As was already suggested. Recommend a 2.5" external hard drive. 2.5" is laptop size, so most are self-powered by USB alone. You may have to monkey with your laptop to make it properly provide power over USB when not plugged into the power adapter.

Be sure to back-up your external drive. I use a 2.5" external for portability and a 3.5" external for archiving. I can already hear the 3.5" ext clicking a little, so time to shop around for a replacement..

I have an external seagate 160 gb drive that I did not unplug correctly, apparently and now, although there is data on it and programs, it wants to format the drive and I can't seem to open any of the files on it. I know that reformatting it will wipe all the stuff on it. Is there anyway I can recover this info?

cfannie

As this post has be marked "solved", would be better to start a new post

To give a quick response, this is exactly why I don't buy a USB-powered external drive, as they all seem to be so darn fragile, and a lot more prone to corruption. My WD 500GB (studio edition) has been disconnected "improperly" I don't know how many times (power failure, knocking the connection out, tripping over power cord etc.), and never a corruption of any kind.

Installing programs to an external drive, although quite allowed, is never a good idea as can mess with your system if external drive crashes - eps if those programs are running!

As to accessing files, either try plugging device into another computer (will sometimes let you get away with it), or DL, burn and boot from a Linux Live disc, as may well give you access to those files you need to recover.

Is easily enough achieved, as long as your PC supports the "boot from USB" option. Wouldn't even consider on a non-powered HDD, and needs to be done in a fashion that doesn't add the installed OS to your local HDD's boot-manager, or all hell can break loose if external drive is not connected.

[QUOTE=kaninelupus;929833]As this post has be marked "solved", would be better to start a new post

I just joined this site and am not sure how to start a new post. Thank you for your info.

Go into the appropriate forum heading and click on the "start new thread" button

You can try these two
WD My Book Essential
WD My Book Studio Edition II
These guys will answer all your External HDD related questions also!