X's Drive a \"Must have \" Accesory

[CyberDyneSystems]

O-kay I've only had it for a few days,. but the "X's -Drive" is a godsend.

I highly recomend that anyone with a DSLR or a high megapixel Digital consider this (or another brand "digital wallet") as part of there accesory short list.

Consider this;

A 1 Gig Flash card sells in the $200.00 neighborhood.

A 30 Gig X-Drive can be had for approx $190.00!!!!

Here is the rule of thumb,.. BUY TWO CARDS!

No matter how much flash memory you want,. make sure it is in the form of TWO CARDS. Get the two cards and an X-drive.

This way you can Fill a memory card,. and when you swap the the second card to keep shooting,. pop the full card in the X-drive and press "copy".

The Copying will be done long before you fill your second card!

No downtime! No waiting to empty a card!

I did this yesterday.. The X-drive was in my leather shoulder camera case,... weighs next to nothing,. and I downloaded Flash cards in the camera bag while stalking some juvenile Blue Herons.

Nonstop shooting for only $190.00 :)

I like it!

[hurry]

I like it too :-)

Using it for CF/SD/MMC/SM/xD - it's the best for all kind of memory cards.

It also reads MemoryStick & MemoryStickPro - but - arrrggh - I hate these proprietary sticks.

Best suited for Canon 10D are 2x 512mb CF or 2x 256 mb CF and a XdriveII

[PacAce]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
A 30 Gig X-Drive can be had for approx $190.00!!!!


Cyber, where'd you get your 30 Gb X-Drive?

[CyberDyneSystems]

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VP2060-30-K

The Computer Geeks RULE!!!

I buy sooo much PC parts from there it is pathetic. They speciallize in liquidating last months flavor. You can get some great deals there.

They also have the "Empty" X-drive case if you have a hard drive fro about $100.00,. and the PCMCIA Compact flash adapter for $8.00 and a USB2 6in1 card reader for $20.00!!! :D

[cowman345]

My hard drive in my x-drive can't even be breathed upon when it's copying or else it gives an error.

I don't want to break the bank on a hard drive, and i really don't need more than 6-10 gigs, does anyone have a reccomendation on a REALLY nice hard drive (i.e. one i can carry around and walk with WHILE copying is in progress)?

-dave-

[defordphoto]

cowman345 wrote:
My hard drive in my x-drive can't even be breathed upon when it's copying or else it gives an error.

I don't want to break the bank on a hard drive, and i really don't need more than 6-10 gigs, does anyone have a reccomendation on a REALLY nice hard drive (i.e. one i can carry around and walk with WHILE copying is in progress)?

-dave-



You must have a super-sensitive HD in the X-Drive. Mine doesn't do that at all. Toss another drive in it.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Yeah,. Cowman,. you definately have a lemon. Notebook drives are supposed to take a certain amout of moving about... there is something wrong with your drive for sure. $99.00 will get you a 30 gig drive at the link above,. or maybe just try taking apart your X-drive and putting it back together? Could be a loose connection? But I am betting you have a bad hard drive.

[robertwgross]

Geez, on mine, I can drive down the road with the unit copying while it sits on the center armrest console. A normal laptop-style hard disk is resistant to ordinary vibration.

---Bob Gross---

[jduncan]

have any of you seen this apacer disk steno unit which writes cd's straight from camera cards and runs on batteries?


james

[maple]

Quick question: do I need to have a notebook harddisk or just any harddisk will do? And would self-installation be difficult (as opposed to getting the pre-installed 30gig)? Thanks.

[defordphoto]

You need a notebook drive. Installation is ultra simple. I got a killer deal on a 30gig assembled but have had mine apart for battery replacement and there's nothing to it. A couple a screws and you're playing.

[robertwgross]

What Jim stated is correct. A laptop-style hard disk is much smaller than a desktop-standard hard disk.

---Bob Gross---

[hurry]

Xdrive-case is suited for 2.5" drives with height 9.5mm.
They need less power and are more shock resistant.

regular drives are 3.5"

[maple]

Thanks all, I might actually be persuaded to get an X's drive! I have a 1gig MD, and 4X128 CF, which were sufficient only for JPEGs during my trip to the Middle East. No RAWs. :(

[maple]

I am about to go on a long trip and would like a portable storage drive for use with my IBM 1gb MicroDrive and 2 X 128mb CF.

Is the X's Drive 2 still a good bet? It sells for $89 on Computer Geeks. What about the X's drive 1? Unfortunately they no longer sell the drive pre-installed with a harddisk - might have to buy a 30/40gb drive separately.

Would appreciate all advice, since I plan to make just one such purchase. Thanks a lot!

Added: How does one initially format the harddisk? By linking up the X's drive to the computer through USB?

[robertwgross]

Mine is the original X drive, and I had gotten it "empty" from Computer Geeks. Then I added a small hard disk. I think that is the procedure to format it via USB, but I don't recall. I remember it went exactly according to the instructions that were enclosed, so I did not have to think about it any deeper.

That reminds me. I will be taking mine on a road trip in one week, so I better get it out, dust it off, and charge up the internal lithium battery (it has been stored for a couple of months).

---Bob Gross---

[maple]

Thank you, I think I will get the X's II from Comp Geeks for $89, and maybe a harddisk from Ebay. If there are any complaints about the X's drive, please share them!

[JMSetzler]

I have the Kanguru MediaX-change 2.0 20gb model and I love it. It is very nice to have in the field. I only have one 256mb CF card and this is all I need :)

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

1x 512MB CF and a X's Drive are all I need.
I love the Xs drive, the price is low because it has no bells and whistles I do not use, just simple get the card empty.

Greetings,
Frank

[openspace]

Maple, beware of buying any hard drive off Ebay. I used to work for a network consulting firm, and my boss was addicted to buying cheap parts off Ebay. I can't tell you how many times he got burned looking for the next deal. New drives from IBM, Maxtor, Western Digital, Seagate - and all had serious sector errors, many unrecoverable. It's always best to buy new from a reputable vendor.

[maple]

OK, thanks for the advice. Seems like I will be buying both items from Comp Geeks.


http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VP-2060

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=MK6021GAS-N

Total $258 + $16 S/H to Canada, not too bad.
With the drive, I think I will be shooting RAW all the time, although the slow conversion to JPEG is a pain.

Is CompGeeks okay?

[robertwgross]

Geez. 60GB is enough to last me for a century of portable use.

---Bob Gross---

[HeatherJL]

Wow, I'm glad that this post was resurrected, I was just about to buy 2 - 1gb cf cards. I currently have a 512mb and a 128mb... but instead of buying more, I think I'll buy a 20gb (or more) of cheap portable storage!! FANTASTIC!! :)

[robertwgross]

My strategy for storage involves being out on the road for a week or two. I shoot all day long, so I have about 2GB in CF cards. At the end of each day, I return to my car where I have my X drive. First, I view all of the images on the camera and delete the ones that are junk. I dump the CF cards to the X drive, then reformat the CF cards in the camera so that they are ready for re-use on the following day.

I have marked tiny letters on my CF cards, "A", "B", "C", etc. I keep them stored in a small Lowepro wallet and use them in the same order all the time. The "A" card rides in the camera most of the time. With labeling that way, you are less likely to get confused about what is full and what is empty. When you dump them to the X drive, you tend to get better sequencing.

Alas, after one year of constant use, one of my CF cards ("A") got unreliable. It lost a half-dozen images. So, I replaced it with another one, labeled it "A" and kept shooting. Would anybody like to purchase one slightly used 256MB CF card? It works good some of the time.

---Bob Gross---

[Sketcher]

I've been holding out on getting a portable storage device (I have four 512MB CF II's - so haven't really needed anything else) but this X's II looks pretty sweet.

What are the Con's of this thing? Regarding the Pro/Con argument of the X's Drive from you who have the beast?

[tarves57]

I have the Xs drive I with 20GB, cost me £134 which is the cheapest I found here in the UK. It's great, and although the Xs II is probably faster, I'm not bothered.

The only problem I had was installing it on my Windows 2000 PC, where I had a few problems. However, I must have done something right because it works great now.

I also use two CF cards in my 10D and swop them over when full. So far so good!

Susan

[elm54]

sketcher wrote:

What are the Con's of this thing? Regarding the Pro/Con argument of the X's Drive from you who have the beast?
I use it with 3 256mb cards. The only draw back I see is it is slow to upload to my Mac , It is a Xdrive II but I only have usb. :) But it does seem to be a must have when shooting Raw and out and about.

Eric

[CyberDyneSystems]

The only con I can imagine after several months (nearly a year) is battery power. The lithium battery lasts a long time but it is limited in that sense.

The X-drive is also susceptible to impact effecting a transfer.. so don't knocj it too hard! :D

As far as battery power, I have a possible solution.

I originally got the X-drive for a specific trip I was going to take out of the country (to the great white north.. Newfoundland) Well that trip fell through this summer,.

....but my intention was to travel only with the X-drive,. no laptop. I could recharge the Xdrive in a car or with a standard outlet,. but I wanted extended battery time as well. The last I wanted was to be getting the shots of my dreams of Eagles and Gannets etc and run out of battery power....

It turns out the Voltage that the battery supplies is 7.2, the same as a BP 511.

Well it so happnes that the Lemar Mach one speedcharger has add on "Battery adapters". The BP511 adapter is included.

I will one day get a second adapter and solder up a jack to the X-drive to receive power from BP-511 batteries as well as its own iterenal. This way I can simply use my existing stock of six BP-511s and in fact if this does indeed work I would simply buy a bunch more MAHA Powerex units at $30.00 each.

[CyberDyneSystems]

elm54 wrote:
sketcher wrote:

What are the Con's of this thing? Regarding the Pro/Con argument of the X's Drive from you who have the beast?
I use it with 3 256mb cards. The only draw back I see is it is slow to upload to my Mac , It is a Xdrive II but I only have usb. :) But it does seem to be a must have when shooting Raw and out and about.

Eric

And on a USB2 equipped computer the transfer is pretty damn fast!!!!

From the X-drive's hard drive to your PC hard drive via USB2 is a LOT faster than any flash card can handle!

[tony723]

CyberDyneSystems wrote:
The only con I can imagine after several months (nearly a year) is battery power. The lithium battery lasts a long time but it is limited in that sense.

The X-drive is also susceptible to impact effecting a transfer.. so don't knocj it too hard! :D

As far as battery power, I have a possible solution.

I originally got the X-drive for a specific trip I was going to take out of the country (to the great white north.. Newfoundland) Well that trip fell through this summer,.

....but my intention was to travel only with the X-drive,. no laptop. I could recharge the Xdrive in a car or with a standard outlet,. but I wanted extended battery time as well. The last I wanted was to be getting the shots of my dreams of Eagles and Gannets etc and run out of battery power....

It turns out the Voltage that the battery supplies is 7.2, the same as a BP 511.

Well it so happnes that the Lemar Mach one speedcharger has add on "Battery adapters". The BP511 adapter is included.

I will one day get a second adapter and solder up a jack to the X-drive to receive power from BP-511 batteries as well as its own iterenal. This way I can simply use my existing stock of six BP-511s and in fact if this does indeed work I would simply buy a bunch more MAHA Powerex units at $30.00 each.
A good DIY! Can you show us some photos of the actual look?

Thanks!

[ashforth]

I bought an Image Tank G2 with 20gb drive and find it easy to use. I don't remember where I bought it (on line), but it's now available on E-bay:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2960186659&category=15215

Herb

[DonCoon]

http://www.mydigitaldiscount.com

Has the 20GB version for $199.

[Sketcher]

Hmm,

Now, seeing that it uses a 2.5" notebook HD I'm even more intrigued. I have a few 12, 30 and 40 GB notebook HD's that have been sitting on the shelf! Yay me! :).

Now... if I can just get that old blade server raid controller to run off that lithium ion, stripe that sucker across three 2.5" notebook drives... ;).

[CyberDyneSystems]

Sketcher wrote:
Hmm,

Now, seeing that it uses a 2.5" notebook HD I'm even more intrigued. I have a few 12, 30 and 40 GB notebook HD's that have been sitting on the shelf! Yay me! :).

Now... if I can just get that old blade server raid controller to run off that lithium ion, stripe that sucker across three 2.5" notebook drives... ;).


A link to the "Bare Kit" add your own laptop drive,. just $89.00 :)

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=VP-2060

[defordphoto]

I have been using my 30gig X's Drive I for about a year now and it has performed flawlessly. I have had no issues to report at all. The USB1 is a bit slow compared to USB2 or FW, but I knew that going in and it's still not an issue. This drive comes in very handy out in the field shooting motorsports and/or jet sprints under a myriad of less than desirable conditions. I highly recommend this product.

[Sketcher]

Well, being that I have the 2.5's on hand I figured you can't go wrong for $96.00 of portable storage. Should have mine next week :).

Thanks for the post CDS! Or..... Shame on you - me spending more money...

[SteveCliff]

Ok, eveyone's raving about the XS drive - but a small word of caution. Don't expect to break any speed trials when you download your pictures!

The transfer speed from the XS-Drive to my PC is fine, no problems at all. But the transfer speed from my IBM Microdrive (1Gb) and various 512/256Mb CF's is *really* slow.

If you make sure you have 2 x CF's and shoot on one while downloading from the other, you should be ok.

But don't expect to shoot a full CF, download to the XS Drive and then shoot again .... unless you want to take a nice long coffee break imbetween shoots!

Cheers,
Steve.

[maple]

Chanced upon this, and am wondering if it does all that the X's drive does, plus more?? Any advice? Thanks!

http://www.compgeeks.com/details.asp?invtid=V-MP3H

Portable Digital Data Player

On the road to Comdex again, like a band of geeks we go down the information superhighway, we're the best of friends, insisting that the IT world be turnin' our way, and our way is on the road to Comdex again...except that riding on the plane and being forced to watch those stupid in flight movies is horrific!!! Start entertaining yourself with the things that you enjoy with this Portable Digital Data Player. Featuring MP3, MPG, JPG, and DAT file support, this multimedia player lets you watch movies, look at pictures, and listen to music that you enjoy! It also supports a vast array of media types, ranging from an internal hard drive (not included) to a compact flash card, which makes this multimedia player one of the most flexible on the market. If you get tired of looking at the built in screen, you can simply plug it into any standard NTSC TV set!! Also, if you want to just use the unit as a portible stroage device, you can do that too!! This multimedia player will also run for about two and a half hours on a fully charged battery. Our in-house Geek tests have proven this player to have exceptional audio and video quality as well. This is a real must have for the frequent traveler, and also a great gadget to keep those kids occupied when you take them on extended road trips.

[maple]

May have answered my own question

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/vosonic-vmp3h/

[rickyd]

OK ! Im convinced I need an Xdrive. Now how about a recommendation on choice of hard drive in the 20 gig range. Are there any to stay away from as comp geeks has about 4 drives listed in that gigabyte rane. How hard is it to install in the xdrive? Thanks for the help.

[Plexiprs]

This review of an X-Drive has pics showing how easy installing a drive is....................hmmmm............maybe I DO need one.................

http://www.steves-digicams.com/2002_reviews/xdrive-vp2030.html

[defordphoto]

I had mine apart once to change the battery. Once the case is apart, it's four screws and a plug for the HD. Simple.

[J.A.F. Doorhof]

Hi,

Changing the drive is a piece of cake, a little bit harder than changing a CF card :D.

Choose a harddrive with the lowest RPM, when there are more with the slowest RPM take the one with the highest cache size.

Speed is NOT important, but powerconsumption is, and a 5400 rpm drive is too power hungry.

Greetings,
Frank

[maple]

I just ordered the X's drive II as well as the Toshiba 60gb 4200RPM 2.5" harddisk. Total $275 including the $17 S/H to Canada. Great deal, IMO.

For your info, here are some promotional codes which can be used at checkout:

trickorgeek Free Xirlink USB IBM PC Color Camera (little webcam which sells for about $17) if you purchase above $50.00

jumpondeals 10% off purchases except those listed as Geek Specials... I tried to use this but got nothing off because both items were Specials. You can get the IBM 48gb harddisk for 10% less because it's not a Special, but it's refurbished, so I gave that a miss.

Good luck and have fun!
DM

[wtlloyd]

Ya, I want to see that battery conversion too...
Low battery life is the only complaint I have about my XDriveII. In their favor, they include the 12v car power adapter, instead of stinging you for another $20 like most companies would.
XDrive III, I would buy if it had a better battery and allowed on-device review of at least files, if not images. Kinda worrisom to be clearing your card after offloading without really knowing the files made it into the XDrive.

[elm54]

Oh Well
As I said The transfer on a mac is Slowwww, Like almost 5 minutes for 256mb... So I just broke down and ordered a pci usb 2 card for my G4. 8) I hope it works and speeds things up.... I'm downloading to my mac as I type this post on my antique 866 p3 PC.
We'll see ???
Eric

[defordphoto]

wtlloyd wrote:
Kinda worrisom to be clearing your card after offloading without really knowing the files made it into the XDrive.

When I first started using mine that kinda worried me too, but in the year I have been using it, I have not lost one shot.

[scorp888]

tarves57 wrote:
I have the Xs drive I with 20GB, cost me £134 which is the cheapest I found here in the UK. It's great, and although the Xs II is probably faster, I'm not bothered.

The only problem I had was installing it on my Windows 2000 PC, where I had a few problems. However, I must have done something right because it works great now.

I also use two CF cards in my 10D and swop them over when full. So far so good!

Susan

Where in the UK did you find it?
TIA

Ian

[scorp888]

tarves57 wrote:
I have the Xs drive I with 20GB, cost me £134 which is the cheapest I found here in the UK. It's great, and although the Xs II is probably faster, I'm not bothered.

The only problem I had was installing it on my Windows 2000 PC, where I had a few problems. However, I must have done something right because it works great now.

I also use two CF cards in my 10D and swop them over when full. So far so good!

Susan

Where in the UK did you find it?
TIA

Ian

[Sketcher]

Done gone and got me one uh dem derr X's Drive II contraptions. Put 8GB of mp3's, 4GB of Video in it; 11GB of Images and have about 7GB left to offload CF's ontu. The mp3's and Gig's of images are just there to test the storage and transfer performance. But, with 30GB of portable storage I don't quite feel cramped for space just yet.

The only down side I see thus far is the inability to view/delete files w/out hooking up to a pc, verify that your files transferred uncorrupted and the like (but for the price - I'm not really complaining). I knew all that going in though and those issues aside - this X's Drive II is one sweet little gadget!

I had the notebook drive onhand so this kind of capability for $95.00 shipped is worth every penny!

[tarves57]

Tia,
I believe I got it from Dabs, but I'll check that out tonight as I need to speed off to work right now!

Back later.
Susan

[boobops]

I agree.

The X drive is fantastic.

I use a couple of 1Gb microdrives and cannot fill the second microdrive before the X drive has copied the first - even if that happened I have a couple of CF cards to assist.

Best digital accessary bare none - sorted!

[TwoBuells]

I bought my X's drive from "computer Geeks" for $91.00. I had a old 12gb drive from an old notebook upgrade and it works great. I just need to re-partition the HD to one drive and I'm having trouble doing it through the usb port. I can format it with no trouble but I need to fdisk the drive to partition the drvie back to one drive. any suggestions?

[Sketcher]

TwoBuells wrote:
I bought my X's drive from "computer Geeks" for $91.00. I had a old 12gb drive from an old notebook upgrade and it works great. I just need to re-partition the HD to one drive and I'm having trouble doing it through the usb port. I can format it with no trouble but I need to fdisk the drive to partition the drvie back to one drive. any suggestions?


Are you sure you're not confusing the multiple Drive letters of the multiple readers in the X Drive and not actual partitions? When you format the initial Drive reference, what size does it say that partition is? If it shows 12GB (the size you mention) then you don't need to re-partition.

[TwoBuells]

I was trying to fdisk and format the Xs drive through the usb port with no luck

with win xp it would not reconize the second partition.
with the Xs Drive hooked up to my old notebook running win 98 I could see the two parititions plus the cf, sm and ms (drives) I couldn't get the drive to run in my old notebook so I put it in my P3 Sony vaio and booted it from a floppy, fdisk it than formated it. now every thing is fine.



now I have a 12gb Xs drive using one of the old hard drives I had collecting dust......thanks......

[Vertabreaker]

I just received my x drive(10gig) yesterday and I can see the potential already. I picked up another 256 card the other day for when one card is full and dumping to the x drive. So no more 30 shots(raw on 256) and your done for me. The only bad thing is that I'm going to be working some long hours this week and I dont see myself taking any shots til the weekend. Then I have to help a friend move so... :(

[MrKickalot]

How fast does the X-Drive get the info from the card? Does it erase the card after it transfers? I currently have 256 cards (2 of them) which are only good for about 30 RAW's, I can go through 30 pictures pretty fast!! thanks

[CyberDyneSystems]

It will transfer from the card about as fast as the card will allow... (which isn't really fast)

...but a 256 card should be under 5 minutes?

The X-drive will NEVER erase your card for you!

After the tranfer is complete you can simply put the card back in your camera and format. (quickest way to erase the card)

[tarves57]

My apologies! Above I said I thought I had bought my XS drive from Dabs. Wrong. I finally found the receipt, and can say that I got it from UK Digital Cameras:at the following link:
http://ukdigitalcameras.safeshopper.com/62/387.htm?184

Susan

[scorp888]

tarves57 wrote:
My apologies! Above I said I thought I had bought my XS drive from Dabs. Wrong. I finally found the receipt, and can say that I got it from UK Digital Cameras:at the following link:
http://ukdigitalcameras.safeshopper.com/62/387.htm?184

Susan



Thanks for that.

I've had a look, and that's the old version of the drive for £255.

Found a store doing a special deal on the version 2 of the drives, for £199

http://www.warehouseexpress.com/specials/intro.html

[maple]

Got my X's drive and Toshiba 60gb hdd this afternoon! Some questions now...!

(1) Is it normal for the hdd cable to be in a rather awkward position after the hdd is connected to it?

(2) HDD should have the round "hole" pointing up?

(3) The guide mentioned formatting the drive using the "format" function on Windows, yet under the FAQ it said that Windows 2k would not format a new hdd that does not have a partition, and that I should use another operation system??

(4) 4 drives would appear in Windows. Which would I choose to format?

I am a little into my initial 8hr charging, and am so excited to wake up to it tomorrow morning! Please advise, thanks!

[CyberDyneSystems]

1) I seem to remember it was a tight fit.

2) The print should be on top,. and the circuit board on the bottom,. either way.. the cable will only plug in if it is facing the right side up.

3) I don't use Win2K but Win98 and XP will format it as it is not considered a residient drive (being USB)

4) The 4 drives are the card slots and the hard drive. By right clicking on each and trying to format (with no cards installed) you will find the hard drive as it will be the only one there!

One of the other drive letters will be the CF slot.

[maple]

Thanks, but I still have some doubts about how to assemble the hdd. The assembly chart shows the hole and the circuits facing up, and somewhere in the guide says not to block that hole which serves as a vent for heat release. So, should the smooth surface be facing up or down?

Maybe I will open it up again and see if the cable will fit if the hdd is the other way around.

[vvizard]

maple wrote:
Got my X's drive and Toshiba 60gb hdd this afternoon! Some questions now...!

(1) Is it normal for the hdd cable to be in a rather awkward position after the hdd is connected to it?

(2) HDD should have the round "hole" pointing up?

(3) The guide mentioned formatting the drive using the "format" function on Windows, yet under the FAQ it said that Windows 2k would not format a new hdd that does not have a partition, and that I should use another operation system??

(4) 4 drives would appear in Windows. Which would I choose to format?

I am a little into my initial 8hr charging, and am so excited to wake up to it tomorrow morning! Please advise, thanks!

You should not use win2k, you should use Linux or BSD.. And that goes for the rest of your computer-needs to :) Ok, I'll try to be a little less opensource-zealot, and a little more computer-helper... It's fairly normal not beeing able to format a harddrive if there's no partitions on it. There's nothing to format then. Logical enough.. Creating a partition isn't hard though. It's a simple fdisk operation (no matter what OS). There's probably windows-GUI's for it too (partition-magic, etc..) What OS (or flavour of it) you use to format it don't mean nothing. What you format it "too" is the only thing that matters. My take is you'll format it to FAT32, cause FAT12/16/32 is probably the only things the X-drive's limited electronics can understand (just a wild (but probably true) guess). It's also all you need for such a device.

[maple]

I actually also have Mandrake, but although it's a lot more stable, it's also somewhat slower (eg Mozilla), and the email software I use (can't remember name) freezes every time I try to drag the emails to another box - which is such a pain!

Will figure how to format the drive...?

[vvizard]

I don't know Mandrake. Use Gentoo and OpenBSD personally. OpenBSD for servers, and Gentoo for desktop. Also have a virtual-machine emulation-program called vmware (vmware.com) so that I can emulate windows-2000 from Linux. That's for Photoshop-CS.

Mozilla is slow yes. It's big and bloated. For a lightweight(er) webbrowser, try Firebird (Just the browser, not the rest of the mozilla-crap), Opera, or if you happen to run KDE, the KDE webbrowser (konqueror). But enough of Linux-talk, we have dedicated forums for this :)

To format a harddrive in Linux, you have to know what device your system will reckognize it as. It's /dev/hdX if it's an IDE-drive (which it is). But if you don't have it inserted into the computer, but are using it through the X's drive USB-interface, it'll be reckognized as a SCSI-disk (yeah, Linux scsi-emulates USB-mass-storage devices). If you don't have other SCSI-devices, and no cards are inserted to the X's drive, it's probably found as /dev/sda. They you have to run "fdisk /dev/sda" (as root). Push "n" (new partition), answer "1" to partition-number, then hit enter two times when prompted, to make the partition use all available space. Press "w" (to save the partition-table to the disk, and quit fdisk).

Then for the formating. If mandrake got the dosfsutils packages installed, you can format it with "mkfs.vfat -F 32 /dev/sda1". This will make a FAT32 filesystem on it.

[maple]

I have no idea how Mandrake formatting works (my neighbour is my personal Linux tech!), so I did not dare to meddle with the new hdd. Went to WIN2k, and clicked FORMAT hdd FAT32. After about an hour, it was only 70% done (through USB) and then the X's drive battery went flat. Shut down. Poof.

Now I am left sobbing that I have the X's in hand, but still can't use it until at least 3 hours later when the recharging's done. :(

Will call my tech this evening!

[vvizard]

Never used a 2.5" hdd. Is the connectors the same as for the 3.5" ? If so, mount it in your computer while formatting. Won't give you any battery-troubles

[PPi-]

Have you experienced how much of shake does X's Drive handle? Can you keep it in your pocket or camera bag while moving around and continuing shooting? Hope it works well enough during the winter too.

[robertwgross]

I have the old original X-drive, and I had installed a small hard disk inside it. Earlier this month, I had returned to my car from a few hours of shooting, so I had 1GB or so of CF cards to "dump" to the X-drive. I set the X-drive on my car, turned on the power, stuck in the first CF card, and then hit the Copy button. A minute or two later, a gust of wind blew the whole thing off the car and onto the parking lot, which had a gravel surface. The X-drive kept right on going and didn't miss a byte. The images transferred normally to the computer later on, and all were fine.

Kids, this is only for trained professionals. Don't do it at home!

---Bob Gross---

[CyberDyneSystems]

Ahhh,.. how to get a partiton on that thing....

In win2K you need to go to admin services.. (you can't run Fdisk on it if it is attached to a USB port)

I think it is similar to XP,. but not 100%

I will come back and try and do a step by step once I get in front of an XP PC (right now Im at work on Win95 :(

[CyberDyneSystems]

Maple

this is step by step in WIN XP,. I think it is the same for Win2K with only Slight terminology differences..

go to "Start", Settings, "coltrol panel"

In cotrol panel select "Administrative tools"

In admin tools select "Computer management"

In the left hand side of the Computer management window,. select "Disk Manager"

Now in the right hand side all your disks should come up including the "unmounted" one with no partitions. It should have it's capacity on the right hand side shaded in black which indicates that there is no partition.

Right click on the drive (it should be indetifyable by size in GB) and select "initialize drive" or some such termionolgy. Follow any steps if a wizard opens to initialize... (but that may only be a WinXP thing)

Once the drive is "Initialized" then right click in the black space to the right of the drive and select "Create partition"

Whaen asked which type select "Extended" (this is important,. you only wnat a logocal drive on this sucker)

After you make the extended partion, right click within that space and selct create logical drive.

Then you will need to format it.. you may want to select a "quick" format to save about 2 hours of time :)

[maple]

Thanks for the great help!
Problem is: When I chose FAT32, it says Volume Size is too Big!

Must a 60gb hdd be formatted as NTFS, which the X's drive cannot use? Or do I meddle with the FAT32 Allocation Size (now set to default)?

Help!

[CyberDyneSystems]

Fat 32 shoud be able to handle 60 gig no problem???

Try bumping up the cluster size if it will let you... but even that should be automatic... ? What cluster size is it using by default? I think FAT32 will do up to a 32K cluster... but try 16... see if that does it.

[maple]

I am getting impatient. Tested 8162, 16k, 32k, 64k, 128, and 256k and responses ranged from "cluster size too small" to "volume too large" to "cluster size too huge"... I think WIN2k is trying to encourage irreversible NTFS formatting. Maybe I really have to learn to format through Linux?

[CyberDyneSystems]

Aaaaargh!!!!!!!1

"NOTE, There is also a limit in Win2k/XP not to create and format FAT32 partitions beyond 32 GByte to encourage usage of NTFS."

MS at it's finest,.. Win2k could deal with a 60 gig FAT32 drive no problem,. they have just built in a "feature" that won't allow you to MAKE a Fat32 partition over 32 GB!!!!!

Now I don't know what to tell you... without you having to get more stuff...

You could get an adapter so you can install the drive internally temporarily.. then use a Win98 boot disk to run FDISK and make the partition,..

or you could get a program like Partition Magic and it will create it...

[maple]

here!

[maple]

got it, BRB!

[maple]

Started.. this is exciting.

[CyberDyneSystems]

lol :D

What? What's exciting ... :eyes :p

//la da deee la da daa

[Belmondo]

Even I'm excited now, and I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Tom

[CyberDyneSystems]

belmondo wrote:
Even I'm excited now, and I don't have a clue what you're talking about. Tom


Well ,. I was sending private messages,. very erotic,. it went like this

O-kay,. anyone ready to be my slave, raise your hand.

maple wrote:
here!

Maple,.. perfect,. go to the kitchen and get some Syrup!

maple wrote:
got it, BRB!

O-kay,. now,.. drop your pants and start rubbing the syrup between your legs...

maple wrote:
Started.. this is exciting.

... and indeed,. it went on from there.... :D

[maple]

CyberDyneSystems, just wanted to share with you my workflow which finally solved this problem, and also hoping that this would help some other new X's drive users.

Regardless of whatever I tried, WIN2k refused to format the 60GB under FAT32. Also, industry software like PartitionMagic failed to locate the X's drive as a functional drive. I tried to format on Linux, even had the partition done there, but at times the O/S froze, at other times it managed to partition the hdd, but formatting failed ( program just stopped, said it was done, but hdd still turned out as "unformatted" ). Once, it froze halfway through formatting, so I rebooted. Next thing, my hdd capacity fell from 60gb to 24gb free. So, finally I resorted to this:

(1) Took out my notebook that had collected inches of dust. It had WIN2K installed and the hdd was under NTFS.

(2) Installed PartitionMagic and deleted Partition. Chose to re-format hdd, this time under FAT32.

(3) Installed WIN98 SE, another CD that had collected even more dust.

(4) Installed X's drive software and then plugged in X's drive ( "plug and pray" ). Happily, the 4 drives appeared.

(5) Formatted X's drive on WIN98, single partition and under FAT32.

(6) Went back to desktop. Plugged and prayed. Voila! X's drive appeared on WIN2K, with single partition, 60gb capacity and under FAT32.

Now, I am doing to transfer an entire 60gb worth of data from a physical disk into my X's drive. Then follow the above steps to re-format that disk under FAT32. This drive will then be shared between WIN2K and Linux (which requires FAT32 for file-sharing). This action also serves to test the integrity of my X's drive.

Hope this helps. The 2 biggest lessons of the day:
(1) When buying an X's drive, do not buy a hdd larger than 32gb
(2) Do not upgrade to WIN2K

Hope these make sense. There must be easier ways to do this, but being a complete computer mortal, I am happy with how things turned out. T.h.a.n.k.s also to CyberDyneSystems for all his advice, help and emails... not forgetting also the stress-relieving techniques which I mastered under his instruction. ;)

[vvizard]

Ok, here's my workflow for partitioning a "120GB Western Digital Special Edition" drive in the FAT32 filesystem.

1. Turn my computer on. Well, actully I didn't have to. Got three of them, and their status looks like this:

23:28:33 up 26 days, 11:40, 1 user, load average: 0.26, 0.23, 0.20
11:26PM up 65 days, 13:07, 2 users, load averages: 0.15, 0.14, 0.09
11:26PM up 65 days, 13:11, 1 user, load averages: 0.16, 0.10, 0.09

But YMMW =)

2. Open up a terminal as root.
3. Use "fdisk" to make one primary partition using all available space
4. type "mkfs.vfat -F32 /dev/hdc1"
5. wait a few seconds (honestly that's all it takes)
6. Fill it up with **** :-P

Sometimes I'm wondering why people are saying windows is user-friendly =)

EDIT: Sorry, I didn't actually read your entire workflow before posting. I just saw it was big and complicated. Have to add one thing. The above described workflow doesn't require steps like actually installing a new operation-system first =) happy hacking! (and photography of course!)

[CyberDyneSystems]

It's true VVizard,. the stumbling block that made what could have been a few simple steps in WinXP/2K was MicroShafts implementation of an INTENTIONAL BUG!

A BUG that limits the size of FAT32 partiton that Win2K will allow you to create.

As far as your workflow goes,. all of it would be moot,. as Maple was dealing with a USB installed HD,.

...if it had been attached to an IDE controller,. (like he eventally did in his laptop) he would have been able to boot to a floppy and Fdisk as well.

But floppy boots don't install USB drivers,. so there was the rub.

[maple]

Actually, I formatted my new 60gb hdd through USB attached to the X's drive. I did not open up the notebook as I had planned to! The method worked on my notebook because I re-formatted the notebook's original HDD to FAT32 and replaced WIN2K with WIN98. The latter has no problems with formatting >32gb on FAT32. Happy. :)

Oh, as for the battery problems... I simply left the power cable attached to the X's drive. :D

[vvizard]

CDS: The workflow will still be exactly the same. Just replace my occurance of /dev/hdc1 with /dev/sda1 (mass-storage devices connected via USB (and possibly other) is emulated as scsi-disks in Linux). I can then run fdisk and create partitions as I would do on a normal harddrive. Heck, I just verified it, by creating/deleting several partitions on my Microdrive, through my USB-2.0 connected Sandisk ImageMate 6 in 1.

No intentional bugs, just some un-intentional =) But I feel the trade-off is decent, and I will never look back :) MS is sure to shoot their feet off sometime. They're aiming closer and closer =)

[hextor]

HOW to FORMAT HD Bigger than XX GB

In WIN XP - 2000 you have a limitation on the size of FAT32 partitions. I think it is about 30GB or something the like. You get the message - partition size too big or something like that when formatting. Or don´t get the option of formatting in FAT32 in the admin services panel.

To do so, the easy way (the other is installing Linux and formating with it) you need to download a utility from the X-drive page:

http://www.xs-drive.com/download.htm

look under "Supports formatting for HD under win2000"

Hope it helps!

[vvizard]

Another easy way, to get UNIX-power when needed, without installing it, is to download knoppix or lnx-bbc. (just google for them). They're bootable Linux-distros. Just put in the cd, boot the machine, and you get a fairly decent UNIX-system without installing a single file. When you're done, just reboot, and remove the CD.

[maple]

hextor wrote:
HOW to FORMAT HD Bigger than XX GB

In WIN XP - 2000 you have a limitation on the size of FAT32 partitions. I think it is about 30GB or something the like. You get the message - partition size too big or something like that when formatting. Or don´t get the option of formatting in FAT32 in the admin services panel.

To do so, the easy way (the other is installing Linux and formating with it) you need to download a utility from the X-drive page:

http://www.xs-drive.com/download.htm

look under "Supports formatting for HD under win2000"

Hope it helps!

Does this allow formatting hdd above 32gb? Or just below that?

[theoldmoose]

I have an X's Drive-II, and encountered a number of problems:

1) On Win2K Prog, USB 2.0 was *very* unstable on an ASUS P4B533-E motherboard. Symptoms were 'unsafe removal of device' at various times during transfers to the desktop, and appeared to be aggravated by attempting to copy to a network mounted volume (i.e. using the ethernet interface DMA/interrupts at the same time). I finally ultimately solved the problem by wiping out the Microsoft-supplied USB 2.0 drivers, and upgrading to some ones posted on the Intel site that were chipset-specific. This was particularly hard to debug, because the X's-supplied drivers were somehow interfering with the ones bundled in Win2K Pro. As an additional data point, the drive worked fine on a Dell Optiplex desktop at work, running WinXP Pro (with Microsoft-supplied USB drivers) on USB 2.0 interfaces. Go figure.

2) Even after solving this problem, I have noticed problems with support for long or complex file names on the X's Drive-II, and also largish (greater than 2 GB) files. The drive is running some version of VxWorks, which is known to have a buggy implementation of FAT32 (even worse than Microsoft's -- I know, that's hard to believe). I have a 6.4 GB drive in the box (self-installed from an old notebook), and found that attempting to transfer a 6 GB vmware virtual disk set on the X's (which vmware had split into three 2 GB files to avoid a limitation in Microsoft's FAT32 support) would seem to write OK, but when attempting to read the files, the last one (written after the initial 4 GB of space on the drive) would fail to read. This apparently is due to some bug with writing 2GB or larger files across the initial 4GB file system boundary. I ended up having to transfer the last 2 GB file separately, after moving the first two, and erasing and freeing up space on the drive. This is a known problem with the way the VxWorks filesystem works on the X's Drive-II, and as far as I know, the X's folks have never posted a firmware upgrade that fixes the problem.

3) Even if you transfer tons of little files over, you may hit another problem that VxWorks has with long or complex files names. It seems that VxWorks's implementation of FAT32 disallows certain filename characters that are legal in Microsoft's version. Things like single quotes and possibly dashes, if I recall correctly. I encountered this when attempting to use the drive to transfer a bunch of OggVorbis (.ogg) files I have ripped from my CD collection to/from the drive, so that I could listen to portions of my CD collection at work. The track filenames (obtained from CDDB) often contain parens, brackets, dashes, and quotes. Again, copying to the drive would work, but when attempting to read the offending files, the transfer would stop abruptly with an 'unsafe removal of device'. Sometimes a reset of the X's Drive-II was required to get control of the device back, as well.

4) Formatting: If you reuse an old notebook drive, be aware that there may be extra partitions on the drive for things like suspend to disk, or a recovery image of your OS installation. It seems that Win2K, in particular won't let you effectively manage deleting those partitions and reusing the space, becuase the drive is USB mounted, I presume. Formatting the only visible partition will usually work, but you will end up with large chunks of the drive unused. I ultimately was able to delete all the partitions and set up one primary FAT32 partition that occupied the entire 6 GB drive space, by plugging it into a laptop that was running Linux (you could also burn and boot a Knoppix CD, as someone mentioned above), and running Linux's fdisk on the resulting SCSI-emulated USB device, /dev/sda. After blowing away the extra partitions and creating a new one, and changing the type to FAT32, I then plugged the drive back into the Win2K desktop, and formatted the partition (probably not necessary, but it gave me a 'warm fuzzy' to have a Windows system create a Windows filesystem on that partition for me).

5) Formatting while on batteries. Hopefully everyone has learned by now that you can leave the X's Drive-II plugged into its AC charger while doing various operations on your desktop with it. It will not auto power down until you unmount the drive and unplug the USB cable. I certainly wouldn't try doing something like formatting on battery power, unless I was really desperate. That just begs for a problem to occur.

6) Problems with mechanical vibration during transfers. Most folks have assumed that this has to do with the drive itself. Actually, it's the flakey media slots. In particular, the ones that use board-edge style connectors (like SD/MMC cards) as opposed to pin connectors (like CF cards) have very poor mechanical tension in this particular design. Bumping the cards while transfer are taking place will almost certainly cause a problem. That's probably why some folks have had no problems, because they are using CF cards, while others are using SD or Smart Media, etc. If cameras had the chincy kind of connectors that the X's Drive II has for those types of media, no one would be able to use them handheld. It's a shame, really, because otherwise, the X's Drive II is pretty well built, but for the cheap media slots (and the VxWorks FAT32 filesystem bugs).

7) Someone posted that they like to go through their cards before transfer to the drive, and delete shots they don't like. There was a known problem with the drive firmware, in that if there were deleted shots on the card in question, it sometimes scrambled the data of other shots it was copying onto the drive. I've never seen the problem myself (and it may have been fixed in a firmware update), but I've adhered to the policy of never deleting shots in camera, if I'm planning on transferring images to an X's Drive. In particular, because I can't see what gets transferred until I get home, I sure don't want to find out that shots I wanted to keep were scrambled. A corollary to this is that once you transfer photos to the drive, put the card in the camera and format the card -- don't mass delete the photos. The idea is to keep a clean, unfragmented file system on the card. Apparently VxWorks doesn't handled fragmented file systems on flash media all that well, either (sigh).

So, armed with two 512 MB CF cards, and a 6 GB X's Drive-II, I have the equivalent of about 24 rolls of film, using a Digital Rebel in RAW mode.

Total outlay: $99 for the empty drive, the 6 GB drive was scavenged from a notebook that had been doused by firehoses (a fine, shorted mess that was -- never underestimate the stored potential energy in charged Li-Ion batteries), and the Simpletech 10X 512 MB cards were about $99 each. Total: $297. Not bad, I'd say.

[CyberDyneSystems]

hextor wrote:
HOW to FORMAT HD Bigger than XX GB

In WIN XP - 2000 you have a limitation on the size of FAT32 partitions. I think it is about 30GB or something the like. You get the message - partition size too big or something like that when formatting. Or don´t get the option of formatting in FAT32 in the admin services panel.

To do so, the easy way (the other is installing Linux and formating with it) you need to download a utility from the X-drive page:

http://www.xs-drive.com/download.htm

look under "Supports formatting for HD under win2000"

Hope it helps!

Hextor! I think the appropriate response is "DOH!!!"

What a unique approach,. check the manufacturers web site for support info???

I bet you read the friggin manual too!!!! :D :D

Thanks.

[BobbyC]

I'm just curious, how do you guys verify that the files were copied properly before you clear those flash cards?

[CyberDyneSystems]

:eyes,.. er you don't :(

The drive mearly tells you that they have been copied succesfully. If they haven't you get an error message.

It is part of the "no frills/low cost" price of the X-drive that you don't have a veiw screen to verify. But on th other hand, the porpuse is to have a quick way to dump files off your cards in the feild,.. even if I had a view screen in that situation,. I would not have the time to view all approx 150 files before reformatting and shooting again... so.

For about three times the cost there are a few that do have LCD screens built in though,. some of these do look very appealing.

[BobbyC]

I was just curious because I would have a hard time pressing that format button while working on a paying job. The idea for me is to have a way to dump the cards in the field as well, but I HAVE to know the copy was good. I've read that some with the screens are coming out that even read RAW files.

Just like with CD's, I would just like to look at the directory to see that the files are there then scroll though a few pics to make double sure. With only 65 or so pics from a 512 card, it really wouldn't take that long to look through them all if one wanted to.

[theoldmoose]

In all the cases I know of so far, ones that advertise reading RAW files are really only displaying the embedded/companion JPEG that most cameras produce when shooting RAW.

In my opinion, that doesn't really give you the feedback you are looking for, that the RAW file is intact.

[BobbyC]

That's also what you are seeing on the back of the camera, so if it is possible to have a bad raw file that still has a good jpg embedded in it, then you are right. I can't see that being very likely, but possible I guess.

Since it's good enough on the camera, I would feel much safer being able to view it. Of course I'm speaking about paid jobs so that's why I'm paranoid about it.

[James01]

BobbyC wrote:
That's also what you are seeing on the back of the camera, so if it is possible to have a bad raw file that still has a good jpg embedded in it, then you are right. I can't see that being very likely, but possible I guess.

Since it's good enough on the camera, I would feel much safer being able to view it. Of course I'm speaking about paid jobs so that's why I'm paranoid about it.

There are units that do a verify so you have the peace of mind that the copy took place successfully (the file on the drive has to match exactly the file on card). As for the image being correct on the camera and backup unit… well nothing can do that because only you know what the image is supposed to look like.

[BobbyC]

You misunderstood, I was saying that the image you see on the camera back, is only the .thm jpg (not the actual RAW) that is made with the RAW file so even the camera preview is no guarantee that it's a good file. I think it's unlikely to get a bad RAW and a good thm file or embedded jpg.

At least I am more inclined to feel comfortable about formatting the CF card after seeing the images on the screen of the backup device, or even a listing showing the files are there would be better than just hoping they were all there. (Or through a verify as you mentioned)

As for the image being correct? I'm not sure what you mean, I didn't say anything about the quality of the image.

[maple]

How can I stop monitoring this thread? Every time a reply comes in, I get not 1 but 3 emails announcing it to me! *lol* but seriously, how can I stop tracking this thread? Couldn't find any information within the forum.

[robertwgross]

Maple, there is an email notification check box when you initiate a topic or when you reply. Maybe you want to turn it off.

---Bob Gross---

[maple]

Ah-huh. Found it. I had to go back to all my previous posts and see which ones had the "Notification" on, then turn them off individually. Strange... other forums do not work like this.

[James01]

BobbyC wrote:

As for the image being correct? I'm not sure what you mean, I didn't say anything about the quality of the image.


Not the quality... but correct as in the file being all there. If the file is copied and verified (at a binary level) then Im satisfied the file is copied regardless if the camera or I screwed up the file or photo.

Sorry for being so vague before.

[BobbyC]

Ah, I understand now.

[robertwgross]

maple wrote:
Strange... other forums do not work like this.

You must admit. This forum is like no other.

---Bob Gross---

[cowman345]

I replaced my HD in my X drive and it still can't copy for crap outdoors. Inside it copies fine, but I have to retry about 8 times to get it to copy outside. I think it's affected by temperature or humidity.

This also could be a bad drive, I suppose.

Does anyone know of a similar storage device that copies RELIABLY and will let you know if a transfer fails (X drive does, but the power goes out automatically to save batteries whether or not the transfer works, so what good is that??)

-dave-

[CyberDyneSystems]

Apperently if your screen name is partly that of an ungulate.. then you are likely to have problems with the X-drive,. Both Cowman and theOldMoose....

//sorry,. I couldn't help but see the correlation,. of coure the old moose was hardly using the drive for it's intended purpose.... so I guess that theory is blown.

Cowman,. I think the only answer is one of the ones with an LCD to view the images :(