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General discussion

Installing an internal HD as an external HD

Jul 30, 2006 4:04PM PDT

I bought a Maxtor DiamondMax 250 GB internal hard drive today because there was a sale on it, and was told that I could use it as an external hard drive by buying an enclosure (NexStar 3). I did that and attached it and screwed it in and all that, but now I'm confused about the installation process. I will be mainly using it on a Mac, but the instructions for installating on a Mac are for the drive as an internal hard drive... so what do I do exactly? Plug it in and see what happens? After I'm done installing it, do I install the CD that came with the enclosure? I also will be using it on a PC at first to upload some files, but should I plug it into a Mac before that so it's formatted for a Mac? Is that correct? Please help!

Also, to make things more confusing - I will be eventually using it with the computers at my university, but right now the only Mac I have access to is a friend's - it's probably not the same Mac. As long as it's a new enough model to support the HD, will it matter?

Thanks.

Discussion is locked

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and
Jul 30, 2006 4:53PM PDT

Okay so browsed the forums and realizing Maxtor might not have been the best choice, and I'm worried this is all going to be a mess because I'm leaving the country in two days and I need to take this with me and have it work. Should I just return this and get a Western Digital external hard drive instead?

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I'm betting it will be just fine.
Jul 30, 2006 10:48PM PDT

Most of the posts are the maxtor built units. I'm almost betting it's their overheating case or their supplied software at fault.

In our Mac forums the steps to prepare the drive on a Mac is noted.

Bob

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Simply format the ext. hard disk with the type computer
Aug 4, 2006 1:01AM PDT

Elvinar,
When I installed my W-D 120GB hard disk in my ADAPTEC h.d. enclosure case (Best Buy), I simply did a quick PC format on the drive. It took about 10 seconds to perform the "Quick Format" and it was off and running.

I am uncertain if you can use this hard disk with both PC and Apple OSes, unless you partition this disk. I am not knowledgeable in this area.

You shouldn't have to install any software..at least I didn't have to do so, because Windows Xp, NT, 2000, and ME OSes already had the drivers. I am confident that your Apple already has the driver it needs for this device.

Did your instructions indicate that you needed to install the software for an Apple computer?

You won't hurt anything by plugging it in....to see what it reads on this new hard disk.

If you've formatted to an Apple OS and your friend has a fairly recent version of Apple's OS, you should be able to plug it into his computer without any issues.

The ADAPTEC software that came with my external hard disk was only to be installed if I was running Windows 98 or newer OS.

Hope this helps, Kevin