Hi again, as you can see I have a maxtor one touch drive. At present I have it installed on windows XP. Because I don't want to continue with windows - wondered if it will work on my slackware? When I checked at maxtor, they didn't mention linux as an operating system. Has anyone had any success in installing such external drives on linux?

As always, appreciate any help on this matter.

bookie

I have Western Digital MyBook 320GB external hard drive and it works just fine in Linux and OpenBSD so I would quess yours will too.

Sorry, I wasn't too informative. The install cds that come with maxtor one touch are designed for windows. Just wondered how to get over that hurdle.


bookie

There shouldn't be a hurdle to clear. Just plug in the Maxtor and boot up.

If you have USB working under Slackware, the drive will automagically be assigned a mount point (probably in /mnt). Use your prefered partitioning and formating tools.

But, be very careful to umount the drive before unplugging it. Why so, you may ask? Consider what would happen if your system is booted up and you have several applications running, and you just unplugged the computer from the wall outlet. Same concept applies to the USB drive if it is unplugged before unmounting it.

Thanks Bigrigdriver, that puts my mind at rest. Thanks for the info.

bookie

With my Maxtor One Touch, the only thing I need the install CDs/windows for is if I want to change the spindown time. There might also be some backup software on the install cd, but Linux provides better backup programs anyway.

As I am looking at buying a Backup drive in the very near future. Does the one-touch button still function? Or do you just use it as a USB drive without the button working. As I would assume that is what the Win software is for configuring the button backup function.

I think I saw a driver for the one touch button in the 2.6 kernel at some point (USB_STORAGE_ONETOUCH). But it conflicts with something else (PM somehow?)--so it depends on how your kernel is configured.

Scratch what I said about spindown(standby) time. hdparm couldn't do it, but I didn't know there was an sdparm (which hit 1.0 last October). It does the job with a quick "sdparm /dev/sda --set SCT=12000 --save"

Thanks for the update. I am waiting on a replacement one touch at the mo, so I will get back to you as soon as I have received and installed it.

booke

Hi again, sorry for taking so long to get back to you. I ran the command that you wrote and had this info come up:
Can you tell me what the above means.


bookie

For whatever it is worth, I have a Maxtor One touch mini. The software was buggy on XP. I used the drive with linux via NTFS-3G when I had WUBI. Then, when I switched to straight Ubuntu Feisty, I formatted my Maxtor to ext3 and now simply use it as a mountable USB drive - no software needed. With Ubuntu, it works better than it did with Windows. I know things may be different with slackware, but maybe it works with slackware too?

I'll defer to others as to your latest question

Thanks for your comments. I haven't a problem mounting and unmounting, so I can unmount and just turn off the drive. I was going to use the spin down time just to save having to physically turning it off all the time. I know that there is a inbuilt default spin down time - just don't know what it is.


bookie

Hello Bookie

I am one of those that keep my external hard drive locked away in a closet under a blanket (haha) just in case. I sometimes forget that I am a little paranoidand not everyone does this. Anyway, good luck with your issue!