Western Digital Hard Discs

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Hello again. Good to see a lot of iinterest in backup/imaging software … helps my learning curve!
Yes I am a novice so ‘stuffed up’ my first part of setting up for ‘imaging’. Got myself a 320GB Western Digital My Passport Essential ext hard drive, plugged it into my laptop, up popped a startup screen … different to the User Guide info of course! The User Guide said:
1. Turn on your computer.
2. Connect the USB cable as shown.
3. Drive utilities are installed automatically. If a security alert is displayed during this
installation, click Accept or Continue.
4. When finished, a menu displays a list including WD Sync and Google software.
To install software, double-click your choice on the menu; otherwise, click Quit to
begin using the drive.

Well, this ‘charlie’ did not realise that the ‘ticks’ for all software were already set so I downloaded all the software I did not want (yet at least) onto my laptop … and once the process had started I could not stop it. Going to my Vista Programme control I managed to uninstall the Google etc software that had been dumped onto my laptop by finding out what had been dumped using the date facility. So I guess that I have cleared up this bit?

Another ‘worry’ is that the ext disc runs all the time it is connected to USB … is that correct?

I did a quick test to transfer a file/folder to the ext disc using the ‘send to’ facility and it worked fine so the drivers etc must have correctly installed. But the file ended up in the list with all the other ext disc files that are pre-loaded … is there someway of setting the ext disc so that all the dics software etc are ‘separate from my files’ eg I could have a folder called ‘Passport’ for all the WD stuff and a folder called ‘Ron’ for all my stuff? Maybe this ain’t the way to do it.

Any advice greatly appreciated. (How will I cope with sorting out the actual ‘imaging’ software!)
Thanks Ron

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Quite an adventure, isn’t it Ron? It’s amazing that in their zeal to “help” us, most hardware and software sellers also catch us up in the installation of unwanted software, some of which is often very intrusive and impacting to system performance. As you’ve already learned, one can’t ignore ANY screens for tick boxes!

In my case, when I setup my two external Seagate drives, I blew away ALL the Seagate files and folders and didn’t let anything be installed. Well, I suppose now that your deed is DONE, you could remove everything from the external that has reference to the drive. After all, the stuff has already been installed and your system shouldn’t need any of those. You could try my approach and copy all of it to a CD and THEN delete it from the external. Just be careful NOT to try to delete (if NTFS) folders such as I’ve marked in my attachment. The “Temp” folders were created by me.

My Seagates DO run all the while there is power being supplied and they are connected to the system via USB. However, my Seagate drives have a ROM-inbuilt sleep function that I’m unable to change. The spin-down takes place whether I want it to or not. Even during sleep, the LED stays lit, simply showing power and connection. If the drives do spin all the time, I wouldn’t lose any sleep over it, but others may not agree.

I wouldn’t worry about removing the drive, even when you’re not using it for periods of time. After all, our internal drives run and run … However, if all else fails, you can always shut the system down and THEN unplug the drive. The shutdown process “should” close all active links to anything on that drive.

Continued good luck with it.

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By the way, I forgot to say that in your continuing perusal of the Lounge posts, don’t miss reading the excellent post by Rebel (John) at post 751,608! He wrote a nice operational and PRICING analysis of the two products that I know you are considering.

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Thanks Al,
Its a mine field ain’t it!
Thanks for your advice and guidence … will no doubt be calling on your’s and others skills once I decide on which imaging software. Read this post you refer to and its very well presented. Who knows, one day I may be in a position to help others … at least I can ‘report’ on what happened to me in my quest to safeguard my pc.
CYa Ron

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Hmm, as the Lounge Pedant does not seem to be around today, let me say that I think you meant to say Its a gold mine ain’t it!. A mine field is something you want to avoid at all costs!

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Agreed Paul … but I ain’t found the gold yet! As someone once said “If good men do nothing, chaos results”.
With the help of you good men, I’m getting out of this chaos!
As they say here (Norway) Takk … or something like it.
Cheers
Ron

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> 320GB Western Digital My Passport … runs all the time it is connected to USB … is that correct?

Ron, I have the 250 Gb version, and when the blue light is steady, it’s merely powered up and spinning, whereas during reads and writes the light flickers. Does that match your observation?

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Hei John,
Yep, I have now worked out that it always spins when powered so that part of my ‘worry’ is put to bed. The software mess up (loading what I don’t need!) I think I solved (with a hacksaw!) and the drive now seems to do what it should … except the WD Synch which leaves my brain in limbo! What is this used for? When I plug the drive into USB up pops prompts, one of which is this programme. If I click on it it comes up with a basic screen picture and then ‘download the latest version?’ So, yes said I and I think it did a download but all on screen reference to WD Synch then disappeared! When the disc is connected, do you know how I can access this to learn a bit more?
Thanks for your confirmation that mine does as it should.
Ron (One Aussie to another who now lives in Norway)

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I can’t help you on WD Synch as I do not use it. It sounded like something like a full-time-connected version of MS Synch-Toy, and I use Synch-Toy only for some files on my phone, and periodically do incremental copy backups to the WD Drive.

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G’day John.
I have sorted out what WD Synch does and now use it to keep my Emails cloned on an external disc. It seems to me that when you copy personal files using eg Creator software, to a cd/dvd you cannot save a copy of emails. So this seems a good way of keeping a copy of them external to the pc hard disc so long as care is observed … if in error you delete emails from the WD Synch programme then apparently it will delete them from the pc when you plug in the ext drive and ‘synch’. I reckon that WD Synch is a rebadged Dmailer since the user guides look identical.
By the way, I am very pleased with WD My Passport Essential ext disc now that I have sorted out my early mistakes.
Ron

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If you only need the external drive once a day or less, I recommend disconnecting it between uses. The reason is that in the unlikely event that you run some ransomware — malware that encrypts every document and data file it can find and requires payment to decrypt them — or some other malware, you might lose all your backups if the USB drive is attached.

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