Seagate External Hard drive query

Hi

If you have copied all the files and folders then most can be removed from the my documents folder, however don't delete folders such as my pictures and my videos etc as they are system folders, they're not critical but the operating system will expect them to be there, it's preferable to delete the contents of these folders but leave the folders in place. however this will not make a noticable difference to the performance of the pc, this is a different subject.

to determine whether you have copied all the files; go to my documents, select "select all" from the "edit" menu then right click on the selected files and select "properties" from the menu that appears, this will open a window that will tell you how many files and folders are selected and the total size of them. then do the same on the removable drive, the amount of files and disk space used should be the same.

keep in mind that having a copy of the files on the external drive, i.e. not deleting them from the my documents folder, gives you a very crude sort of backup, if an original is lost you have a copy to replace it, also if the operating system gets corrupt and a re-install is required then you will have saved some data. this is far from ideal but going into backing up data properly is really out of scope, it will also become awkward when you come to copy further files in the future, as some will already exist on the removable drive etc.

if you do copy the files and then delete the originals from the my documents folder; you could consider placing shortcuts into the my documents folder that target the removable drive, this will be useful in scenarios such as saving a new word document using ms word, the "save as" dialogue box will automatically go to the my documents folder, from here you can simply double click the shortcut and it will redirect you to the removable drive, where you can save the document, does this make sense?

windows 2000 includes the NT backup utility which is good for home use, it could be worth your while reading up on using it as you could then be able to create backup archives in a far better manner.

when writing data to external usb drives, ensure that you remove the drive properly when finished, don't just unplug it. when the drive is connected a small icon will appear by the clock, when removing the drive; first click this icon and it will offer you a list of items to safely remove, the drive may be the only one in the list, click the drives entry in the list and wait a short time until the OS states that it can now safely be removed. this isn't very important if you have only read data from the drive, but it's very important if you have written to the drive, to cut a long story short; both the os and the drive have cache mechanisms whereby you save data to a file but it isn't actually written there and then, it can be held in memory, os or drive, and committed later. safely removing a usb drive ensures all data is actually written to the drive before it is removed.

HTH
Lee

8O Lee 8O

Erm, thanks, I think I just about got most of that. I wont delete anything just yet until I understand it all a bit better. I probably don't explain myself very well (as Dave will confirm :wink: ).

I have tried to do a back up in the past and failed miserably. I bought the CD's and installed software (Nero) but couldn't really get to grips with it.

I'm not sure why I thought the Freeagent EHD did a backup as well as storing the files but now I see I was wrong.

This poor old PC is way past its best and I had to shut it down in between these replies (how does that effect the external drive) as it wasn't removed at the time. I do understand that bit now thank goodness ....about making sure it is safe to unplug I mean.

When I restarted the PC the info that came up in the DOS mode says that the processor is a Pentium III with 320MB RAM so I guess that is pretty feeble.....eh Dave :lol:

Saw 2 laptop's in John Lewis yesterday - a Toshiba Satellie L300-227 and an Acer Aspire both about the same spec except the Acer had 3GB Memory and a full keyboard....both priced £399.95. So I'm going to plump for one of those to keep me going until I get the Mac :lol:

Thanks guys, I will try to download a manual for the FreeAgent and spend some time studying plus I'll try to see if I have the NT backup utility on here.

Maura

Hi Maura

mauramac said:

I have tried to do a back up in the past and failed miserably. I bought the CD's and installed software (Nero) but couldn't really get to grips with it.

I'm not sure why I thought the Freeagent EHD did a backup as well as storing the files but now I see I was wrong.

Click to expand...

The freeagent, like the CDs, is a medium you can backup to, as you have explained the freeagent came with backup software but you can't use it, the advantage of using backup software is that it is more efficient and far easier to manage and automate, having backups or copies of files on external media is good because you still have the data should the pc become unusable. the backup software included with windows 2000 can most likely be accessed using 'start menu > programs > accessories' or 'start menu > programs > accessories > system tools', should you want to experiment with it.

mauramac said:

This poor old PC is way past its best and I had to shut it down in between these replies (how does that effect the external drive) as it wasn't removed at the time. I do understand that bit now thank goodness ....about making sure it is safe to unplug I mean.

Click to expand...

If the pc was shutdown correctly this will be fine as the operating system will ensure that any devices finalise any data writes.

mauramac said:

When I restarted the PC the info that came up in the DOS mode says that the processor is a Pentium III with 320MB RAM so I guess that is pretty feeble.....eh Dave :lol:

Click to expand...

a pentium III is feeble by modern standards but should be fine for browsing the internet and word processing etc, at work we run a nuclear power station using systems that have far less 8O personally i would probably be looking for a replacement but you would be amazed at how much better a pc will run if a clean install of the operating system is performed, i'm not suggesting you do this. having 320 mb of ram suggests that the pc has 256 and 128 installed and that 64 is missing for shared graphics memory, if you go for a laptop it's worth checking that the graphics subsystem has its own memory, when it uses main ram there is a huge performance hit due to memory bus contention. if you hold off on a new machine til the end of the year, it may come with windows 7 operating system, i use windows xp imho windows xp is far better than vista, but i'm using windows 7 beta on a laptop at work and it's what vista should have been, performs much better and has very good backup tools included

hope this helps, i don't mean to waffle

Lee

Hello Lee
Please don't apologise it's all really very helpful and not waffle at all. I have copied and pasted your info/advice/comments into a crib sheet I started a while ago when first looking for a replacement PC. I keep on updating it and have learnt a lot - trouble is remembering it :roll:

We did add some memory to this PC a few years ago so thats why it has the 256 and 128 split (PC was purchased back in 1999). I have heard both good & bad about Vista but what really annoys me is the fact that you can't run a lot of things on Vista that previously worked fine. My daughter tells me she can't download her photos now and has to buy a new camera. In another thread someone was saying you can't use Quicken (accounts software) on Vista. I use Quicken so that was annoying.

I am at present trying to do some floor plans for an extension and can't find software to download that will go on Windows 2000 so I guess it's time to bite the bullet and move on. We have stopped receiving Windows updates for some time now so we are a bit vulnerable.

Right thats me all waffled out now and must log off. Thanks for all your help - much appreciated.

Maura.