I need a suggestion for an external drive.

[Skidmore]

One that doesn't require a lot of extra work to set up--just plug and play. I recently got a new computer but it came with Windows 8. My old computer had Windows 7 Home version. I had a little Seagate external drive to use for back up but it does not work with Windows 8 and I left it with my husband who wanted my old computer. I need an external drive but, frankly, I'm overwhelmed with the number of them on the market. Most of them appear not to work with Windows 8 yet. Any suggestions? I sincerely don't want to have to program or reprogram or format or reformat anything because I'm afraid I might mess my whole system up. Thanks.

[Old and In the Way]

1. Here's a link that might help.

https://www.google.com/search?q=Windows+8+external+hard+drives&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US fficial&client=firefox-a

Lots of good choices. I guess it depends on how much space you need/want and how much you want to pay.

[hobbit709]

2. Doesn't work with Windows 8 how?

Plug it into a USB port and it should be recognized. Or do you mean the backup software doesn't work with it.
I never use any of the supplied backup software-anything I want to save I just copy and paste.

[Phillip McCleod]

3. yeh pretty much any usb 3.0 drive will do.

Naturally it may need to be formatted NTFS. If it's not then windows will ask if you want to.

At work we make em ourselves.. like $15 for a USB enclosure and $50 or so for the drive.. pop it in and voila!

[cprise]

4. Get one with at least a 3yr warranty from a major brand

Western Digital, Seagate, Toshiba, Verbatim are some.

Don't worry if it doesn't say anything about Windows 8. Even a drive sold "for Mac" will work the same, provided you tell Windows to format the drive when you first connect it.

Here is one with a 7 year warranty:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16822215086

[deucemagnet]

5. I'd suggest avoiding the Seagate Barracuda line.

Just search "seagate barracuda bricked" and see how many hits you get. My sister had one brick on her about two years ago, and just a few months ago, when my iomega external hard drive failed, what do you think I found inside the case? (Hint: it's named after a fish.)

[hobbit709]

6. I've seen about a dozen bricked external drives

In every case that I worked on, the drive itself was OK after being removed from the case. They all had a failed interface board from the SATA connectors to the USB connector.

[deucemagnet]

7. That's interesting,

because sometimes if I plugged it in I would be able to recover data for a short while until it froze up my machine. I replaced it with a WD internal drive, so I'm unfortunately without a free drive bay, but now you have me thinking about connecting it to the SATA to see what happens.

[hobbit709]

8. I use an adapter similar to this.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=9SIA1PU0FG8210

There's several different ones in the under $20 range.

[deucemagnet]

9. Well, I connected the drive to a SATA connection to see what happens,

and it was the same as before -- I got about halfway through copying some files and the computer froze up. I did get a few more files off of the hard drive, but for all practical purposes it's bricked.