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

[David Bruce]

I've not hooked my USB drives to my laptop - so far I've just used them 
with the desktop (these enclosures will hold a "regular" IDE type drive 
inside.  They are powered by a separate power connection and so far have 
worked flawlessly.  I've used "reclaimed" HD's from older computers -  
makes a good and cheap removable storage option.  And I agree - never 
disconnect without windows doing it's thing for shutdown. 
I've had all sorts of trouble with the "power saving" features so I set 
all those to never - desktop or laptop.
I bought an enclosure recently that will connect via USB or firewire (I 
have both on my desktop).

David
NW NC


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.
>
> FWIW, at a tractor show last month, I ran across a piece of literature I
> needed a copy of, but I was out in the middle of a fairground with no AC
> available.  So I borrowed an "El Cheapo" inverter (one of the smaller
> one's made) and used it to power one of my HP All-in-one's through the
> cigarette lighter in the Jeep.  No problems.  I think I'll ask for my
> own cheap inverter from Harbor Freight or Northern Tool for my birthday
> next month.
>
> BTW, the reason I'm on the third one is that I find USB drives are
> really cheap insurance.  Since we've had two close calls with tornados
> this spring, I sleep a whole lot easier knowing I have stuff archived
> somewhere else.  It doesn't take too much study of the history and
> product life of storage systems for you to realize that whatever system
> you use for backup and mass storage is going to have to migrate to new
> systems as technology changes.  At present, I'm putting everything into
> either PDF or JPG format and then either burning CD's and/or putting it
> on USB drives.  As a further method of distributing the materials to
> make sure it stays available, I give copies of the CD's away to other
> collectors who are working with the same brand of tractors that I am
> (Power King), and I generate one new "master" CD per year for them.  In
> case you're wondering why I would do such a crazy thing instead of
> selling them, one of the collectors in the group I work with lost
> everything (including his computer and all the archiving he had done
> with it) in a house fire this winter.  The only copies of his work that
> exist are those that he gave or sold to other Power King collectors.
>
> Larry
>
>