Dr Gadget - Gadget Shop - Western Digital My Book Essential 500GB External USB 2.0 Hard Drive

	List Price: Our Price: £64.50 Your Save: £ ( % ) Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours Manufacturer: Western Digital
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Batteries Included: 0 Binding: Electronics Brand: Western Digital EAN: 0718037120928 Feature: Hard drive - external Is Fragile: 0 Label: Western Digital Manufacturer: Western Digital Model: WDH1U5000E Publisher: Western Digital Release Date: 2007-11-25 Studio: Western Digital
Features Hard drive - external 5.4 cm x 13.7 cm x 16.6 cm 1.15 kg Middle East, Africa, Europe 500 GB
Accessories Hama Universal Case for External Hard Drives, size L, Black Hama Universal Case for External Hard Drives, size M, Black Hama Universal Case for External Hard Drives, size S, Black
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Spotlight customer reviews: Customer Rating: Summary: This drive is not robust Comment: Had used my 500gb drive for around 6 months without any problem until one day it was toppled from a foot high coffee table on to a carpet. Despite a soft landing it completely stopped working and WD support now tell me the drive has failed and my only option is to spend thousand of pounds for a data recovery expert to recover my data. This would be less galling if WD didn't market this drive as "robust". Would not buy again. Customer Rating: Summary: WD External Good Comment: Owned it for a month now. Review: Simple and looks good on my desk. Light goes through the whole case to other side, a little distracting. Simple plug and play, I don't use the 'safely remove' hardware at all, I just unplug whenever the HD is not busy. Had an older 250gb version of this one (now memory is full) and that has worked well. (Transported in baggage several times) Recommendation: Format to NTFS (allows transfer of much larger files). Problems: Tried to transfer from the external hard drive to DVD of a large file, 15 min into transfer the external hard drive made a really high pitched noise for 30 sec, I turned it over and shook it slightly, the noise went away and I finished my transfer. (this was before the format to NTFS)HOWEVER I then needed to put this file from DVD to a computer and it came up with I/O error. Customer Rating: Summary: A very nice piece of kit Comment: I spent a lot of time reading reviews from various sites about different makes and models of external HDD. In the end I took the plunge and went for the Western Digital 500GB model. I have to say it has been simplicity itself to get it up and running. I took the previous reviewer's advice and didn't bother with the software packages. I did use the PDF manual and found the links to the support site useful, especially when it came to looking for instructions on how to reformat the drive into NTFS; it comes pre-formatted in FAT32. The drive powers up with my PC and closes down when I log-off, it is very quiet and if it wasn't for the two LEDs on the from I wouldn't know it was operating. I'm a very happy bunny. Customer Rating: Summary: Bad book Comment: My Book has certainly been a disappointment for me. Initially I was impressed but after a couple of months, it produces problems. Now I have lost all data as it keeps coming up with 'I/O Device error'. Tried to reformat but it doesn't allow me to. Also tried the Western Digital website for download but that doesn't help at all. It also does not come with a CD application which means once any software faults arise, that would be the end. Customer Rating: Summary: Tried & Tested... Comment: Well I thought I'd wait for a while until I review this Ext HDD. It came pretty quick, the interchangeable plug isn't a problem. I think it's quite clever myself! Setting up is a piece of cake, just plug & play. It looks stylish (which doesn't really bother me) but like what most people say, it doesn't have an on/off switch. But you can switch it off from your desktop by safely removing the USB drive. This will switch it off. Compared to my ICE BOX 500Gb drive, it is slower in read/write speeds. I found this strange as they are both 7200RPM drives, but it definitely works slower. The ICE BOX is like lightning, and it has an on/off switch! All round it's a good buy, and does the job of backing up all of your important data. More Reviews
Editorial Reviews: Save space on your PC's hard drive and store your photos, music, videos and other important files on the My Book II Essential Edition external hard drive. You won't believe how easy it is to configure and use!