[AT] For those tractor (er computer) geeks on here

[Mike Sloane]

Interesting comments, Larry. I have been unplugging and plugging the 
Soyo hard drive and the "thumb" drive in and out of various machines 
several times a day, whether they are running or not, and have never 
found any problem with them being recognized or lose any data. These are 
a mixture of XP and W98 laptops and desktops. On the other hand, I have 
disabled "power management" on all of my machines, as it caused nothing 
but problems. There was no warning in the instructions accompanying 
either device, so it never occurred to me that there might be a problem.

Mike

Larry D. Goss wrote:
> I'm on my third one, David.  They work exceptionally well.  I have both
> Seagate and Western Digital.  They come with two "power cords" so that
> if your laptop (or desktop) is only equipped with USB 1.0 you can shunt
> additional DC power to the drive through a second USB port.  I haven't
> needed the shunt cable with its "Y" connection on any of my equipment.
> Both brands are completely powered through a single USB port.
> 
> The only caveat is, DON'T DISCONNECT THE EXTERNAL DRIVE WITHOUT HAVING
> SOFTWARE SHUT IT DOWN.  For that matter, don't let your laptop hibernate
> with the USB drive connected to it.  So if you attach a USB drive to
> your laptop, the first thing you want to do is to reset your power
> options so that the computer NEVER turns off and the drives NEVER turn
> off.  BTDT and I had to go around and around with Western Digital to get
> them to understand that the drive had self-destructed without me doing
> anything except letting the computer set idle in a motel room while I
> sorted through a bunch of tractor literature in preparation for scanning
> materials into PDF files.  When I went back to it about a half hour
> later, the USB drive had logically disconnected itself and because it
> wasn't shut down by the software in Windows XP correctly.  From that
> point onward, the drive was not recognized by any of my equipment.
> Western Digital made good on the USB drive, but I lost a couple Gig's of
> file material.
> 
> The bottom line is: USB drives are "plug and play", but they are NOT
> "unplug and get on with your life".  You have to use the software to
> shut them down before unplugging.  The process actually turns off the
> motor of the drive and makes sure the process happens when the drive is
> idle.
> 

-- 
Mike Sloane
Allamuchy NJ
<mikesloane at verizon.net>
Website: <www.geocities.com/mikesloane>
Images: <www.fotki.com/mikesloane>

It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be
unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong. -G.K. Chesterton,
essayist and novelist (1874-1936)


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