1. IMPORTANT - NEW & EXISTING MEMBERS

    E-MAIL SERVER ISSUES

    We are currently experiencing issues with our outgoing email server, therefore EXISTING members will not be getting any alert emails, and NEW/PROSPECTIVE members will not receive the email they need to confirm their account. This matter has been escalated, however the technician responsible is currently on annual leave.For assistance, in the first instance, please PM any/all of the admin team (if you can), alternatively please send an email to:

    [email protected]

    We will endeavour to help as quickly as we can.
    Dismiss Notice

Old hard drives

Discussion in 'Computer Corner' started by Jiffy, Jul 28, 2020.

  1. Jiffy

    Jiffy The Match is on Fire

    Joined:
    Aug 25, 2011
    Messages:
    11,248
    Occupation:
    Pyro
    Location:
    Retired Next To The Bonfire in UK
    Ratings:
    +31,930
    I have 2 old hard drives from old computers, i would like to use them as a external hard drive for backing up pic's and videos etc, the hard drives are old and not in the computer any more but still have info and softwere on them but i would like to know how to clean the info off and software i done't have any cd's for software etc, if i was to leave the info on there can i still use the hard drive with out any problems, 1 hard drive will have windows 95 on there and 1 windows xp no cd's
     
    Jiffy, Jul 28, 2020
    #1 Quote in Conversation
  2. ricky101

    ricky101 Total Gardener

    Joined:
    Jun 15, 2016
    Messages:
    3,293
    Gender:
    Male
    Location:
    Sheffield
    Ratings:
    +4,203
    Hi,

    Well simple answer - do not waste your time and money - just buy a brand new USB External drive similar to one these, available from many places, Seagate and Western Digital are both good makes. All usb2 and usb3 compatible
    Have used this place for many years, excellent service.
    Seagate 1TB Basic USB3.0 External HDD - STJL100400

    Why not to use your old drives , many reasons.

    As they are from such old computers, their size MB /GB will be small by todays standards.

    They also run on quiet heavy power and you will need to buy an 'extenal HDD caddy' that has an external power supply, being at least half the cost of a modern drive as above.
    They are a pain to use with all their extra wires and plugs etc vs the above with just a single usb lead. ( speaking from experience !)

    Sounds like those drives are ten or more years old , so the hardware is near the end of its life , and not the best medium to store your data on for the future.

    You can buy just one external USB drive, but we find its better to have two, one to hold in the house and another somewhere else, so if one drive fails/corrupts you have a backup.

    As well as using external drives for your photos etc you might find taking System Images of your drive C very handy in case you had some major problem or were hacked etc.
    This free program does it all for you, again used it for years ok.
    Macrium Reflect Free

    hth
     
    • Like Like x 1
    • Agree Agree x 1
      ricky101, Jul 28, 2020
      #2 Quote in Conversation
    • Fat Controller

      Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

      Joined:
      May 5, 2012
      Messages:
      26,465
      Gender:
      Male
      Occupation:
      Public Transport
      Location:
      At me 'puter, GCHQ Ashford Office, Middlesex
      Ratings:
      +49,580
      @ricky101 is spot on - by the time you purchase enclosures to house them (roughly £20 a shot) then go to the trouble of wiping the old drives etc, you are much better off buying something new. I recently lost almost every photo we had because I backed everything up onto a 1tb hard drive that had been extricated from an old PC - - that backup was to allow the current PC to be repaired and reinstalled, and sadly I did not get time to copy the data back before the hard drive turned its toes to the sky. To say Mrs C is unhappy about it is an understatement.

      I now have two Western Digital 4Tb external USB drives that we save data to, and another that is the backup drive; I have software on the PC that runs daily to sync the two, so the backup drive is always the same as the main drive.
       
      • Agree Agree x 1
        Fat Controller, Jul 28, 2020
        #3 Quote in Conversation
      • ricky101

        ricky101 Total Gardener

        Joined:
        Jun 15, 2016
        Messages:
        3,293
        Gender:
        Male
        Location:
        Sheffield
        Ratings:
        +4,203
        Always keep one USB drive out of the house, eg down in a shed or unattached garage, so if anything dramatic happened in the house, still have a backup.

        Could always leave it at another house, but encrypted, so no chance anyone could read it.

        If modern, you could backup to the Cloud, but again in encrypted form.

        What a lot of folk forget, with all the online banking and shopping, what about your web links and passwords / pw managers etc, if they were lost ?
        A simple but well encrypted file, hidden away in the backups is essential these days.
        Seems its often a problem, usually for the widows, who have no idea what passwords the other half used when they have to start dealing with all the financial matters.
         
        • Agree Agree x 4
          Last edited: Jul 28, 2020
          ricky101, Jul 28, 2020
          #4 Quote in Conversation
        • JWK

          JWK Gardener Staff Member

          Joined:
          Jun 3, 2008
          Messages:
          30,877
          Gender:
          Male
          Location:
          Surrey
          Ratings:
          +46,149

          Great advice @ricky101

          The other essential is to periodically check that your backup software is actually working. Test that you can find and restore your files from the backup drives. Do so even if you don't use a backup utility, i.e. if you are just copying them manually say with windows explorer.

          Also keep a note of when you back up and set yourself reminders to backup every month at least.

          It's not just hardware failure that can cause loss of your precious photos etc, there are some terribly crafty ransomware viruses that crooks are using to extort money from ordinary folk like us ....:

          Ransomware Virus you could lose all your photos documents etc

          ... also universities working on COVID-19 cures:
          How hackers extorted $1.14m from a US university
           
          • Agree Agree x 3
            JWK, Jul 28, 2020
            #5 Quote in Conversation
          • Jiffy

            Jiffy The Match is on Fire

            Joined:
            Aug 25, 2011
            Messages:
            11,248
            Occupation:
            Pyro
            Location:
            Retired Next To The Bonfire in UK
            Ratings:
            +31,930
            Thank you Ricky, FC and JWK :dbgrtmb:
            I'll have a look at some exteral hard drives

            What's the easyist and quickist way to back up, i don't want to download any software just jet but is there a way of backing up with just the using of the computer, i've copy and paste and drap and drop things to usb sticks, using windows 10

            How do you encrypted things?
             
            • Friendly Friendly x 1
              Last edited: Jul 29, 2020
              Jiffy, Jul 29, 2020
              #6 Quote in Conversation
            • Fat Controller

              Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

              Joined:
              May 5, 2012
              Messages:
              26,465
              Gender:
              Male
              Occupation:
              Public Transport
              Location:
              At me 'puter, GCHQ Ashford Office, Middlesex
              Ratings:
              +49,580
              Copy and paste/drag and drop is the easiest way without software - however, I would recommend you consider software as it makes things a lot easier and will do it for you (daily/weekly/monthly etc) in case you forget. I use AOMEI Backupper (free) and it works really well.

              One other suggestion - I personally would recommend Western Digital hard drives (WD) as I have found them to be the most reliable over the years. Seagate have been more problematic in my experience.
               
              • Like Like x 1
              • Informative Informative x 1
                Fat Controller, Jul 29, 2020
                #7 Quote in Conversation
              • ricky101

                ricky101 Total Gardener

                Joined:
                Jun 15, 2016
                Messages:
                3,293
                Gender:
                Male
                Location:
                Sheffield
                Ratings:
                +4,203
                Well a bit surprised at GCHQ using Chinese backup software like Aomei !
                Donald would not be happy ... ! :biggrin:

                For a change Macrium Reflect is actually a UK based company !

                @Jiffy Encryption can be a little daunting and you do need to use extra free software, unless you already have that feature in some of your software.
                eg BitLocker is only in Windows 10 Pro version and above, not the more common W10 Home edition.

                Have a look at this link which gives you some idea of how it works.
                https://www.howtogeek.com/170352/how-to-password-protect-files-and-folders-with-encryption/
                 
                • Like Like x 1
                • Agree Agree x 1
                  ricky101, Jul 29, 2020
                  #8 Quote in Conversation
                • JWK

                  JWK Gardener Staff Member

                  Joined:
                  Jun 3, 2008
                  Messages:
                  30,877
                  Gender:
                  Male
                  Location:
                  Surrey
                  Ratings:
                  +46,149
                  Jiffy, If you get a Western Digital drive it come with a free utility called 'WD Backup' which is what I use, it is very easy. It is much better than simply copying by hand as it keeps all changes you make, so for example if you have a spreadsheet which you keep editing 'WD Backup' will keep the previous versions so you can restore an old one if you accidentally screw the file up. If you don't do that sort of thing then copy and paste is perfect.
                   
                  • Like Like x 1
                  • Agree Agree x 1
                    JWK, Jul 29, 2020
                    #9 Quote in Conversation
                  • Jiffy

                    Jiffy The Match is on Fire

                    Joined:
                    Aug 25, 2011
                    Messages:
                    11,248
                    Occupation:
                    Pyro
                    Location:
                    Retired Next To The Bonfire in UK
                    Ratings:
                    +31,930
                    Thank you all once again, i will have to read up (slowly as brain hate big computer words :biggrin:)
                    Sounds like the way to go is Western Digital drive

                    as i have a desk top and laptop can the WD drive be used on the 2 machines but most of the pic's and video's will be the same but different Documents
                     
                    Jiffy, Jul 29, 2020
                    #10 Quote in Conversation
                  • Fat Controller

                    Fat Controller 'Cuddly' Scottish Admin! Staff Member

                    Joined:
                    May 5, 2012
                    Messages:
                    26,465
                    Gender:
                    Male
                    Occupation:
                    Public Transport
                    Location:
                    At me 'puter, GCHQ Ashford Office, Middlesex
                    Ratings:
                    +49,580
                    Yes, it is just a matter of plugging and unplugging - unless you go for a Western Digital My Cloud (or My Cloud Mirror) in which case they connect to your home network and can be accessed from any PC on the network
                     
                    • Like Like x 1
                      Fat Controller, Jul 29, 2020
                      #11 Quote in Conversation
                    • Jiffy

                      Jiffy The Match is on Fire

                      Joined:
                      Aug 25, 2011
                      Messages:
                      11,248
                      Occupation:
                      Pyro
                      Location:
                      Retired Next To The Bonfire in UK
                      Ratings:
                      +31,930
                      Not going for any cloud back up, when i bought this new deck top we had MS office and it came we xxx stoage on the cloud i switch it off asp :phew::)
                       
                      • Like Like x 3
                        Jiffy, Jul 29, 2020
                        #12 Quote in Conversation
                      • ricky101

                        ricky101 Total Gardener

                        Joined:
                        Jun 15, 2016
                        Messages:
                        3,293
                        Gender:
                        Male
                        Location:
                        Sheffield
                        Ratings:
                        +4,203
                        Hi,

                        Just better add to @Fat Controllers comment about "just unplugging" the usb drive.

                        Do so, but only after you use the "Eject USB device" and get the "USB Safe to Disconnect" system message or you could loose some data.
                         
                        • Like Like x 1
                        • Agree Agree x 1
                          ricky101, Jul 29, 2020
                          #13 Quote in Conversation
                        Loading...
                        Similar Threads - Old hard drives
                        1. IttyBittyGreenSpace

                          Backyard Orchard Culture in cold temperate climate?

                          IttyBittyGreenSpace, May 31, 2021, in forum: Trees
                          Replies:
                          5
                          Views:
                          574
                          NigelJ
                          Jun 1, 2021
                        2. liliana

                          Old habits die hard.

                          liliana, Apr 15, 2013, in forum: Off-Topic Discussion
                          Replies:
                          18
                          Views:
                          1,175
                          shiney
                          Apr 17, 2013
                        3. walnut

                          Cold hardiness zones in the uk

                          walnut, Apr 8, 2007, in forum: General Gardening Discussion
                          Replies:
                          4
                          Views:
                          655
                          digital flower
                          Apr 10, 2007
                        4. On the Levels

                          Old owl box

                          On the Levels, Apr 1, 2024, in forum: Wildlife Corner
                          Replies:
                          1
                          Views:
                          142
                          Sheal
                          Apr 2, 2024
                        5. berarde

                          dead goldfinches

                          berarde, Mar 30, 2024, in forum: Wildlife Corner
                          Replies:
                          8
                          Views:
                          237
                          NigelJ
                          Mar 31, 2024

                        Share This Page

                        1. This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
                          By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
                          Accept Learn More...
                          Dismiss Notice