maxtor external

probably because it was on sale, i bought a maxtor external hard drive One Touch III (500 gb)that came with software. after a week of being jerked around by seagate/maxtor i still can't make the software function. have disabled, rebooted, removed, downloaded, and phoned to no good end. the unit is brand new. i'm no geek, but it shouldn't take one to get a simple program loaded and running for the average joe. i don't have vista (XP) so any fixes they had should have been good a long time ago. i just want to make a mirror copy of my hard drive to be able to restore in the event of a crash. i have pics, vids, and doc's i can't replace and i need this for safekeeping. is there any alternative way for me to make this hard drive work without their proprietary software short of taking it back and getting a different unit.

thanks,
jeff
eff

 

You say, without their proprietory software, but the little floppy download for Maxtor, Maxblast 4, is really such a good copier, and drive checker.
Is that the one you tried ?
Is your external drive is a sata drive ?, as these can sometimes be prickly to get started, and by far the easiest way I have found, is to use Maxblast4.
With the Maxblast 4 software, you can enable LBA, and partition, all ready to go.
If you do not have it , you can download it here.
http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=7add8b9c4a8ff010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

More help can be got from Seagate,s pages.
- http://www.seagate.com/ww/v/index.j...toid=85a34a3cdde5c010VgnVCM100000dd04090aRCRD

 

the software that came bundled with the thing is Retrospect HD. it looked real good in the description. firewire 800 interface, system rollback,drivelock security,automatic one touch backup, etc.. don't know if max blast is compatable with this model, but it should work. it really sucks that products get sold these days that don't even work from the gitgo. i could understand it having some issues or glitches with vista cause it's brand new, but not XP.

 

It may be that Seagates own tool will have to be used.
These usually download for floppy use.

 

I had similar experience with my Maxtor one touch III mini. It "sort of worked", but I had problems with hanging my Outlook Express ever since loading the software for the drive. I discovered (in task manager) that a service called "MaxBackServiceInt" was using 98% of my CPU whenever I tried to send or receive email!! So, I did a bunch of things, and the only thing that prevents the hang is to shut off that service. Subsequently, it has been recommended to me that I uninstall the Maxtor software and load Micorsofts' Synctoy. I haven't done that yet...so do you guys have any thoughts about that?

 

The software all it does it sync disks and backup stuff automaticly, you can manually use the drive without installing there sync software. If thats what your after. I like my maxtor one touch drive, its handy for backups.

 

I was about to say the same! Their software likely does all the work of a simple batch file with way more overhead!

Can you access the drive at all?

 

No not really, its a nice program, just don't have a use for it. Its way more advanced/easier for a newbie to use then writing some complicated batch file.

 

Guys,

For the next 2 -3 weeks, I only have the Maxtor connected to one PC. When I get home, I'll be trying to plug it into a Linksys NSLU2 access device that has two of my pc's networked together. What I'd like to do is store and sync common files like MP3's, jpeg's, etc. on the Maxtor so I can access them from either PC. But I'd also want it to sync My Documents in both pc's. I'm under the impression that I may have to format the Maxtor via the NSLU2 first, but I'm really flying in the dark here.confused