Technology beckons

[bookwormsarah]

I plan on buying an external hard drive to back up my computer, plus store music/video on. Can anyone recommend something reliable, not too expensive, and not hugely bulky? Am starting to get moderately anxious that my life is on my laptop and I am sure I put it in mild peril the way I sit

Comments

[ms_wanderlust]

I have a great portable hard-drive, about the size of two iPods and about 5mm thick. Can't put my hands on it right now and am too tired to look, but will get onto it on Thursday (next day off). Cost about £70 on ebay, I think. Not sure if that counts as "not too expensive" but it was a good price for what it is.
And, although I love the whole concept of democracy and voting, and will support the political process with my last breath, I suspect that the US election will over time make me weep, but not in a good way.

[robvic]

with you on that - watching 7 series of WW (3 times) means that I feel I understand a bit about what's going on this time round!!

[robvic]

and is it just me, or does Obama remind you of Santos (minority, coming from behind etc etc)... Which is probably why I want him to win! Haven't been able to find any pictures of his campaign manager though so I don't know if he's as lovely as Josh...

[bookwormsarah]

My thoughts exactly! Bizarrely after I'd posted that comment, I realised that I'd meant to include something to that effect. And yes, I have been looking out for Donna in a chicken suit and working out people's roles by West Wing titles...

'Oh, so he's a CJ'
'Shouldn't there be a Charlie somewhere?'

*goes to google Obama's campaign*

[ex_robhu]

If I want to connect my old computer tower to my laptop so I can see what is on there (and wipe it if necessary), can I do this with a USB cable?
Technically yes. I suspect it would be quite hard to do though.

It would be easy to do this if they were on a network (do they both have ethernet ports?). I'd say you'd be much better off using an external disk to transfer files off one and on to the other though.

External disks come in 2.5" size (small) and 3.5" size (big). The big ones are cheaper per GB but require an external power supply. How much do you want to spend / how much space do you want / how important is size?

You could look on ebuyer.com.

[bookwormsarah]

The issue with connecting my tower to the laptop is that I no longer have a screen (or keyboard, or mouse come to that), and they never were networked. The computer still boots up, but if I could just plug one into the other it would be so much easier... If I had a screen, I would happily transfer things across using a memory stick!

[ex_robhu]

OK, well what you *could* do is take the disk out of your tower and put it in to an external caddy, then you could just treat it like a normal external disk and plug it in to your laptop.

Here is a cheap SATA caddy, and here is the IDE equivalent. Older disks are IDE and newer ones are SATA. I can provide some photos of how to tell the difference if that'd help.

You can get more expensive caddies that would work with both.

The other option is to borrow a keyboard and mouse from someone. I can lend you one if no one you know has one around.

[bookwormsarah]

The computer is fairly old (by pooter standards, but not quite like my Vic20 up in the loft), and I haven't dealved inside it much. The idea is that I clean out the innerds and then pass it on to one of the recycling charities, so I might see if I can borrow a caddy rather than buy one to use it once... This is when I regret the fact that the friend who had all the right equipment no longer speaks to me!