USB Hard Drives Need OS?

C

Crimsonnaire

Member
I've been thinking about getting a portable USB hard disk drive to store files as a backup instead of using flash memory cards. But with a USB hard disk drive, would I need to install an operating system in order to start taking advantage of its capacity, or can it just be used as a storage device as soon as you plug it in?

Thanks in advance.
 
as soon as you plug it in it should be recognized

assuming you have a window OS
 
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If you were using your EXTERNAL HDD as your ONLY (or at least your main) Hard drive then you WOULD need an OS. However, you already have one with Windows on it.

When you plug it in, you will be good to go because your current OS will see it and be able to read it. If you bought an internal HDD the same would go, only one HDD needs an OS (or rather, none of them really do...you just need to be booted into one...)
 
If it is a pre-built external no problems as these are already formatted , plug and play.
If you bought 3.5/2.5 external case, and internal hard drive separately, it will have to be formatted for windows to recognize it.
 
Cool, thanks.

I like to have the hard drive as separable as possible to avoid having to go on a technical crusade to retrieve locked data from internal drives when the computer fails, or to lose data altogether after crashing.
 
Have a look at the 2.5" , they go up to 500gig and they are nice and small.
Also no need for external power supply when connecting to PC. :)
 
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