Little help?

[snarklyboojum]

I am so inept at technology I should be scraping this entry on a cave wall somewhere with charcoal. Can anyone better at this give me some advice?

My computer is almost completely out of memory and I've already added extra. I'm most concerned about my music storage - I have a hell of a lot of data there just waiting to vanish on me, and I'd probably have a small nervous breakdown if I were to lose my music. I thought an excellent solution to this would be an external hard drive, where I could store my files and maybe even upload a few games. (Right now, all I have is Sims, and while it's addicting there's another extension coming out and I really want it but just don't have the room.) So I buy one. This one, on sale through another website.

I hate it. It's really not what I was wanting at all. The drive's more of a suitcase for your files than easily-accessed storage - it's the WD Synch synchronization that does it. I don't plan on taking it from one computer to another, I just want something I can store my files on, access and control them as if they were still in my computer and play random tracks when I want to. Does that make sense?

I want to sell the Passport and buy one closer to what I'm looking for but I really don't want to get screwed again. (I know I should have done more research before purchasing but I thought it would work. I'm a geek, but a lousy one.) If I were to purchase another model, would I get the desired usage or should I try something else entirely?

Drive size and capacity don't really matter. I'm aiming for inexpensive, user-friendly, and everything else I've already ranted about. ;)

Comments

[fullyloadedyugo.livejournal.com]

You should be able to use the drive as a extra storage area. Open My Computer, right-click on the drive's letter and click explore. When the drive comes up, move the "autorun" file somewhere else. Once it's gone, it won't force you to use the WD Synch. From there, you should be able to simply copy music files over and install your games there.

[behindblue-eyes.livejournal.com]

OH MY GOD, YOU'RE A GENIUS.

*has ten thousand of your babies*

[fullyloadedyugo.livejournal.com]

No problemo. I run into this a lot actually. I'm with renshai, I hate any sort of autorun crap they put on the drives. Now I just have to figure out if Sam's has a sale on strollers.

[renshai.livejournal.com]

Gods I hate drives that come with that stupid autosync shit, or any other kind of file management software on them. They're such a pain.

If you don't already have mission-critical stuff on it that can't be replaced, you could try formatting the drive - this occasionally works, and erases everything on the drive (including the Synch utility). Or try moving the autorun.inf file as the commenter above me mentioned.

If neither of those work and you're still looking for a new one, either of the two you mentioned above should work for you. I've had an 80GB Iomega External Drive for, like, 5 years, and it's only now on it's last legs after 7 cross-country moves.

[renshai.livejournal.com]

i should say, though, the best plan is usually to keep applications as running from your main drive - it's possible to run them from an external drive, but there's all sorts of not-happy things that can happen. Transfer speed across a USB 2.0, while fast, is not as fast as it would be accessing your internal drive. And accidentally kicking out your cable in the middle of a game or other application will screw you up but good.

[behindblue-eyes.livejournal.com]

I agree. I want to keep my applications on my main drive and store everything heavy on the external one. (I have over 13 GB of mp3s alone, and that's taking up a hell of a lot of space.) I'm gonna try doing what you two suggested and see if that works. Wish me luck!