Is it OK to keep an external drive (not thumb) always wrapped in plastic even when in use?
599535
do not cover the drive or obstruct air flow when it is in use.\n\nwhen not in use, the only problem i would have with covering it in plastic is that the plastic may carry a static charge.  while unlikely that a static charge would make it through the case, I still wouldnt chance losing my data to somthing as silly as that.  I would reccomend spending 5 bucks on a static free bag (your drive probably came inside one) to put it in.  if you dont have one or dont want to pay stop in at a best buy, circuit city, or any place with a PC tech department and ask nicely if they have an extra one they will give you.  they are super cheap and pretty easy to get, a tech department should have plenty of all sizes lying around.
784403
i would go for Maxtor, Seagate or WesternDigi\nalmost same quality, but i think WesternDigi is the cheaper one..\n80Gb or 100Gb should be below 100$ with a normal casing
638606
use sd4hide.exe which will let u hide your virtual drive.or download its crack from other sites.
13362
Try opening it with an unfolded paper clip: There is a small hole just under the CD tray. Insert the unfolded clip until the tray pops out.\nYou probably have a mechanical problem. Check if any foreign objects are in the drive. Although I'm almost sure it will be unusable.
631067
the cd is write protected for most cds are now-a-days... no help on this one sorry bud.
165777
All you have to do is take the floppy and un-write-protect it. You do this by taking it and moving this little piece of plastic on the floppy (if you're looking at it from the front, it is in the top right corner).
841072
if it's only a small one eg:128mb/512mb then they are very cheap to buy again anyway so i wouldn't even try to fix it. after all you wouldn't  want to store important stuff on a flash drive that may corrupt at any time would you
272622
The best thing to do is stay off D drive before you screw up your computer. If the manufacture wanted you on it, it wouldn't be in the lock position.
740839
yeah, i did that before... just make sure the Black Film on the Inside isn't scratched... Just convert all you files on the Floppy Drive onto the computer, and put those files onto another Floppy... Take off the Silver thing first before you put the flooy in the computer...
1152576
You can backup any drive and would not lose any data if u save them on USB drive or disk.
578161
Yes, your computer will read it just like another hard drive but it will be a bit slower if external. Also in an enclosure it will be more suceptible to damage. Safer to keep it in the computer case itself as a second drive if possible.
21376
Here are some thoughts:\n\n1. Hard drives have a MTBF (Mean Time Before Failure) bascially this means that they will fail within a certain time or at least produce bad sectors making some of your data unrecoverable(ish). One way to try to protect data on your PC is to have a RAIDED system that means 2 or more identical drives and hardware or software replicates the software across each drive so if one drive goes down you still have your data. This does not help if the PC goes on fire or gets water damaged, you should always have a seperate backup procedure.\n\n2. DVD's are a good way of backing up your data and I would say are a more reliable way of backing up rather than Hard disks but they are limited to 4.7GB (single sided). What I do is burn a backup every week or whenever I do a big change of data but this is dependant on the old saying "What happens if your Hard Disk died in 5 minutes would you miss any data on it" if yes do a daily Backup. 99% of IT companies only backup there data every day so backing up every few hours is a bit extreme but again if it is critical do a backup. Buy quality DVD's!\n\n3. USB memory sticks are pretty tough bits of kit and you can give them quite a bit of grief before they fail, USB sticks use memory chips rather than magnetic media like hard disks and tend to be a little bit more robust. They can get corrupted just like any other device.\n\n4. Zip disks are a bit old hat and have the same problem as floppy disks avoid avoid avoid! Trust me I have used them and relied too much on them and lost data cos of it.\n\n5. Tape backups (DDS3/4/DAT72) have a good capacity and alot of IT companies use this type of backup but again they are suseptable to corruption similar to floppy disks if kept for any length of time as they are magnetic media, expensive to maintain.\n\n6. SD/MMC cards are similar technology to USB memory sticks as they store the data on a chip(s) but do not normally have the capacity to store alot of data (1GB?) and are very easily lost/broken as they are so small.\n\n7. Online backups are an option but most are insecure and do you want people to have access to your data/photos etc. hmmmm\n\nI suppose there is no 100% safe way of backing up your data (and keeping it safe) but I have found DVD's to be pretty good (using quality DVD's with dark ink), I use DVD-RW as my data changes alot and there is no point in me keeping the old stuff but buy high quality DVD's as cheap and nasty DVD's tend to develop problems later in life.\nI have seen alot of testing done on USB sticks and they have been found to be very tough to break.\n\nIf you are serious about the data you can buy a small fire proof safe as well.\n\nJust my opinon and experience!
74688
check to make sure there is nothing lodged in any of your usb slots.
1012973
many flash drives have a small button which makes them write protected... luk for it & unlock it .. no software needed
1182656
You can get like a 200gig external hard drive for like 80bucks.
41066
I don't think you lose anything, other than it taking a little of your time.  I'd recommend going with a reputable case vendor rather than buying a cheap one.  I've been very happy with the external drives I've got from Other World Computing (link below) and the cases they sell are the same ones they use on their external drives.  Despite their name, the drives work fine on PCs as well as Macs - - in fact, I have one of their drives on both a PC and a Mac at the moment.
170099
try a usb floppy\n\nhttp://shopping.yahoo.com/search?P=all&p=usb+floppy+drive&did=57