My Passport as a Drag and Drop

WD External Drives WD Portable Drives
1

Looking to bypass Smartware and use My Passport as purely a drag n drop external.

Found a similar thread, but it was for a Mac user. It sad to reformat the drive as a HFS+ drive, then you’re good to go.

What do I need to format the drive as if I’m using Windows (xp) to achieve the same result?

2

For XP it should be formatted NTFS. If it came formatted for Windows it should be OK.

Joe

1 Like
3

First, what does PK mean?

Second, and most importantly, what is the advantages of each;

going thru the backup hassle i.e.“Smartware”

or using copy-to or drag & drop?

4

PK was a typo I meant OK. Smartware only backs up certain file types like video and music. It can also be a resource hog. Copy to or drag copies any file. There is also sync software to make folders match. MS has a free one called SyncToy.

Joe

5

Joe_S wrote:

  There is also sync software to make folders match. MS has a free one called SyncToy.

Joe

What do you mean by …making folders match?

What else does sync software do for me?

Is ‘copy-to’ , or ‘drag&drop’ going to be any quicker than ‘backup’?

Are ‘backup’ files compressed in some different manner than ‘copy-to’ or ‘drag&drops’ ? i.e. does one take up less space on the Passport side drive?

Also if I ever need to use what is on my passport to replace what is on my PC (after a total crash), do files that have been 'copy-to’ed  or  'drag&drop’ed  suffice just as a ‘backup’ file would?

thanks

6

You make a copy of say my documents on the external then with Sync make the selections there and it will make the one on external match the one on PC. It will change anything added or deleted. I don’t know about Smartware I only used it once and uninstalled it. I think it may use some compression but it doesn’t backup all file types. The copied files would be fine and serve as the backup to the PC. You don’t need both copies and a backup one is enough. If you accidentally delete a file off the PC it may be easier to locate on the external in copied files rather that in the backup file.

Joe