External hard drive?

I purchased a Western Digital Passport and am a bit confused. I was under the impression that I could store photos there and then delete same from my computer's hard drive, but WD warns that the next time the Passport is then synched to the computer, it too will be wiped of the photos as it basically mirrors whatever it finds (or doesn't) on the computer it's connected to. Is it not possible to "protect" the info that's been saved to the external drive so that the next sync doesn't delete it? Is this always meant to be a redundant copy, but never a stand-alone source of files?

I suspect it depends on whether you are using their 'back up' software program or simply using it as additional capacity. If it is what I think , then don't use their backup program and simply open it in windows explorer and drag and drop files from your pc onto it

Depends on how you're using the drive. Simply moving files onto the external drive (Copying and deleting from from PC) means that you haven't backed up your files, merely freed space on your PC.

If the External Drive dies, then you still lose the files.

If you've got them copied onto DVD and the External Drive, then that's fine.

But I think the answer you're actually looking for, is that you're using the built in software on the Passport, which is designed to syncronise (Mirror) the contents. If you formatted the drive, and just accessed it as an external drive, rather then use the Passport software, then it's all up to you...

Just a thought...

... don't rely on just one external drive for storage....

I copied all my photos onto an external in preparation for a re-install....

...new windows installed I went for the files on the drive...

...WHICH HAD DIED!!!!!

lost 6 months work, oh and the drive was only 2 months old!

As is probably pretty clear, my computer skills are meager (and that's being kind). I do understand that I would need to back up the back up to have a safe copy of the files if I deleted them from the computer, so either yet another external drive or dvds. I just don't want to be in the position where I've wiped the computer and then the next time I hook up the Passport that gets wiped too. Do I have to reformat the Passport and delete all the software it came with to use it in the drop-and-drag mode that was mentioned? I'd like to make this idiot-proof since, well... Seriously, short of someone sitting next to the computer and showing me, I'm not confident I can use this thing with subtle distinctions without risking a curse-and-shout moment. Thank you all for your patience so far.

Ed

Personally, I would reformat the drive if we're talking 'idiot proofing' (No offense ) I'd do it myself if I had one, because a piece of software that kept loading whenever I plugged the drive in, and that kept telling me what to do would annoy me very quickly!

I much prefer the simple approach to technology, and I work in the tech industry. Let me plug in the drive, and have it be a drive, not try and be some all singing, all dancing backup solution.

Formatting the drive also has the benefit of making sure it's in the NTFS file system, for reasons already outlined by other people.