Iogear 3.5IN COMBO/ FIREWIRE 800 AND ( GHD835C250 )

Rating:
Summary: So far, so good- Get a good partition program and reformat!
Review: I would have given this drive a "4" rating but the problems I encountered were pretty much equal across the board with all external hard drives and Windows XP users. Please do your homework when purchasing an external drive!

First the review. THUMBS UP: Drive has an awesome look and took all of 2 minutes to unpackage and hook up to the computer (extremely easy) and it was recognized right away in WIN XP (less than 30 seconds!) so there was no issues at all.

I only have a usb 2.0 connection at the moment so I can't comment on the speed of the 1394b (firewire 800 ability just yet) as I will be upgrading soon. Drive runs cool and looks great and has a very important feature (besides 1394b support) that I was looking for; a power button. Nice feature to have and increases drive life!

ON THE DOWN SIDE: This drive has little to no software included on the CD-ROM and the documentation is VERY poor (applies only to the buyers how purchased the hardware shell and are looking to install own hard drive). But that really wasn't too important to me.

NOW FOR THE IMPORTANT STUFF: This will have to be brief as there are a fair bit of things to consider. All external drives out there are running a file system called FAT32 which make it compatible with ALL versions of Windows.

However, WIN XP (PRO/Home) use the NTFS file system. If you want to plug and play this drive at home, at a friend's or at the office or if you are running a home network with muliple OS's at home, then it might not be a concern to you. You will enjoy the freedom of portable/external storage. If you are only exposing this drive to WIN XP then you may (highly likely) want to take advantage of the more efficient NTFS format WIN XP has to offer.

ALSO NOTE: FAT32 can NOT support partitions greater than 30GB so you will end up with 8 partitions leaving this drive in it's native format. I was very surprised when the drive loaded with 7 partitions of 29.2GB and 1 single partition at 27.2GB (total of 231.6GB) which I didn't like because it makes keeping track of where everything is a nightmare. You will end up having a total of 9 hard drives (assuming you have a min. of a single drive in your system!!!)

I found this out from some online forums AFTER I purchased the drive (best reference was www.techspot.com- very friendly forum!). Also note that ALL external drives have less physical space then what they are rated for; so COUNT on that as well and don't get mad when you lose gigs of space coming straight out of the box.

ONLY SOLUTION: I have read (ALOT) now about this and the basics come down to this- if this even applies to you (if not, then you should be very satisfied with your hard drive right out of the box!) Reformat each individual partition from FAT32 to NTFS with the WIN XP tools (1- select "My Computer", 2- right click, 3- select "Format"). From the new window select the drop down menu that says FAT32 and change to NTFS (better off to leave "quick format" option unchecked/blank) and select ok. Should take about 10min per partition so you can run it in the background/minimize and go check your e-mail.

For more advanced users you should be able to setup new partitions and delete the old ones with the Administrative Tools options in WIN XP from the Control Panel. I tried to play around with that but could not figure it out. So I did the next best thing and researched third party partition programs. You will likely find 2 most popular apps on the market (Norton and PowerQuest). Norton Partition Magic $60-$90 or PowerQuest Partition Magic 8.0 for ONLY $18.99 (here- http://www.satellite-store.net/p22/Par-2.dwt)

I can't comment on Norton, but PM 8.0 is dead easy to use and is the only app offered as an instant download (NO waiting and NO paying for shipping!) Basic program comes with PDF instructions, 5 additional apps and even a flash tutorial! I tried the program without checking out any additional apps or documentation and I had new partitions up and running in under 10 minutes! Overall I would highly reccommend getting an external drive and I am very happy with IO Gear for making one that is (so far) reliable and stylish!