WD MyBook external hard drive

[Scott Anguish]

On Apr 13, 2007, at 5:14 PM, Gregg Dinse wrote:

> On 13 Apr 2007, at 5:00 PM, Scott Anguish wrote:
>
>> On Apr 13, 2007, at 4:43 PM, Gregg Dinse wrote:
>>
>>> I just bought a Western Digital 500-GB MyBook external hard  
>>> drive.  It has USB-2, FW-400, and FW-800 connectors.  I connected  
>>> it to a PowerMac G5 running 10.4.9 and the drive mounted, but I  
>>> had trouble with the WD software installation.  Maybe I should  
>>> just forget about installing the third party software, but I was  
>>> wondering if anyone else has successfully done so.
>>
>> it comes with Software?  I just tossed the CD immediately.. why  
>> complicate things if you don't need to?
>
> I forgot about the CD -- I'm talking about the software that came on  
> the hard drive itself.

	never even noticed.. I hit Disk Utility the minute I hooked it up. I  
just assumed it only had PC stuff on it I think

> Apparently the Button Manager package installs software that allows  
> the button on the front of the drive to function.  If you did not  
> install the software, are you able to power the drive off (short of  
> unplugging it)?  I've been mashing the button on mine and it seems  
> to have no effect.  I figured the software would enable this.

	Perhaps there is an update on their website?

	I've been able to turn it on/off when it isn't connected...

	when it is connected I just unmount it and it seems to go into a low- 
power mode... but I'm not sure how to get it back on aside from  
unplugging it and replugging it. I only use it on my laptop so I don't  
tend to notice (it only gets hooked up for backups/restores)


>
>
> Also, the software supposedly enables the lights on the front to  
> indicate the amount of free disk space and whether there is any  
> drive activity.  This I could live without...
>
> I know, none of this sounds very important, so I'll probably just  
> forget it, but I wouldn't mind being able to power down the drive  
> without unplugging it.  I plan to leave it attached to the mac, but  
> I might only power it on once in a while to do special backups.

	I don't like this particular drive all that much, although definitely  
a good bargain price wise, I still prefer LaCie drives