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xp compatible external hard drive purchase



 
 
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  #1  
Old February 2nd 18, 05:48 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
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Posts: 444
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say, requiring one
to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried locally Walmart, Best
Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon. Still working on the latter
two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA


--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






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  #2  
Old February 2nd 18, 06:36 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
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Posts: 627
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

On 2 Feb 2018 16:48:02 GMT, KenK wrote:

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say, requiring one
to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried locally Walmart, Best
Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon. Still working on the latter
two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA


I am not quite sure why any of those drive would not work on XP or
even W/98 with the right BIOS extension software. I am running a 2TB
backup drive here regularly. There may be some backup software bundled
with the drive that needs W/7 but it is not a hardware problem. I use
Achronis for my backups anyway not the stuff bundled with the drive..
  #3  
Old February 2nd 18, 06:56 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
KenK
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 444
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

KenK wrote in
:

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say,
requiring one to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried
locally Walmart, Best Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon.
Still working on the latter two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA



According to My Computer hardware listings evidently computer only has
USB 2.0, not 3.0 which seems to be another problem. Computer is emachine
T2984 with XP Home SP3.



--
I love a good meal! That's why I don't cook.






  #4  
Old February 2nd 18, 07:05 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
R.Wieser
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 1,302
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

Ken,

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.


I've got a "WD Elements" and a "Seagate Expansion Portable Drive" 2Trerra
USB drives here. Both just 99 Euros (on XPPro, but I don't think that makes
a difference). They seem to work well.

All I've checked out are not compatible, almost always
Windows 7 or later.


The only thing you should worry about (if at all!) is if the drive supports
USB2. As long as it does that it will most always work fine under XP.

Regards,
Rudy Wieser


  #5  
Old February 2nd 18, 07:23 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 627
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

On 2 Feb 2018 17:56:56 GMT, KenK wrote:

KenK wrote in
:

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say,
requiring one to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried
locally Walmart, Best Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon.
Still working on the latter two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA



According to My Computer hardware listings evidently computer only has
USB 2.0, not 3.0 which seems to be another problem. Computer is emachine
T2984 with XP Home SP3.


That will still work on a USB 2, you just get a message that it would
go faster on a USB 3. I still get that message from time to time from
a USB 3 port.

  #7  
Old February 2nd 18, 07:40 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

KenK wrote:
I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say, requiring one
to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried locally Walmart, Best
Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon. Still working on the latter
two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA



A USB3 drive is backward compatible with USB2.

The USB3 connector has nine pins.

TX+ TX- GND RX+ RX- === USB3 set (~400MB/sec on a good day)

VCC D+ D- GND === USB2 set (~ 35MB/sec under UASP, YMMV)

When plugged into a USB2 computer, only the lower
four pins touch. USB2 protocol is negotiated and
the drive still works on a WinXP machine.

*******

WinXP uses MSDOS partitioning. The MBR contains a 32 bit
number of sectors and 32 bit fields. This crimps style on big disks.
2^32 * 512 = 2,199,023,255,552 (2.2TB).

Since the MBR pointers and sizes have 2TB limits, the
easiest way to work with disks, is to stick with 1TB or
2TB drives.

To do maintenance on my WinXP machine, I *have* booted
the Win8 that also lives there, and backed up to a 4TB
GPT partitioned drive. Nothing prevents the maintenance
OS from being newer than WinXP. Windows 8 only gets
booted if I need to run a backup.

In addition, if you prepare a Macrium Reflect CD, it
can use WinPE5 or WinPE10 boot OS on the emergency CD,
and you can boot the machine with that emergency CD...
and make backups to 4TB GPT partitioned USB enclosures.

The largest USB enclosure I could find last year, claimed
to support an 8TB drive. I don't see a reason why that
number isn't 10TB this year.

So if you're a WinXP guy, and you hate details, just
buy a USB3 2TB drive, which is below the 2.2TB limit
and should not cause any grief.

If you like experiments, nothing prevents using a larger
drive... if you have a "maintenance OS" suited to the task.
Even a Macrium Reflect emergency CD can do that sort of
stuff. The disadvantage of making a backup from the
emergency CD, is you cannot use the machine while it runs.
If you install Macrium Reflect Free in WinXP and run
a backup to an external 2TB drive, you can continue using
the PC while it runs. That's the benefit of "native"
installation - you can keep working during the backup.

I saw mention of some hack to run GPT on WinXP last year
at some point, but didn't make any notes. I already tried
Acronis Capacity Manager (only works over SATA, not USB),
and I've since removed that from every setup here. As
using Windows 8 for the GPT capability, was enough to
support the two 4TB drives I've got (GPT partitioned, one
big partition). While the backup runs from Win8, I can surf
in Win8. Or even read newsgroups in Win8. Win8 is the least
amount of trouble for me, to get GPT capability.

I have Win10 for this machine too, but it stays corked
in the bottle it's trapped in. It will be some time,
before I let it out :-)

Paul
  #8  
Old February 2nd 18, 10:08 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
VanguardLH[_2_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 10,881
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

KenK wrote:

... looking for an xp external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are
not compatible, almost always Windows 7 or later.


Only if you give a gnat's fart about the software bundled with the USB
drive. Just use the external drive as a generic USB mass storage device
in Windows: plug it in, Windows will find the embedded driver or
interface definition file, and you're ready to go - just like when you
plug a USB flash drive into a USB port.

If you need backup software, and what comes bundled with the drive has a
Windows 7 minimum requirement, go get other backups software ... and for
free. Macrium Reflect Free and Easeus ToDo Backup Free will run on
Windows XP. Most software will require SP-3 but you didn't mention your
service pack level of Windows XP.

If the bundled software includes an accelerator program that claims to
speed up USB transfers, toss it. If you copy one or two small files,
the accelerator won't help (the difference in transfer time is
insignificant). If you copy a huge file, the accelerator won't help
(buffer too small). Only if you copy LOTS of small files might the
buffering afforded by the accelerator provide reduced transfer time.
Plus it is more software in the chain that makes the chain less
reliable: just one more thing to go wrong and you may not get any
support for it.

The hardware is compatible with Windows XP. It's the bundled software
that may not be, so don't bother with the bundled software. It's
cheapware added to bloat the feature set so marketing can make their
product appear more than just a simple USB HDD.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.


Not for under $100 if you want to stick with a name brand (Seagate,
Western Digital, etc). More like up to $150 to get up to 2 TB since
that's the top end of your requested storage capacity. Newegg has some
non-name brand 1 TB USB HDDs for under $100 (e.g., Fantom) but I have no
experience with those resellers that buy the drives in bulk, put them in
a case, and resell them under their name. They have some name brand USB
HDDs at 2TB for under $100 but they are refurbishe (aka used, inspected
visually, but rarely ever actually tested). Newegg is not always the
cheapest but they are reasonably priced and I've had good experience
with returns to them (make sure you buy from Newegg, not another seller
using Newegg as an e-store, just like how Amazon, Walmart, and others
sell e-store space to other sellers), plus they often have some very
decent sales.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/ydf7dn5b

That'll find some lower prices than Newegg except you are often buying
from unknown sources or small sellers with crappy support. Some stores
for a listing are good, some are not. If you've been buying computer
parts for awhile, you'll recognize the okay or good sellers. The above
search found some 2TB WD USB HDDs that Newegg's own search (with my
criteria) didn't find.

Windows XP only supports up to USB 2.0. If you get a USB 3.0 USB HDD,
it will only transfer at USB 2.0 speeds (and not even at the top rated
or theoretical limit but more like around 70% of the speed claim).
Because you are stuck with USB 2.0 with Windows XP, the USB 2.0 ports
can only provide 0.5 amperes which is likely not enough to power the USB
HDD, especially during spinup. Not only do you have a spinup surge load
when powering up the drive but quite often USB HDDs have firmware code
that make them go to sleep which means then spin down - so you might
want to ensure you do NOT get a "green" USB HDD because that might not
wake up fast enough during a backup job that has to pause for a while
compressing a huge file before sending to the USB HDD. Some USB drives
come with a Y adapter cable: plugs into 2 USB ports to get up to 1 A to
power the external drive and the logic PCB inside the enclosure. With
USB 2.0 and Windows XP, you should look for a USB HDD that has its own
power source (A/C adapter) or make sure the USB HDD will run reliably on
just 0.5 A (or 1 A with a Y adapter).
  #9  
Old February 8th 18, 04:52 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
No_Name
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 177
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

On 2 Feb 2018 16:48:02 GMT, KenK wrote:

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say, requiring one
to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried locally Walmart, Best
Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon. Still working on the latter
two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA


I have several of them drives that claim they are not meant for XP. They
all work fine. The issue is probably the software that comes on those
drives is not compatible with XP. But I delete that crap as soon as I
buy a drive. In fact I format the new drives too, just in case there is
some malware. I have my own backup software and for most of my music and
pictures, I just copy them directly.

One of those drives had some software to make the drive password
protected. That's the last thing I would want to do, cuz I'd forget the
password. Plus no one has access to my computer stuff anyhow. It's only
used by me.

So, unless you want their crappy software the drive should work just
fine on XP and up. Actually I have used them on Windows 2000 too. I have
not tried them on Win98, cuz 98 wont even work on most flash drives. 98
never had good USB support.

As far as I'm concerned, USB 2 is plenty fast. I do not have any
computer with USB 3. But I do have one with USB 1. Now that's damn slow,
but it still works if you're asleep when you copy the data.


  #10  
Old February 8th 18, 05:38 PM posted to microsoft.public.windowsxp.general
Paul[_32_]
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 11,873
Default xp compatible external hard drive purchase

wrote:
On 2 Feb 2018 16:48:02 GMT, KenK wrote:

I've been Googling on and off for several days now looking for an xp
external HD. No luck. All I've checked out are not compatible, almost
always Windows 7 or later. Trouble is most dealers don't say, requiring one
to go to the nanufacturer's web site to check. Tried locally Walmart, Best
Buy and Staples. On line Newegg and Amazon. Still working on the latter
two.

Any suggestions? Somewhere around 1 or 2 T and under $100.

TIA


I have several of them drives that claim they are not meant for XP. They
all work fine. The issue is probably the software that comes on those
drives is not compatible with XP. But I delete that crap as soon as I
buy a drive. In fact I format the new drives too, just in case there is
some malware. I have my own backup software and for most of my music and
pictures, I just copy them directly.

One of those drives had some software to make the drive password
protected. That's the last thing I would want to do, cuz I'd forget the
password. Plus no one has access to my computer stuff anyhow. It's only
used by me.

So, unless you want their crappy software the drive should work just
fine on XP and up. Actually I have used them on Windows 2000 too. I have
not tried them on Win98, cuz 98 wont even work on most flash drives. 98
never had good USB support.

As far as I'm concerned, USB 2 is plenty fast. I do not have any
computer with USB 3. But I do have one with USB 1. Now that's damn slow,
but it still works if you're asleep when you copy the data.


There is one aspect of drives that makes then "not exactly perfect"
for WinXP.

That's the sector size.

The sector has the emulated (virtual) size the OS sees, as
well as the actual physical size.

You can see an example here, on page 2. Note that this doc
was generated with a newer version of Acrobat, so may "resist"
being opened. I ran it through "mutool clean" to fix it. There
are two pages, not just one page.

The size of these disks, things above 2TB work best with GPT,
which WinXP doesn't have. There are some hacks to split a large
drive in two and make it look like two drives. In general, the
large drives become a PITA on WinXP, even with the tricks.

https://media.flixcar.com/f360cdn/We...879-800074.pdf

- need capacity hack - ---- OK for WinXP ----
6TB 4TB 2TB 1TB WDC Gold drives
WD6002FRYZ WD4002FYYZ WD2005FBYZ WD1005FBYZ
512 / 4096 512 / 512 512 / 512 512 / 512

The first number in the last row (sector size) is the virtual size.
All are 512 virtual byte drives, and WinXP would work because of
the fact the first number is 512.

The second number, is the internal format. The 6TB drive uses 4096 byte
sectors. To "emulate" a 512 byte sector, it stores eight WinXP sectors
in one disk drive sector. The disk drive does read-modify-write, if
only 1/8th of a physical sector needs updating, and 7/8ths of the
drive sector must be kept. This encourages the manufacturer to
use the generous 128MB DRAM cache on those drives, to gather up
fractional operations and do them as time and queue depth
permit.

The 6TB one needs to work that magic, since it has the jumbo sector
format on the platter.

The three drives to the right, are "not normal in 2018". These
drives are bog standard 512 byte drives "with no tricks".

The reason WinXP gets ****y on the drive on the left, is
"alignment". The MSDOS partitioning format, has a lot of
"divisible by 63" factors in the math. A cluster WinXP
is writing, "flops over the edge of a 4KB sector". This
means the drive works extra hard with these fractional
operations.

One "hack" is to have a single partition of WinXP on a
drive of this nature, and move it slightly so the clusters
line up with the 4KB sectors. The result can be 20-30% more
performance on small files.

All the drives work in WinXP, but the drive on the left may
stumble a little bit, and "seem flaky" while you use it
with WinXP.

There are *lots* of $60 drives with 512 / 4096 too,
so the three on the right really are oddballs. That means
there are also lots of 512e (512 / 4096) that could
use alignment to help them.

I've been hunting down and adding the drive type to the
right to my collection. At one time, WDC Black were 512/512.
Then it was WDC RE were 512/512. I've kept lots of my
drive purchases in the 512n (t12/512) camp on purpose,
so there would be no issues at all on WinXP. A few of my
drives, big ones, are 512e, but they're only used for backups,
and since the drives are 4TB, I boot Win8 and use GPT
with those anyway - WinXP never gets to see the drive.

Now it's WDC Gold which I see has 512/512.

There are also drives which are 4096/4096 AKA "4Kn" drives.
These have been hidden from the public, due to the confusion
they were causing. I think Windows 10 will actually run
on one of those drives. But before you get excited, there
are practically *no tools* to work with them. If you need to
do data recovery, partition management, backup, you name it,
there is *nothing* for you in terms of software. Since
you won't find 4096/4096 at Newegg or Amazon, you have
(almost) nothing to worry about. Maybe some ******* on
Ebay would sell you one, that's if any of those ever "leak"
into the used market.

Virtual / Physical(inside)
512 / 512 "512n" Native sectors, been like this forever...
512 / 4096 "512e" Emulated sectors, the new normal, not especially
suited for WinXP users (one partition, align it!)
4096 / 4096 "4Kn" Native 4K sectors, for servers / storage farms

Many advertisements are totally devoid of interesting
descriptive parameters, making it really hard to
buy the right kind of drive.

Even the term "7200RPM class" and "5400 RPM class"
is a blatant attempt at lying. The word "class" means
"it doesn't really spin at the RPMs we said it did".
Maybe an Intellipower one, drops from 7200 to 5900
when not in usage. But unless the turkeys man up and
admit what the secondary speed is, we'll never know.
I shudder to think how slow a "5400 class" drive spins :-(
3600 maybe ? Or I suppose it would have to be 3700, so
they wouldn't be forced to admit it was a 3600 RPM drive.
"7200 class" means "probably faster than 5400", while
"5400 class" means "likely greater than 3600".

It's fun living in a "garbage era".

Paul
 




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