How to shutdown now?

Hi there.

I bought today this external hard drive… I was using XP SP3, but got a lot of issues and format it.

1 Hour before i’ve installed Windows 7 Ultimate x64 but still have “Connection to server bla bla” error… It’s making me crazy… Now my hard disk doesn’t have a software to use.

Anyway - I put a lot of pictures, applies, movies to the harddisk /which is recognized as a network location.

The speed is slow /30-40mb/s - it’s connected directly to the computer via ethernet cable.

My question now is - how to shutdown correctly the hard drive. I don’t think it’s a good idea to remove it directly from the electricity network at my home. 

How can I use this “dashboard”, and can I still use the hard disk without any kind of software.

Also, can you explain to me what it is “firmware”.

Please, for person like me it’s very hard to use it, without any information… ;[

Please anyone… It’s DAY 2 since i’ve connected it to the electricity network… 

Tell me how to stop it.

Hi,

the only way to shutdown the drive is to use the shutdown menu from dashboard. Therefore you’ve to connect  any  device with a webbrowser to the same network as your device. BTW: You’re writing here, therefore you seem to have a working device for doing that. 

On the other hand there should be no more open file handles because no computer is connected, therefore  taking the wdl from power should not crash it. But this is never guaranteed without proper shutdown.

Firmware: You should take a look at wikipedia about a more complete description for wikipedia. I would say firmware is that piece of software which is needed to operate a device like mobil phones, video/tv boxes, NAS-devices, cameras …

In the case of the WDL the firmware is a more or less complete linux-system. But until you enable ssh (which maybe would invalidate your guarantee for the device) you don’t have direct access to this operating system.