Questions tagged [external-hard-drive]
A hard drive designed to be connected to a computer via an external interface such as USB, eSATA, Thunderbolt, or IEEE 1394.
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How much time until an unused hard drive loses its data?
Do you guys know how much time needs to pass until the data stored on a hard drive starts to degrade?
To keep the data intact for long periods of time, I heard you need to periodically rewrite it on ...
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Unplugging USB hard drive can damage computer? Seriously?
I’m reading through the manual for a Samsung portable USB hard drive, and I’ve come across this warning:
Detaching the USB cable while file transfer is in progress can damage
your computer and/or ...
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Automatically mount external drives to /media/LABEL on boot without a user logged in?
This question is similar, but kind of the opposite of what I want. I want external USB drives to be mounted automatically at boot, without anyone logged in, to locations like /media/<label>.
I ...
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Is it safe to unplug a blinking USB drive after 'safely' ejecting it?
There is a lot of information about how to safely unplug USB hard drives. However, the articles tend to stop at the part where the operating system says it is safe to unplug, or where you're sure ...
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Cross-platform usable filesystem with large file support
What is the best filesystem to use cross-platform (Linux, Windows, OS X) which supports disk sizes of at least 2TB and file sizes >4GB?
I'm planning to use it on a USB drive on different computers.
...
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How to detect if a USB port is 3.0 or 2.0?
I have a Toshiba Canvio 3.0 external HDD. It has USB 3.0. It flashes blue if you connect it to a USB 3.0 port. If it is a 2.0 port, the light becomes white.
Yesterday, I plugged it in and the light ...
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Permissionless external drive with NTFS
I have an external hard disk which has 1 partition, formatted in NTFS. I use this drive on multiple computers with a different logins on different machines, Windows XP and Windows 7. All files are ...
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How do I remove a MyBook's "WD SmartWare" virtual CD from my desktop?
I recently got a Western Digital MyBook external hard drive to enable Time Machine. It has its software installed on a "virtual CD" called "WD SmartWare" which shows up on the desktop any time the ...
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How can I check whether USB3.0 UASP (USB Attached SCSI Protocol) mode is enabled in Linux?
I have a laptop running Ubuntu 15.04 (3.19.0-21-generic) and an external USB3.0 2.5" SATA HDD enclosure which claims that it supports UASP mode (the S2510BPU33 model by StarTech). I have no problems ...
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How to mount and unmount hard drives under Windows (the unix way)
On my work computer I have two USB hard drives that I use rarely. They have a power save mode that sends them into sleep after a couple of minutes of them being idle.
Whenever I open a context menu ...
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External HDD is always in use when trying to safely remove
I have a WD 1TB Elements external hard drive, and every time I use the Windows 7 "safely remove" feature, it gives me a dialog telling that a process is using the disk.
Using Sysinternals Process ...
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Access to a disk drive using volume ID instead of a drive letter in Windows
Can I access to a disk drive using volume ID instead of a drive letter in Windows? It could be very useful for external drives.
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Is it possible to check an external USB Drive health (SMART)? [closed]
Is it possible to check an external USB Drive health (SMART)?
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Formatting : The volume is too big for FAT32
Formatting an external 500GB HDD took almost >6 hours that I started like:
D:\>format /FS:fat32 F:
The type of the file system is EXFAT.
The new file system is FAT32.
Enter current volume label ...
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Is time a substitute for Safely Remove Hardware?
In Windows 7, before unplugging an external hard disk or flash drive, you are ideally supposed to use the Safely Remove Hardware option to make sure there aren't any writes still pending.
Suppose it ...
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Why is my USB drive showing corrupted data when plugged as an internal SATA drive?
I have a 3TB Seagate Backup Plus Desktop USB 3.0 drive, which works fine when in its enclosure, but when I get it off its enclosure and directly plug it as an internal SATA drive, it's just not ...
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How to copy files to read-only NTFS hard drive on a Mac?
I want to copy my some files from Mac (Macbook-Air) to an USB external hard drive, formatted as NTFS.
How is it possible? Because when I do copy my files from the Mac and go to paste them on the ...
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Why Do Some USB Cables Have Two USB Connectors at the End?
I've recently bought an external hard drive enclosure and it had arrived with an USB cable, with one USB connector on one side and two on the other. Why do some USB cables have two connectors while ...
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Safely remove external USB drive fails due to $extend
When connecting an external USB 3.0 hard drive to my USB 3.0 ports I can never safely remove it.
Somehow windows always keeps the journal files open:
"Always" as in this time I only connected the ...
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Is a 7200rpm USB 3.0 drive going to have very similar performance to an internal 7200rpm drive or is it still going to be noticeably slower?
I use my old 500gb drive to store all temporary stuff (windows temp folder, adobe scratch disks etc), and anything that needs thousands of small files to avoid unnecessarily fragmenting my C drive. ...
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How to read and write Mac drives on Windows
I have some external hard drives that are Mac OS Extended (Journaled) formatted. What software can you recommend for working with those drives when under Windows? Do you have any experience with this?
...
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Convert NTFS volume to exFAT (without losing contents)
I have a 500GB external hard disk which I use mostly for storing movies/music and some backup. Since I have some rather large files I use NTFS on it, but don't need the security/compression/encryption ...
user4072
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5400rpm HDD speeds in a USB 3.0 connectivity enclosure
I plan to replace my laptop's 5400rpm HDD with an SSD in the near future. I then want to make the old HDD an external HDD. I want to get it to work with USB 3.0.
Will I get better speeds from my ...
user494468
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What is the tolerable magnetic field (in Tesla) for a hard disk?
I was wondering what would be the safest magnetic field for a hard drive so that the data inside it is safe and not wiped off?
For example I have a 2.1 home theatre system and when I take my android ...
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How can I remount an ejected (not just unmounted) USB drive on Mac?
I frequently eject an usb stick, and then realize I still need it.
If I unmount the drive in Disk Utility, I can just remount it, but if I eject, it's gone.
Not showed in Finder
Not showed in ...
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Is it safe to remove USB media when a computer is suspended?
We are often cautioned against unplugging USB drives in case it is currently being read from or written to. When a computer is suspended, hibernated, or asleep is it obviously not writing any data; it ...
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Why is my 3.5" SATA hard drive not spinning up via USB?
I'm having issues connecting a 3.5 inch WD Caviar SE (WD3200AAJS) via a SATA to USB adapter. The drive is recognized, but it doesn't spin, so it just shows up with a capacity of 0 bytes.
Note that ...
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Can I install Windows OS (Windows 7) on a removable USB hard drive? [duplicate]
I wanted to take a sneak peek at Windows 7 so I thought of installing it. I have Windows Vista on my laptop which came pre-installed with it. I didn't want to mess with it.
So I created a partition (...
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Windows 10: No option to Eject External HARD DRIVE (NOT USB Stick)
When I plug in my external hard drive (again, NOT USB stick), and right click on the icon in This PC, there is no option to eject the drive.
There is a system tray option to "safely eject" it, but ...
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What is the difference between SATA and eSATA?
Is the following correct?
eSATA is the same as SATA, except that the cable plug has a slightly different shape, but as far as the electrical signal goes, it's the exact same thing. In theory, if you ...
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Turn off (spin down) external (USB) HDD on Linux
I have an external HDD connected through USB. There is that Gnome utility called "Disks". When working the disk is on the list on the left. If I click on "turn off" button, the disk disappear from the ...
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Please explain wasted space on an exFAT formatted external hard drive [duplicate]
I recently bought a 750 GB 2.5" hard drive and put it in an external enclosure. It has Advanced Format Technology (AFT), but I use Windows 7, so I assumed I would be safe.
I decided to try exFAT, ...
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4
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How do I make an external hard drive keep the same drive letter permanently?
I have a desktop PC (2002 vintage) running Windows XP that I turn on about two or three times per week. I have a mains powered 250 GB Western Digital hard disk connected to it via USB. I ...
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USB stick appearing as hard disk drive, not removable storage device
I just plugged in a very simple 1GB USB stick from the office in hopes of making it a Fedora Live USB stick. For that to work, I need a removable storage device, or else it won't appear in LiveUSB ...
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Which virtual machine can boot from USB drive?
There are any desktop (not hipervisor) virtual machine software able to boot from USB drive? Which one and how?
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Force spin-down of external hard-drive on linux (raspberry pi)
I'm currently setting up a home-server using a Raspberry Pi with an external hard-disk connected via usb.
However, my hard-drive will never spin down when being idle.
I tried already the hints ...
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Windows USB Tool and Unetbootin never detects external hard drive
I like to try out different Linux distro's and I don't like partitioning my main drive. I have plenty of actual hard drives that I can use for that (I like one OS per drive). Anyway, I'm trying to ...
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Can't eject external USB hard drive in Windows 10
First, I must state that it is not that "ejecting" the drive always prompt the "This drive is still utilized by etc." message.
It is that there is simply no option to "eject" it in the first place in ...
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Is there software to fully emulate a USB hard drive? [closed]
Does anyone know a Windows program that can mount disk images and emulate a physical USB hard drive, including properties like the serial number?
I already found software to emulate CDs and DVDs like ...
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Which file system to use for a large (1 TB) external hard drive?
I've got a 1 TB hard disk drive which is currently formatted as NTFS. I've recently learned about exFAT. I'm connecting this drive via USB. Which filesystem should I use for this large hard disk drive ...
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Can't change permission/ownership/group of external hard drive on Ubuntu
I have an external hard drive connected to my Linux box. I wanted to setup a web server to access files on it, but the permission on all files and directories on the drive are rwx for the owner which ...
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Using External Harddisk as an internal desktop SATA Harddisk
I have a 2TB Western Digital MyBook Essential External Hard-disk. I wanted to use the Hard-disk as an internal hard-drive for my PC running Linux Mint. So, I dis-assembled it, and took out the SATA ...
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How to prolong the life of an external hard drive?
In ten years, across several different machines, different companies, and different operating systems I've noticed a trend that external hard drives die long before their internal counterparts. ...
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Can I run a virtual machine from external USB drive?
A question regarding how to setup my VMs on internal/external disks. First, here's my setup:
Host OS: Windows 10
Processor: i7 5600U
RAM: 16 GB
VMware Workstation Player (Licensed)
I have 3 VMs so ...
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4
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Why does OS X insist on spinning up all external drives when loading a file from the local drive?
Why does OS X insist on spinning up all the attached external drives (firewire, usb) when loading a file from the local (internal) drive?
It's driving me insane that I have to wait for 3 attached ...
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Can't change current working directory to external drive in Windows [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
Using cd Command in Windows Command Line, Can’t Navigate to D:\
CMD cd to other drives except C:\ not working
I'm trying to run a program located on an external USB disk ...
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2
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Could a low quality SSD enclosure prevent the TRIM functionality on my SSD?
I'm about to purchase an external SSD enclosure (case) for my Samsung 860 QVO. Some case manufacturers mention "supports TRIM" in the description, some don't. Reading online, I only could ...
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How to run Windows 10 from an external hard drive? [duplicate]
I am currently able to boot from an external drive or multiboot USB. Taking this concept one step further, I have 3 questions:
1) Is it possible to install and run Windows 10 on a portable external ...
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4
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USB drive keeps disconnecting and reconnecting
I'm running Debian 7.2 on an old late 2006 Macbook Pro. I've got two 4 TB Seagate Backup Plus hard drives connected to it that I've got in a mirrored ZFS pool. Recently one of the drives died, and I ...
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10
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Remove System Volume information folder from external drive
I have currently found out that System Volume information folder on my external HDD takes around 124GB of space. Hence I decided to delete it to free up some additional space. But for now everything ...
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