External Hard drive..

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 09:00 AM

Would it be worth my money to buy a 100gb external HD that is on sale at Best Buy for $100? What i wanna do is put all my media files on there (about 20 gigs) and reformat the laptop (80 gig) and have it run top notch again so i can download torrents because something is preventing me from downloading torrents on this laptop so starting fresh I think would be the best bet.

Any comments?

**damiongage** · 03-09-2006, 09:03 AM

I think so......I see people paying that for a 1gig jump drive. I have a ex HD (20gig) portable...I love it. 20gig is all I need. and I think I paid more than $100 for it...but it is very protable

**Theatrix** · 03-09-2006, 09:13 AM

Just did that in the house. Bought a 500gig external for $179. at CompUSA and made it a seperate device on the network. Now everyone loads their music and pics to that drive. Restored a bunch of computers including laptops and they seem to run a lot faster again.

**spywizard** · 03-09-2006, 09:16 AM

yep, it's the only way to go..

another option depending on size..

buy a laptop hard drive, and a small case ($15) that way it is powered by the usb, and alot more portable..

Use Ghost software and then you can take an image of your new laptop after you have it configured newly again..

the recovery time would be about 1-2 hours from an image...

I prefer this set up as i can then carry that data with me when i visit family, and they need software..

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 09:21 AM

what is Ghost Software?

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 09:22 AM

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/olspage....=1134698030419

Thats the one im getting btw

**spywizard** · 03-09-2006, 09:22 AM

symantec Ghost.. it's a recovery software that we use..

you can find it on torrent sites for download..

**spywizard** · 03-09-2006, 09:24 AM

i have a maxtor 250g right now, and i use the small one as i described mostly because of the portability, and the powered by usb..

but it will work for ya.. just make sure your connection on both ends are usb2

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 09:24 AM

Thats one issue i'll have, is getting my laptop to restore correctly, i always have an issue with that.

**spywizard** · 03-09-2006, 09:29 AM

i know what you are trying to do, a restore never works in this situation, too many sys files are changed in a restore..

a format, and reinstall of all apps is the only way to get back to original fast operations..

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 09:31 AM

I mean format****** i want to REFORMAT*** not restore, my bad

so its def worth $105 you say

**Jakspro** · 03-09-2006, 09:49 AM

do they make guys know of any extremely small firewire800 externals?

My Maxtor 250 crashed and i LOST all my back up projects... yea sucks, there goes my portfolio.

So i would rather not go with Maxtor...

I need the speed of 800

SVTMuscle* · 03-09-2006, 01:06 PM

ok i got it.

I have the Windows XP CD, can that alone re-format my laptop?

**spywizard** · 03-09-2006, 08:10 PM

yes, but you will need the key code..

**TheMudMan** · 03-10-2006, 12:57 PM

Originally Posted by SVTMuscle

ok i got it.

I have the Windows XP CD, can that alone re-format my laptop?

As spy said yes you can blown everything away and start from scratch....... or if your system came with a system recovery cd you can use that to boot from and it will restore your system back to the factory defauts.

Before doing this IMO use gdisk.exe (ghost software) to fix any problems that fdisk may have caused when it was used to configure your hard-drive. You can also format the drive with gdisk as well again a better option then formating with DOS.

**J-Dogg** · 03-10-2006, 02:58 PM

External is really nice,

Before long all BIOS will have an option to boot from external device also. You'll be able to plug in your HD and boot it on any PC.

Dell has already started doing this I belive. Before long a external HD will be as common as a wallet.