External hard drive question..(how to)

[TD]

Need some help regarding the use of an external hd for transferring photos
from my internal hd. My 30 GB laptop drive is almost full, with 2/3 of its
volume taken up by image files. It's also pretty gummed up with adware, etc,
making internet use a royal pain. My goal was to back up everything
important onto disks, but it's a losing battle. I'd like to just transfer
everything important to an external drive, then fdisk my internal drive, and
set it up more like it should have been in the first place for blocking
intrusions.

My questions are these:

1. Does an external hd need any type of formatting before use, or is it just
a plug-in-and-use situation?
2. Can viruses, adware, spyware, etc attach to image files (or any others
like Word docs or vids for that matter) or otherwise migrate easily to a new
drive?
3. If so, can that be prevented with a simple virus scan during transfer of
important files?
4. Any recommendations for drive model?

Sys specs:
Dell Inspiron 8600, WinXP w/ SP2, 1.5GHz Pentium M, 512 MB RAM.

Thanks for any help...

TD

 

[old jon]

Need some help regarding the use of an external hd for transferring photos
from my internal hd. My 30 GB laptop drive is almost full, with 2/3 of its
volume taken up by image files. It's also pretty gummed up with adware,
etc, making internet use a royal pain. My goal was to back up everything
important onto disks, but it's a losing battle. I'd like to just transfer
everything important to an external drive, then fdisk my internal drive,
and set it up more like it should have been in the first place for
blocking intrusions.

My questions are these:

1. Does an external hd need any type of formatting before use, or is it
just a plug-in-and-use situation?
2. Can viruses, adware, spyware, etc attach to image files (or any others
like Word docs or vids for that matter) or otherwise migrate easily to a
new drive?
3. If so, can that be prevented with a simple virus scan during transfer
of important files?
4. Any recommendations for drive model?

Sys specs:
Dell Inspiron 8600, WinXP w/ SP2, 1.5GHz Pentium M, 512 MB RAM.

Thanks for any help...

TD

You have the option of buying an external case assy, and a hard drive of
your choice.
These you would assemble yourself (very easy). The second option is to buy a
pre assembled unit. The unit would need to be partitioned\formatted. I
personally use an `ICYBOX` which is USB or Firewire pluggable. This contains
a 200GB drive. You plug it into a USB\Firewire slot and format it easily in
WinXP, using Disk Management. Hope this helps.
best wishes..OJ

 

[TD]

Thanks, old jon. How should it be formatted for XP? Got any favorite links
to pros and cons regarding how best to partition for my particular use?
Probably the biggest concern I have (of all my ques) is plugging in a new
ext. drive and either immediately or during file transfer, all the 'gumware'
transferring as well...

 

[old jon]

Going to bed now TD, but quickly. I`d do a thorough clean on my existing
system ie. viruses, trojans, the lot. Then I`d run a program called CCleaner
to clear out a lot of cr*p.
Next i`d do an Image backup to a folder on the External. Then copy all my
goodies
to another folder on the External.. Come back tomorrow for more. nite nite.
...OJ

 

[TD]

You got it, OJ. For what it's worth, I believe my sys is beyond cleaning,
hence the fdisk plan. It's got so much junkware in it that it now has a mind
of its own. In this situation, it seems logical to me that planting an image
of my existing drive on the new ext. drive would be a mistake. And it's
also why I'm skeptical about simply dragging all my image files over as
well. I wonder if that simple act could enable the bad stuff to transfer to
the external drive.

Nighty-night, I'll check back tomorrow...
thanks for the help.

TD

 

[DaveW]

BEFORE you transfer the files to the external drive you need to get rid of
the adware and spyware. As you probably already figured out.

 

[almaz]

--
www.247recovery.com
--
icq: 194933471
--

My questions are these:

1. Does an external hd need any type of formatting before use, or is it
just a plug-in-and-use situation?

usually simple plug and play via USB or Firewire

2. Can viruses, adware, spyware, etc attach to image files (or any others
like Word docs or vids for that matter) or otherwise migrate easily to a
new drive?
Yes

3. If so, can that be prevented with a simple virus scan during transfer
of important files?

Yes, try at least 2 or more different updated scanners before you transfer
them onto external HDD

4. Any recommendations for drive model?

Avoid Maxtor

Sys specs:
Dell Inspiron 8600, WinXP w/ SP2, 1.5GHz Pentium M, 512 MB RAM.

Does not matter

Thanks for any help...

You are welcome

TD

Almaz

 

[TD]

Yup. That's turning into a tall order-- I've run the latest versions of
AdAware and Spybot, and there's still some things that refuse to be 86'd.
And I'm sure this won't be news to any of you guys, but some of the items
that show as being removed are reinstalling themselves upon reboot.

 

[TD]

--
www.247recovery.com


usually simple plug and play via USB or Firewire

Wonderful.





Yes

Not so wonderful. In fact, that pretty much sucks.

Yes, try at least 2 or more different updated scanners before you transfer
them onto external HDD

See my reply to DaveW.

Avoid Maxtor

Okay. I've stuck to West Dig in the past

Does not matter

I didn't think so. For some reason, there's always that special person that
will ask for specs regardless of the nature of the post. Just in case, that
was for them...

You are welcome
Almaz

Much appreciated, Almaz.

 

[Ed Medlin]

Yup. That's turning into a tall order-- I've run the latest versions of
AdAware and Spybot, and there's still some things that refuse to be 86'd.
And I'm sure this won't be news to any of you guys, but some of the items
that show as being removed are reinstalling themselves upon reboot.

I use a USB2 external with an 80gb WD HDD. You might need to go into Admin
tools/drive management to format it if it doesn't show up in My Computer
right away. You could also use the drive's tools to do it if you want to
connect it to a spare controller or slave it. I would put only your
important files on it to keep from importing your malware to it. USB2 is
surprisingly faster than I thought it would be. My external also supports
firewire, but I did not install the firewire header on this build but USB2
is just fine for backups. I take mine on trips with my laptop and use it to
store photos (I make CDs too for safety) and it works quite well.

Ed

 

[=]

Yup. That's turning into a tall order-- I've run the latest versions of
AdAware and Spybot, and there's still some things that refuse to be 86'd.
And I'm sure this won't be news to any of you guys, but some of the items
that show as being removed are reinstalling themselves upon reboot.

Any well written piece of malware should do that. The better ones even
if you run AdAware, S&D or the MS app.

You should really concern yourself how you got all of that crap in the
first place. If not you will have them right back on your new drive.