Western Digital 320GB Ext. HDD Performing Extremely Slowly?
James asks,
I have a WD 320 GB Passport Ext. HDD which has been working fine until i connected it to a Mac Book (Macintosh) and since has become extremely slow when read from, normally it is used on a Dell Windows XP PC and a Toshiba Windows 7 Notebook, i hope you have a solution because i have only had it for 8 months. Thanks for your time.
It also is in the fat32 format and defragmenting it would take litterally a couple of days
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try defragmenting it in your windows, im pretty sure its formatted as ntsf, which macs do not support out of the box, so possibly trying to connect it to a mac made the mac try to install something on there, defrag it,
if that doesn’t work, copy your files onto your windows computer
follow these instructions to format the hard drive in fat32 which both windows and mac supports
http://aadhu.com/2008/04/30/format-fat32-over-32gb-on-xpvista/
Follow these steps and you’ll have your computer purring like a vintage Porsche (or whatever your dream car of choice is). And the best part? Maintaining your computer is a lot less messy than an automobile. You don’t even have to roll up your sleeves.
Clean up disk errors (Run once a week)
Whenever a program crashes, or you experience some power outage, your computer may create errors on your computer’s hard disk. Over time, the errors can slow your computer. Luckily, the Windows operating system includes a Disk Check program to check and clean any errors on your computer and keep it running smoothly.
Remove temporary files (Run once a week)
Your computer can pick up and store temporary files when you’re looking at Web pages and even when you’re working on files in programs, such as Microsoft Word. Over time, these files will slow your computer’s performance. You can use the Windows Disk Cleanup screen to rid your computer of these deadbeat files.
Rearrange your data (Run once a month)
Don’t be shocked, but your computer can get sloppy. Your computer often breaks files side by side to increase the speed of access and retrieval. However, as files are updated, your computer saves these updates on the largest space available on the hard drive, often found far away from the other adjacent sectors of the file.
Make Internet Explorer run faster
The Web is a sparkling achievement of modern society. It’s everywhere—from the home to the classroom. We use it to communicate, to work, to play—even to waste time when there’s nothing else to do.
Automate Microsoft Update (Configure once)
Microsoft works constantly to release updates to Windows and other Microsoft products, including Office. At Microsoft Update, you can find and install all these updates—not just the critical ones. Often, these updates will improve your computer’s performance.
Install antivirus and antispyware programs
Computer viruses and spyware (hidden software that gathers information about you without your knowledge or consent when you’re using a computer) both reduce system performance. Computer viruses can not only reduce performance, but they can also destroy data. Any computer that accesses the Internet should have antivirus and antispyware programs installed.