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PCs & Mobiles Forum - external hard drive Help Please - Page 1
Competent
Just brought a 250 gig external hard drive for £47 ebuyer but instructions are mimial, so advice would be appreciated.
The hard drive doesn't have an off switch, so when I turn the computer off does that mean I can cut the power to the hard drive from the plug socket or do I have to do something else. Can I leave it plugged into the usb (which is at the back of computer on mine) all the time even if hard drive power off and computer is on?
When I try to release the drive when computer is on, just keeps coming up saying drive in use cannot disconnect try later, hence turning computer off.
Don't want wreck the drive, so how do people of the forum turn thier external hard drives off.
Many thanks
Elite
I had this problem with my old external drive - i must have unplugged it when it was doing something in the end it corrupted a couple of files and killed the hard drive.
Now got a seagate one - again with no bloody switch on it 
Only use it for itunes - so I wait for a few secs after closing itunes and when light stops flickering and drive stops buzzing then switch it off.
Don't like the idea of leaving it on 24/7
Elite
my maxtor has dies on me which is great, as I plugged it in to doa full backup as I'm about to ake my PC apart to fiddle with it, and tought I'd do a quick and easy backup to usb 
anyway. To unplug while in windows right click on the little usb icon in task tray bottom right hand corner. If it won't let you unplug that device, make sure windows explorer is shut if looking at a file/directory on the usb device, and all programs that could be using it are shut.
when it says safely remove, you can safely remove
