My only previous experience with an external hard drive was with a Buffalo brand 300GB that I bought something like ten years ago. Right now, as I type this, that drive is plugged into my old hand-me-down Hewlett Packard PC and has been plugged in there for the last four-and-a-half years. And before being plugged into this PC, it did yeoman service plugged into another hand-me-down PC for five or more years with nary a hiccup. The only time I unplugged it was to transfer the data from that PC to my current PC. So I just assumed that that’s how an external HD was supposed to work.
However I recently bought an external Western Digital 2 TB easystore plug and play USB drive. If I leave this new external HD plugged into my PC when I shut down, then the next time I turn on the PC, the PC locks up at boot-up on the HP splash screen and the PC becomes completely unresponsive. The only way I can boot up my PC is to first get down on my hands and knees under my desk, unplug the drive from the USB port, boot up the PC, and only then once Windows 7 is up and running, get back down under the desk again to plug the drive back into the USB port. That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I bought a “plug and play” drive.
So I sought help trying to get my PC to boot up with the drive already plugged in to a USB port. First I went to a local decades old BBS where they suggested I try updating the BIOS on my PC or reformatting the new HD with a different file system. That seemed a bit risky. Then I tried an HP forum, a Western Digital forum and finally I found how to email Western Digital tech support.
Well, yesterday afternoon I received an email from WD tech support:
I called Best Buy customer service where I was told that the general manager of the Best Buy store “might” accept it for return if I bring it in to the store today.
So, tell me: have I for all these years been laboring under under a delusion that it’s OK to leave an external USB HD plugged into a PC day after day and year after year? If so, then how come that trusty old workhorse (or should I say workBuffalo) external hard drive from a decade ago is still plugging along?
However I recently bought an external Western Digital 2 TB easystore plug and play USB drive. If I leave this new external HD plugged into my PC when I shut down, then the next time I turn on the PC, the PC locks up at boot-up on the HP splash screen and the PC becomes completely unresponsive. The only way I can boot up my PC is to first get down on my hands and knees under my desk, unplug the drive from the USB port, boot up the PC, and only then once Windows 7 is up and running, get back down under the desk again to plug the drive back into the USB port. That’s not exactly what I had in mind when I bought a “plug and play” drive.
So I sought help trying to get my PC to boot up with the drive already plugged in to a USB port. First I went to a local decades old BBS where they suggested I try updating the BIOS on my PC or reformatting the new HD with a different file system. That seemed a bit risky. Then I tried an HP forum, a Western Digital forum and finally I found how to email Western Digital tech support.
Well, yesterday afternoon I received an email from WD tech support:
I’m an old guy and my memory is getting a bit spotty these days, so I don’t think I could ever get used to remembering to safely remove the WD external drive every single time I shut down my PC. So I packed up the WD drive in it’s box, grabbed the purchase receipt and was going to take it back to Best Buy. That's when I read this on the receipt:In this case I recommend you to safely remove the WD drive before switching off the computer and plug it back once it’s done booting up as not doing that might corrupt the drive. So to avoid future data loss I highly recommend you to safely remove the WD drive.
I looked at the date on the receipt and counted on my fingers: It turns out I’ve been trying to get this drive to work the way I expected it to work for the last 17 days. Argh!15-day return period
I called Best Buy customer service where I was told that the general manager of the Best Buy store “might” accept it for return if I bring it in to the store today.
So, tell me: have I for all these years been laboring under under a delusion that it’s OK to leave an external USB HD plugged into a PC day after day and year after year? If so, then how come that trusty old workhorse (or should I say workBuffalo) external hard drive from a decade ago is still plugging along?