External HDD

NTFS will be support for years to come. I'm not certain about the new file system Vista will have but it will be backwards compatible. Most likely, they'll offer a utility to convert your existing NTFS over to the new Vista format.

NTFS at this time is the best, and only, way to go.

I thought so, myself, but wanted to run it by here....

What type of unit is good? Should you get a kit & buy a HDD for it or just go with a know company like WD????

I tried to find some info on the ins & outs of them.... Didn't seem to find what I was looking for though.....

WD makes a good USB one but my rep over at CDW is telling me these other name brands I've never heard of make really good external USB Drives. I bought a 300GB, USB2.0 for $187 or something with my discount. It works good, includes software to copy stuff if needed.. works good so far.

Great!!! As cheap as HDDs are now, this would be nice.....

I'll check that out man...... I don't want to spend a ton of money, but want quality..... I'm like WD drives, myself... I've never had one go belly up on me yet, Knock on wood!!!! Thanks.....

maxtor = teh suck.

I've got two of the same enclosures Jake has and have had no problems in the last year and a half. One of them has a HDD and the other an optical drive. Like Jake, I don't run them all the time but only when I'm going to use them. Pretty cheap way to go and you can move drives in and out of them if you really want to be skin-flint.

Thanks to both you & Jake

I'm looking to carry my Family history forward... That's what I'm after, really!!!!

I've scanned every photo I've taken since I was married...... It's on 39 discs..... I had my own color darkroom for a long time..... [shrug] They've all gone red, but with PhotoShop, I've restored them......

Now I have all th B & W photos of my growing up to scan all the way through to where Bibles left off for Family History & photos came into being......

I want them on something that will go forward.......

I've got a cousin that is a Pro with shooting video..... He knows nothing beyond that...... He digitized some of the first video ever shot on VHS, which was a way back!!!!! He also digitized all the 8mm films shot at Family gatherings..... He put out a 4 disc set of video of my Grandmother & the Family since VHS came out!!!! It's awesome, Man!!!!

When he put it out, he had video of my Father I'd never seen on the set!!!! I lost it!!!!! The sound of his voice is worth more $$$$ than I can ever pay!!!!! I want to pass my voice & Family forward!!!!

It's like this for me...... My Family history is written in a Bible until my Grandmother was born in 1902...... I want to go from that, to actually having my future generations hear my voice & sharing my feelings!!!!

Puters have made it possible!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

That & give a copy to my kids..... Something happens, there's always 2 of them floating around!!!!

Beyond games & such, I believe this is what all the puter work I've ever done is for..... 100 years from now, I hope they will know what I was about & what I felt in my lifetime.....

Don't get me wrong.... I'm going to be around for a long, long time..... I just look ahead.......

My dad found a treasure trove of photos and movies when he cleaned out his folks' place. Going way back. Has been working on organizing and scanning it for years. Great stuff.

I'll tell you one thing!!!!! He's got his hands full....

Once I started on it, it's became a quest or something.... Weird how you see your whole life go before your eyes.....

That's no BS......

Unlikely, so I covered for you.

So you retired 30 years ago? [/harsh]

It's 4am here. Don't expect Mr Nice Guy at this time in the morning.

The whistlin' foot o' doom is better than a nuclear deterrent anyway

TMI - ok, I want to just write zero's a couple of times to the external drive. I suppose I could disassemble the external enclosure (pain in the arse) and install it in a box, boot to the floppy and "write zero's" that way - but I'm looking for the lazy man's way to do it externally.

Jake you may want to consider using Eraser it has varying levels of wipe capability even department of defence wiping capability, single pass encrypted[Fastest], 3pass, 7pass, or even 35pass wipe level capability if you need to go that far in erasing the data but the erased data could never be recovered.

Its a free program you can Google it I've used it myself now for about 5yrs and found it extremely convenient on the external HDDs it treats them the same as the internal HDDs.

Just make sure what you erase you don't ever want back cause a recovery program like PC Inspector, that I've actually recovered data from an accidentally formatted HDD, is useless against it.

Don't kid yourself. Google 'Off-track reading' + 'electron microscope'. If you want it gone drop it into some molten steel.

Will the program work on external USB connected drives? If yes, I'd love to have that utility. Thanks.

Note: Yeah, when I want a HDD to be discarded, I have this sledge hammer - works well.

Edit: I googled the utility and found the free version available. It's a 2.68MB zip file (too big for a bootable floppy) - will it "write zero's" to an external hard drive without screwing up my internal drive? There was no "read me" thing with it.

Will the program work on external USB connected drives? If yes, I'd love to have that utility. Thanks.

Note: Yeah, when I want a HDD to be discarded, I have this sledge hammer - works well.



Jake you install the program on your running machine and when the external HDD is connected to the computer it shows up in My Computer as your internal HDD and other drives do, the program will be accessable after installation in the task bar, and has a feature to erase Unused Disk Space, if you wanted to completely erase an entire HDD just delete everything on the HDD, right click the drive and choose the Erase feature.

With the program having right click access, its really easy to eliminate just 1 or multiple files individually, or wipe an entire HDD, the 35pass takes a really long time, generally I use the single pass or the DOD 3 pass, because after erasing the HDD will be rewritten with new data anyway, 7passDOD, or 35pass is really way overkill in my book, but it wouldn't be if you were detroying some kind of Top Secret Data.

If you need configuration help PM me.

Edit: I googled the utility and found the free version available. It's a 2.68MB zip file (too big for a bootable floppy) - will it "write zero's" to an external hard drive without screwing up my internal drive? There was no "read me" thing with it.

Eraser writes more than just zeros, and its an excellent program to run on your existing machine if you have a file you want to disappear you right click on it choose Erase and Eraser erases it to whatever extent you wanted it erased, which you select in the erasing features setup, its default set at the 35pass for erasing files, and single pass for freespace, but you can change those settings to whatever extent you want the files erased.

I started using Eraser about 5yrs ago because when you delete a file its designation is changed to the recycle bin, but its still on your computer even when you delete from the recycle bin the file is still on your HDD just cleared to be written over.

Deleting files to the recycle bin is good if you may possibly want to get that file back, but erasing it with Eraser its instantly not recoverable, so make sure the file you're erasing you do not ever want to get back.

Eraser writes over the file you want to get rid of immediately and its gone.