have the CDs--will very likely not run well from there.

However, from what Cboy writes, with the help of Acronis, it looks like you can backup the whole of your internal HD, which would include programs.

So, being new to external HDs myself (a 500GB Maxtor One Touch 4), I'd like to ask Cboy if you can actually remove programs from C:\ (to save space) and then run them from the external drive instead, or if what Acronis does is only to save them so you can reinstall them in C:\ after a disaster and run them from there.
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what do you need to know? If it is installed and it shows up on your computer in the list of available drives then you just choose the files you want to move to it and either drag and drop them or right click them and choose copy to or move to and select the drive letter associated with the external drive. It should have come with some type of instructions, if not you can probably go to the western site and look up your model number and find the manual in pdf form.
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Lotodig, Is there a program? Yes, Acronis is pretty good. Some members of the forum has reported external hard drives that will backup your internal hard drive without having tertiary programs. Actually, what you're trying to do or should do is clone the internal hard drive. Sounds like you've already got the external hard drive. Well, plug it in and turn it on. Now go to "My Computer". Should have something listed there for your external, a D or M or F. Assuming you have XP operating system, open one of your folders and select a file but don't open the file. Now in the top left hand of the page, click on file. A dialog or menu box will open. Somewhere in that box will be the line "send file to". Click on that and then click on the letter designation for your external hard drive. Guess what, you've now completed the first lesson in external hard drive 101. Its really simple. Rather than going through each folder and sending it to the external, get a program like Acronis. It actually clones the internal hard drive. How much of the internal do you want to put on the external? Well, how many files can you afford to lose? Why not just do them all. There was a recent thread about restoring the internal from the external. The poster was having problems and one of the questions asked was, do you have all the incremental clones cause if you don't it won't work. My experience is that incrementals take a bit less time but I simply do the full clone. I keep 3 full clones on the external and when I do the next, I delete the oldest. Its really not complicated and perhaps the hardest part is remembering when to do the backup. I use a thumb drive to keep up to date on daily minor changes and then clone about every week. HTH Bob
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mikie_gw
18 years ago
If it shows up as a drive letter there should be no reason you can not install a program and direct the install to a 'Program Files' folder.

You would want to uninstall an existing program and would have to install it like a new install so the registry pointers point correctly.
Another-words you cant just copy what is installed to the new drive.

The downside of installing there is the speed plus any cleanup tools you might run may clear the registry of the settings if the drive is not plugged in and the service(s) controlling it started.
cboy
18 years ago
B1wako
So, being new to external HDs myself (a 500GB Maxtor One Touch 4), I'd like to ask Cboy if you can actually remove programs from C:\ (to save space) and then run them from the external drive instead, or if what Acronis does is only to save them so you can reinstall them in C:\ after a disaster and run them from there.
-----------------------------------------------------------
I'm new to Maxtor 3 one touch myself.
If you have some program on your exterior hard drive, you would need to add a shortcut to your desktop for easy access. Will they run OK? You will just have to try and see what happens.
Acronis is strictly for backup of everything on your hard drive. Using it you can replace a single file or all files.
I have had to use it one time. The backup on my interior
hard drive failed and I went into a loop. I than went to my
Acronis backup on the exterior hard drive and I was able to get out of the loop that I was in with a complete repair.
Everything was completely restored.
Acronis will also allow you to clone your hard drive to an
extra hard drive as a spare backup.You would than have to remove the spare hard drive.
I had a 40 GB hard drive extra, so I clone it and removed it as per instructions.
owbist
18 years ago
Cboy I realise Acronis has to look after it's reputation by suggesting you remove a drive once the clone is created on it.

However in real life that seems odd. If the 2 drives are set to master and slave rather than both to cable select the slave (D) can do nothing. Plus the space available on the D drive could be used to store data. In the event of a C drive failure you would simply swap the jumper and ribbon cable on the cloned D drive to make it the master and C.

Even leaving the second drive in the tower but removing the power and ribbon cable would be better than removing it, that way you know exactly where it is if and when needed and it would not be consuming power or spinning needlessly.
biwako_of_abi
18 years ago
For the two programs that wouldn't work from the external drive, I actually did delete them from C:\ and do a fresh install into the external HD for one of them; the other would not give me the choice of where to install it. When the program now on the ext. HD still didn't work, I even checked on its properties and told it to look first in the external drive, but no go. So it seems to me that some programs just have to be on the internal drive. But maybe there is something I don't know.

Cboy: The OED, which I installed on the ext.HD and then put its icon shortcut on the desktop, did work all right, if a bit slow.

How to best use an external hard drive.??

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cboy

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