Help With External Hardware

[ordinateur]

Dear members/moderators

This is my first post and hope i am doing it right.

I am interested in purchasing an external hard drive to keep all my media files i.e Pictures,songs and videos as i believe they are taking too much space and slowing my PC down.

Can anyone please suggest a good make which will last long and how to install it as i never seen one apart from pictures in catalogues.
I have a second question, i bought a DVD-RW 5GB to backup my data, the DVD says it's compatible for data storage.

However when i put the DVD in my DVD slot it won't recognise it, i tried the other normal slot it still won't recognise it. The only thing it recognises is a normal cd which i need at least 4 to back my data.
any suggestions i will really appreciate it.

regards.

[unidentified]

Checkout the price list of hard drives and select which one serves you the best: Hard Drive / Hard Disk Price List In India (Internal Hard Drive and External Hard Drive)

Also can you please tell us your computer specifications.

[T.J.]

I think yours might be a cd drive so it will not recognise your dvd but one solution is that I heard you buying new external Hraddisk then first buy it the copy all the data in it & the go to any near by cyber cafe & write your DVD from there but the next time you will need to dvd rom to have look at that data.

[Hardwareman]

There are Seagate Freeagent series available which are believed to be most reliable for data backup and for long time storage. There are also Western Digital and MAXTOR external harddrives available, but I doubt their reliability for important data backup as compared to Freeagent series. Seagate drives have so far good reviews.

[ordinateur]

Hi Unidentified

I am in the UK, it would be helpful if i get a UK supplier and price.

I am more after a tried and tested advice from members experience rather than just a list of models and price.


Many thanks

[ordinateur]

Hi Hardwareman and TJ


Thanks for your replies.

T.J, i definitely have a DVD drive, as i mentioned i have two dives slot.

Hardwareman

Thaks for the suggestion, i heard of seagate hard drive, i will look for the freeagent series you mentioned at PC world.

In terms of installing the external drive, is it quite straight forward or need expert hand for that?

regards

[The Edge]

Hello , First, make sure that the drive you are using is a DVD burner, and not a
DVD-ROM/CD-RW combo. If the drive is indeed capable of burning DVD discs, then you will need to install the software that came with the drive. Windows XP does not have the ability to burn to DVD.

[ordinateur]

Thanks the Edge


Really appreciate your valuable advice.


Regards

[Hardwareman]

In terms of installing the external drive, is it quite straight forward or need expert hand for that?

There is no expertise required to install external hard drive. In fact, there is nothing to install as such in an external hard drive. You just have to pust the USB jack of the hard drive to the USB post and the OS like XP and later will detect the plugged in device by their own... and you are ready to use it.

In case, if there are cables also provided for power, then there shall be 2 USB jacks for single hard drive, 1 for transferring data and the other for providing power to the hard drive. This is for some external hard disks only.

Otherwise, there is nothing great as such in using an external hard drive. Its pretty easy.