internal/external harddrive transfering ...

i have not bought a new external harddrive ever before and i wanna know how they work.

i want to know how i go about transfering files from my internal harddrive to my external harddrive. does it come with a program or something?

would it be like a drop folder, and you just drag things into it ? or is there a program i would need to download.

and, when im downloading something, how can i control it to going to which harddrive ? (if i download any more movies, i wanna make sure they go on my external hd, so can i download the files right to the ex hd ?)

sorry, just one more question,

do i just leave my external hd plugged in all the time ? or can i take it out and bring it to different computers ?

 

Most external drives are just regular IDE drives in an external case. Usualy you plug them in by USB some are 1394. An adapter plugged into the wall powers them but I think there may be a few that use the USB power. Once plugged into the computer and drivers installed (if needed) It will have its own Drive letter. No different from using a jump drive. So you use it like any other Hard drive. So to put your movies on it just copy to its drive letter.

Yes you can take it to other computers. If you have a drive the requires drivers then you will need to install on whatever computer you plug into. Most do not require drivers.

-Del

 

If you are running Windows XP with SP1 or later you will not need any drivers for the USB 2.0. Once plugged into your USB port your OS will recognize it and like Mr_Del says, will show it as another drive with its own letter.

 

I am running Windows XP Pro w/sp2 and have noticed that the read speed on my External 80 gb Maxtor USB storage device, is slow (@ 8 MB p/s), which is less than 10% of the speed of the IDE hard drive.
Also ran a few tests using HD TECH and compared the results with their data base and found that the highest read speed of ANY USB external storage drive reported to them, was @ 13 MB p/s. Write speed was somewhat higher.

 

It sounds like you are using a USB 1.1 in your PC on a USB 2.0 compliant HD. Try other USB ports first, then also look into your device manager and see if you find under "Universal Host Controller" the term Enhanced Host Controller. That would be you USB 2.0. Also, are you sure that your external device is USB 2.0 compliant?

 

It sounds like you are using a USB 1.1 in your PC on a USB 2.0 compliant HD.....ScubaBud

I thought the samething at first and uninstalled all the USB items and their drivers as well. Restarted and XP reloaded the current USB XP drivers. Restarted again and the USB Hard drive was picked up as being 2.0. A refortmat to NTFS was then performed. (I previously had the USB drive formatted as FAT 32.)
Read speed did increase to @ 18 MB p/s, but no where around the read speed of my ATA IDE drive. (@ 90 MB p/s)

 

what chipset is on your board & what is the enhanced host controler described as in the device manager..ddp

nVidia nForce2-128 SPP9Crush 18D)+MCP-T(orMCP) AGPset
There are 6 USB 2.0 ports and they all work through theMCP-T. I also added a Via USB 2.0 card.
(PCI)Device manager shows the standard enhanced, Via Rev 5 or later and the Via USB enhanced controllers.
The PCI Via USB 2.0 slot is the one I currently am able to run the 18 MB p/s from. I currently am using 2 of the 6 on board USB 2.0 slots for my printer and a 2.0 HUB.