Question for removable hard drives

[testicool]

Let's say I get an external hard drive. Maybe 250 GB and I store all my files like music and vids.

In case I ever want to reformat my computer. Can I just yank the USB of the hard drive off my comp. Reformat and stick it back in and have ALL my files? I will be reformatting the internal hard drive with the windows OS.

[twodogs]

correct.

[testicool]

Are you serious...

I have 2 computers and a lot of info on one of them... I would transfer all my files around 60 gb from one to the other through the networks... reformat... transfer back.

This is so much better.

[The village idiot]

I prefer firewire, but the same concept. Works great, just a little slower than an internal drive.

[rallynavvie]

Even if it were an internal hard drive you can select which drive(s) to format. Say you had two internal you'd be able to format the one with the OS in it and leave the other one untouched. This even works with seperate partitions of a single hard drive. A lot of us use external hard drives for backups and drive images so we can revert back to say the OS and all the basic apps we use. I echo the FireWire statement, the FireWire drives out there now are pretty quick. They can even be powered via the FireWire cable if you've got a Mac.

[jgandara]

I'd suggest use the main partition (C drive) for system files. Use the external backup for personal files. If you delete/format C: your files won't be affected