Jim_Tardio Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 I'm adding a Lacie 80GB firewire external hard drive to my current system...which is a PC running Windows ME (I know, I need to upgrade).<p>Am I right in assuming I can just plug this in and the computer will recognize it...it has for every other device I've plugged in.<p>And, can I just create new folders on the new drive, and copy & paste my files from my existing internal drive. I don't want any auto-backup software. Will copy & paste work without a problem.<p>Thanks for any help. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mattalofs Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 You got it. ME is supposed to recognize USB storage devices without drivers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mendel_leisk Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 Are these drives pre-formatted? You might also want to look into extra internal drives. When dropping in one of those, you need to set jumpers, make your windows pc aware of it through "computer management", and format it, atleast with Win XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
david_ditzel3 Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 You will need to add a firewire card if you do not already have firewire connections. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 "...which is a PC running Windows ME (I know, I need to upgrade)." You're taking a huge risk right now without running xp and it's servive pack 2 with the jpg update. A few hours and a couple hundred bucks is worth all the potential loss you might have... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimstrutz Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 You won't need a firewire card if the external drive is USB. But most likely you have USB 1.1 ports on the old ME machine. They are miserably slow to use with an external hard drive. If this starts to irritate you, you may want to add a USB 2 card (or firewire if the drive takes it) USB 2 and firewire are about 40 times faster than USB 1, so the performance gains are considerable. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jimstrutz Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 And yes, you just treat the external drive like you would an internal one. Create folders and move files into them. Makes for great storage. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodolfo_negrete Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 before buying the hard-drive do yourself a huge favor and get ride of that Windows ME trash and GET THE XP PRO. Once there this kind of questions are going to be disolve since most of your pains are going to go away wiht this OS. REPEAT GET RID OF THAT GETTO windows me AND GET WINDOWS XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jim_Tardio Posted September 29, 2004 Author Share Posted September 29, 2004 Thanks for the replies so far. My computer has a firewire port, which is why I bought the "firewire" model of this hard drive. <p> I thought about another internal drive but read that the extra heat can be a problem, plus, I'll be changing machines soon so I'll just plug the drive into the new one. I thought it would be easier to transfer all of my files I want through the external drive. <p> I would like Windows XP, but my machine is already several years old. And, as I said, I'll probably just get a new box. Besides, I regularly install the Microsoft security updates which are available for Windows ME as well as XP. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
walter_degroot Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 upgrade to xp when you MUST it is not a matter of loosing your salvation or something! a computer or a car or a tv is upgraded when necessary. xp has some neat-o features but mostly they are eye candy. some perephials or applications may not work with xp. especially scanners. Office 97 does work. as you say your computer is several years old. it may not be powerful or fast enough to run xp efficiently. I don't particularly LIKE windows ME but it is a sort of upgraded windows 98se. which i DO use all the time. wal-mart has a usb 2.0 card for $29.00 or so the packaging is clear hard plastic and not a flat box. it has 4 ports. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
roger_smith4 Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 I'd recommend an upgrade to Win2000 rather than resource-hungry XP. I upgraded a computer which was horribly slow and unstable, and which I thought was junk in my office. It was running Win 98. I popped Win 2000 on it and now it's as fast as the other computers. I found out it was actually a Pentium III with 192 megs of RAM- more than enough to run Win2000 great! The performance difference was night and day. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Ingold Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 The information in this thread regarding operation of external drives is good. ME would not be my first choice in an operating system, but at least you are not DOOMED, as the commercial goes. You acknowledge that you should upgrade, so I'll pick up that ball. In addition to photography, I work with multi-channel audio and video production. This places demands on a computer and storage devices well beyond that of photography alone. I use both Win2000 (W2K) and WinXP Pro, and find that XP is by far the best performer. Win2000 is a fine system, stable and mature, but it suffers in recognizing multiple external drive units. It supports plug-and-play, but sometimes has to be coaxed or even re-booted to recognize external drives. It does not always use the same drive letter when you reconnect, which is inconvenient at best. It is nearly impossible to get W2K to recognize a disk drive larger than 137G. XP assigns a unique registration key based on information retrieved from the drive unit, and will assign the same drive letter when re-connected. Win2K will NOT recognize more than one CD/DVD drive of the same model, but WinXP does so without difficulty. Once you get past (or disable) the Disney-esque working surface, XP is very friendly and manageable. If you use FireWire, which I still recommend over USB2 for streaming applications, and have multiple drives, use a hub. Some programs don't like daisy-chained drives, and will cause write errors. USB, on the other hand, does not perform well with high-speed devices (e.g., disk drives) using hubs. You need a one-on-one direct connection. Multiple ports on an USB card work OK in parallel. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tomoko yamamoto Posted September 29, 2004 Share Posted September 29, 2004 <p>A few months ago I, too, bought an external hard drive (160GB). My computer is still PIII with Windows 98SE. My Maxtor has also a Firewire connection (it can be both USB/FireWire). <p>Although the computer does recognize my FireWire scanner without any additional software, Maxtor advices to get a Microsoft update, in my case WINDOWS 98 SE 1394 UPDATE. When I looked up any 1394-related update in Google, I got this page: <a href= "http://fwdepot.com/drivers.html">fwdepot.com/drivers.html</a>. <p>If you scroll down to the bottom of this page, you'll see information on Microsoft's updates on 1394. It appears ME is O.K without any updates. <p>In my case I partitioned my external drive into two partitions and put a copy of all the data-bearing folders on my C drive in one partition and put the Maxtor Retrospect for backup in the other. I've found a free program available from Western Digital handy and easy for partitioning. It does recognize a Maxtor external drive although the program is primarily for WD drives. It is called Western Digital Data Lifeguard and can be downloaded from the WD website. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
jon_austin Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 To Eric ~: What's the JPG update in XP SP 2? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 there's a new rash of viruses, ones that have the ability to change their extension from .exe. to .jpg and these pests are supposed to be unleashed this week. the latest sp jpg patch prevents this. if anyone is still not using xp with all the updates, i'd be very careful. you are backed up right? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ed_Ingold Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 There is an exploit of the JPG format, whereby an oversized component causes the system to crash, and allows an embedded program to execute. The current exploit is to plant a trojan virus, which allows someone to take over your computer (you can star as a Spam Master!). XP/SP2 includes a patch for this exploit, which was also posted separately a couple of months ago. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brainbubba_motornapkins Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 The exploit is not out in the 'wild' yet, as least in virulent form, though it may just be a matter of days now. Most AV companies are updating their definitions to look for it (and will continue doing so for future variants). So -- no need to panic, no need to "upgrade" to xp (which brings a host of it's own problems, reputedly), just avoid visiting dodgy porn websites and don't open any email attachments without first confirming who sent it and why. Also, you might want to consider using Mozilla Firefox for your browser instead of IE. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodolfo_negrete Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 "just avoid visiting dodgy porn websites" try telling this to a teenager. Lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexdi Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 Ed: <p> <i>It is nearly impossible to get W2K to recognize a disk drive larger than 137G.</i> <p> Perhaps, if by impossible you mean incapable of opening Regedit. <p> 2000 isn't perfect, but in terms of stability and interface speed, it's well ahead of XP. Slashdot linked a reliability survey recently confirming the above. <p> Both seem to have problems with external drives in general, however. My external drive occasionally shuts itself off and throws an error in Windows, even in the middle of write operations. XP users have reported similar problems, albeit with less frequency. <p> DI Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodolfo_negrete Posted September 30, 2004 Share Posted September 30, 2004 MAN! After reading this thread decided to go ahead and update and did not work for me. I just got rid of that horrific "XP/SP2" upgrade which really slowed my computer down. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 how much available space do you have, in percentage, left on your hd? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodolfo_negrete Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 27.2 gb Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EricM Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 i ment how big is your drive and how much space is left on it? XP slowing a 'puter down isn't os's fault. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
rodolfo_negrete Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 it is 70gb and there is 27.2gb left Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
patricks Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 Jim, I think you got all the info you needed on the ext. HD question. With regards to your computer system: I see little point in digging deep into digital photography/darkroom without investing in sufficient soft- and hardware. Sure, you can run your apps on Win ME, but then again, you can tow your boat after a 4-cyl Saab 99 as well, but it isn't optimal, if you know what I mean. If you have a PC that is connected to the internet there are, like it or not, security considerations to take into consideration. It is not Microsoft, Linux or Mac that creates these viruses/malware, even though they get the blame instead of the wrong-doers?!, but let get to the point. If you use Windows as your OS and IE as your browsers, you are doing yourself a big disservice by not using Windows XP SP2. The latest security upgrades does not affect IE running on earlier version s of the OS, thus you are putting your system at risk. My advice would be to upgrade to a 'modern' Windows OS asap, and perhaps download and use Firefox 1.0 as a browser until you upgrade. Needless to say, you need to have something like Norton Internet Security 2005 running on your machine as well. Cheers, Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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