Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Do you know how long...

...it would take to format a 320GB external USB IDE drive?  Well I after several attempt with jumper settings on older drives I resorted to this mammoth beast since I had to make on on a promise for a friend... I started formatting around eleven or twelve and thought I would stay up until formatting was done....

later around 6:30 am the job was done!

I was annoyed to discover the drive (purchased new from Amazon) came with a MBR and several other partitions (no data).  So it had obviously been used and returned - I may complain to them - feel I have been sold misrepresented goods.

But the long night was highly productive - I interleaved it with configuring a laptop i recovered (all those drivers to donwload!).  I blogged a little and messed about. I tidied to ridiculous extremes and found myself going through old boxes - found a Win98SE Cd from days gone by!   A load of crap to throw out... Then came the truly great find....

One of the reasons I had been going through external caddies and drives was to try to get back a picture from old data drives etc.  I could not find it and like I said the last two drives i tried seemed to have finally curled up and died.

Then I was tidying through old CD's looking for PowerDVD for the laptop.  i came across one I had burnt with pics on - the title was not one that made me think of the pic I was after - but i popped it in and LO AND BEHOLD - the pic I sought!  It dovetailed nicely since it was for the person I formatted the drive for - formatting ocmpleted wshortly after and I was able to put the pic there as a present also with the drive (I like to do such things, the personal touch - also when data is precious not only back it up but spread it far and wide if it is of this sort - makes a handy other form of backup!).

Just goes to show - best to look at what is in front of your nose before you search and get elaborate.  A similar thing - i went back to a shop thinking I mislaid the Torx15 kit - only to find it was in my BACK POCKET!  Must be losing my marbles!

I shall leave my tale of iMac woe for another post!