[Florence]

Western Digital WDBAAF0010HBK-NESN 1TB My Book Essential USB 2.0 External Hard Drive

I am going to buy one at wall mart if this is a good one to buy, My husband said it would be my Christmas present.
Hope to get a answer in the next hour, thanks.

[Big Mike]

Well since you did not give any information on the price. If it is under $20, grab it, if it is over $500 forget it. hahahahahahhhhahaahaha.

Other wise, I say no, I spent 3 hours last night trying to get rid of the crap that came on a western digital drive. I erased the drive, I formated the drive, I removed the partition on the drive and it still mounts their crappy imatation of a cd drive?

No , do not buy a western digital external drive.
Thats my opinion.

Anything 500 gig and above is going to be more than you need, so find a good price and get one.

I am very upset with western digital over this placing software on the drive and not giving you a way to get rid of it.

[Florence]

Sure glad I ask they want $109.00 for it. what is the one I should get?

[Birdie]

I think Seagate is a good brand. I have one simple tech and it seems to work great. For some reason Daniela does not seem to like it, tho. Western digital is about the only one I have heard of anyone having trouble with.

[Florence]

Here is a site that has all kinds

http://www.tigerdire...gyBlBufCjCECjCE

[Birdie]

That seagate free agent for the same price as that WD would be ok, probably. The advantage of buying locally is you can take it back if something is wrong. Within the time limit, of course

[Florence]

Well guess I won't get one today, Thanks don't think Wallmart has them.

[Birdie]

Do you have a Best Buy or office max or office depot or even Staples?

[Florence]

Found a Seagate at wallmart for 58.82 but it is only 250. GB is that big enough?

[Birdie]

Depends on what you are doing with it. Are you planning to just use it for a clone? How big is your internal hard drive. More than like it is not bigger than that if you are on XP. Need you to put some computer info in your sig.

[Florence]

Have to go be back later.

[Sandy E]

Hmmmm, Mike, I have a WD external HD called My Book. and I love it. It didn't have anything on it when I bought it and plugged it in. Maybe you got a fluke? http://i114.photobucket.com/albums/n255/Grams-Aust/Christmas/lcpchristmastree242524243024-vi.gif

[Florence]

I have a 500 GB in my computer , when I bought my Dell I had them put the best in it.
Here is what I have

http://i49.tinypic.com/244vfgo.jpg

Is this the one you was talking about Sandy?

http://i46.tinypic.com/wgrh8j.jpg

[Margie]

Mike,I recently bought another external drive, (Sea Gate) It had so much junk on it, I took it back to the store and got my money back. I bought the same Sea Gate several months ago and it had nothing on it, I just plugged it in and used it.

Also,( I learned this from Daniela,) make sure it is NTFS and not FAT32 when you buy it, or you will have to format it to NTFS. I did that also lol. A 500GB took hours to do so.

[Birdie]

Make sure you read the box and see what comes with it. Florence, you have a 500 gig drive, go with that or bigger.

[Florence]

This is the one Patricia was telling me about that was a good one, what do you think.

http://i49.tinypic.com/6sf0nn.jpg

[Birdie]

It should be ok. Have heard they are good

[Robbie]

I have a question. Is this something new with Externals coming with stuff already on them? And how will we know before we leave the store? I have three (all Seagates) and the last one was purchased in May of this year. I like to have two for each computer and alternate the clones. That is in case the External goes bad for some reason. But I would hate to get one that had "crap" on it.

[Birdie]

Robbie be sure to read the box

[Nett]

I have a Western Digital too, called the Ebook will have to let Mike look inside it someday to see what crap is on it.......
First one I got was Seagate tore up in a week.

[Birdie]

Nett, if you clone with it, it was wiped clean but some have programs that are hard to get rid of. We just had one that installed a program that had to be removed before it could be cloned on to.

[Nett]

I believed I had to format it when I got it.........

[Punk]

I have one Maxtor, one Seagate, two Firelites and several Western Digitals. The first WDs that we purchased had programing on them to do automatic backups with and some of it could not be deleted. The last ones that we purchased had no backup programs on them. I've cloned to all of them and have had no problems with the cloning but as to using them to clone back with, I have not had to do that yet so don't know if there will be problems or not. I have had WDs go bad on me -- but then that is to be expected with any of them. We have had some of our WDs go bad and have had to revert to using our clones and so now have no clones of those particular drives. The main thing that always swayed us to the WDs was that the sale prices of them were always the best and so that is what we've had to go with. If we can ever afford to purchase new externals to do clones, we have spoke seriously of not going with WDs again. .

[Daniela]

I am not up on all that stuff with externals, as I have not purchased one in a while...I always get internal hard drives and stick them into external enclosures.
Aside from that, though - do NOT, I say NOT buy any hard drive, external or internal, below 750 gig NEW. You all need to listen to what I have been saying all along: You buy hard drives that are smaller, you buy OLD hard drives that have been sitting around for years sometimes and with that already lost a good portion of their best expected life span.
Aside from that - compare size and their prices. You pay much more for smaller drives, unless you go to the latest ones.

Also, I know for sure that WD had at least ONE bad series in their 500 gigs and in their 750 gigs. Therefore not worth chancing those.

As to the LaCie drives? You are paying for elaborate designs and - possibly good enclosures, not the hard drive within it. Remember that an external hard drive is the exact same one as an internal, just installed in a little stand alone box instead of the computer.
I just read up on the ones used by LaCie company. Seems they prefer Hitachi and Samsung. I stay away from Hitachi - had too many problems with them, no matter the size. Have no experience with Samsung. Personally prefer Seagate most of the times, even though none is perfect, every company has individual lemons, some - like mentioned above with WD - whole series of them.

If you don't want to chance any preinstalled software on external hard drives, then buy the drive separately from the enclosure. It is not difficult to install the drives. Mostly just open some screws, slide the out, stick the drive in, slide it back and tighten screws again. :)

[Big Mike]

I do not think any one is reading what I said !!!!

Most all drives today come with some type of software on them that you can use if you choose.

Most drives you can just select the programs and delete them or just let casper remove them as it clones. Not a problem at all.

I am telling that the new Western Digital external that I worked on last night came with a program all set up to back up data. It could not be deleted , formated or removed in any way I tried.

Such practices should be against the law. I do not mind if they fill the drive with ads as long as I can remove them. You pay for a hard drive, not some programs you can not get rid of.

Maybe all of the Western Digital drives do not come with it, does not matter to me, with that kind of crap being on any drive they make I will not recommend any of their products. It is a matter of princable.