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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!


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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:31:15 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!


Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself. Win98 had fairly good USB support...95 did not.
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Sun, 1 May 2016 17:40:22 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:31:15 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!


Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself. Win98 had fairly good USB support...95 did not.


The problem with W98 is it won't talk to a NTFS drive. I agree with
the OP, they are referring to the bundled software and it might run on
XP anyway. I always wipe that stuff out too.
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 5/1/2016 7:31 PM, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!


I've had external drives. Some how, the first time
I use them, they install their own drivers.

Seems to work OK. I just smile, be happy, and get
on with life.

If the drive really fails, there is a way to get to
computer management through control panel. Been a while
since I used that. You can find and reformat a drive
that doesn't otherwise show up in windows explorer.

-
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
..
www.lds.org
..
..
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:50:34 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sun, 1 May 2016 17:40:22 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:31:15 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!


Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself. Win98 had fairly good USB support...95 did not.


The problem with W98 is it won't talk to a NTFS drive. I agree with
the OP, they are referring to the bundled software and it might run on
XP anyway. I always wipe that stuff out too.


He was asking about drivers and I wasn't commenting on included software...


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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Sun, 1 May 2016 18:00:55 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:50:34 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sun, 1 May 2016 17:40:22 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:31:15 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!

Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself. Win98 had fairly good USB support...95 did not.


The problem with W98 is it won't talk to a NTFS drive. I agree with
the OP, they are referring to the bundled software and it might run on
XP anyway. I always wipe that stuff out too.


He was asking about drivers and I wasn't commenting on included software...


The mass store driver is in XP already. On W98 you need to install
nusb33e.exe or some other similar driver.
When you plug in a drive on the USB, you see it loading the driver but
that is coming from c:\Windows\system32 or maybe another similar
location

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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)



However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.


I think the computer is able to READ and WRITE the USB drive without the driver. It already knows how to talk to USB.


The driver on the USB drive probably enables "extra features" like encyption or other stuff you may not want to use anyway. But if you wanted those extra features, you would need the driver.




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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 10:39:28 PM UTC-4, wrote:
On Sun, 1 May 2016 18:00:55 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:50:34 PM UTC-5, wrote:
On Sun, 1 May 2016 17:40:22 -0700 (PDT), bob_villain
wrote:

On Sunday, May 1, 2016 at 7:31:15 PM UTC-5, wrote:
I just bought one of those portable USB hard drives that plug into a USB
port. It's a 1tb made by Western Digital. (Passport Drive). It says its
for Windows Vista, 7 and 8. (It was on clearance so Win10 is not
included). Anyhow, my newest OS is XP. I plugged it into my XP machine
and it was immediately recognized. So, I dont need Vista or newer. It
works fine on XP. But it comes with included software. Maybe that
software requires Vista ir higher, but I never use any of that included
software anyhow.

However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.

Just to see what would happen, I plugged it into my older computer with
Windows 98 and 2000. I did not even try it using Win98 because 98 lacks
support for most USB devices, regardless of their size or age. But
booting it to Win2000, I was suspecting I would need to take that driver
off of it from the XP machine, and place it on the 2K computer. Much to
my surprise, after stumbling around for a minute, then asking for a
driver, I just hit cancel, and I had full access to that drive.

So, first I asked what good the driver is when it's on the drive I'm
trying to use. Now I ask what's the purpose of the driver all all, since
I accessed the drive from both Windows 2K and XP.

This drive is also for Macintosh. I thought a Mac computer requires a
different drive format. That's even more puzzling!

Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself. Win98 had fairly good USB support...95 did not.

The problem with W98 is it won't talk to a NTFS drive. I agree with
the OP, they are referring to the bundled software and it might run on
XP anyway. I always wipe that stuff out too.


He was asking about drivers and I wasn't commenting on included software...


The mass store driver is in XP already.


+1

That's how it's worked for a long time now, the driver for USB drives
is in the OS, part of plug-n-play. I suspect whatever is on that drive
is likely additional utilities. It might have an improved driver, but
not at all surprised that the drive works by just plugging it in.
That is all I've done with various USB drives, smartphones that look
like drives, etc.
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

writes:


However there is one peculiar thing, which makes no sense. The driver
for it, is *ON* the drive. So, if I actually needed the driver, how the
heck can I get to it. That's pretty stupid.


I think the computer is able to READ and WRITE the USB drive without the driver. It already knows how to talk to USB.


The driver on the USB drive probably enables "extra features" like encyption or other stuff you may not want to use anyway. But if you wanted those extra features, you would need the driver.



There are a number of factors that play into drive compatability:

0) Host to Drive communications interface (RLL, MFM, IDE/EIDE/ATA, Serial ATA (SATA),
Parallel SCSI, Serial Attached SCSI (SAS), FiberChannel, iSCSI, FCoE,
and the Universal Serial Bus (USB)).

USB Mass Storage devices leveraged the SCSI command set to enable resuse
of parts of the operating system storage stack (as did the ATA packet
interface - ATAPI).

1) Low-level format (usually done at the factory) which breaks each
track on the drive into fixed length sectors (usually 512 bytes
each, with larger drives 4096 bytes is becoming common, but for
legacy systems 100-byte and 180-byte sectors have been used in the past).

2) File-system format which organizes the data on the device by providing
a table-of-contents and managing the unallocated space. Typically
a new drive will be high-level formatted with the microsoft File Allocation
Table (FAT) filesystem as pretty much any modern operating system will have
the capability of reading and writing a FAT filesystem. Other file systems
include HPFS, NTFS, S5, UFS, VxFS, XFS, EXTx, BTTRFS, et alia.

The software provided on the drive is usually backup software, encryption
software or software designed to enable non-standard features on the drive.
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On Mon, 2 May 2016 08:53:58 -0400, Retired wrote:


The drive is NTFS. Will a Mac read that?

I left the driver on the drive, but removed all the extra software. I
did zip it and save a copy on a flash drive just in case it's needed.



I don't know the how and why of it, but I use a flash drive to move
files between a Mac mini w/ El Capitan, and a Win 7 laptop all the
time. (.jpg, .xls, .doc )

If you have a Mac and a Win machine, try it.


I dont have a Mac!

I know .jpg . gif . mp3 .htm are universal. I suppose .doc is too, as
well as .txt. (not sure what a .xls is used for).

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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 05/01/2016 07:40 PM, bob_villain wrote:

[snip]


Any OS will "look" for a driver in the "usual" places (likely folders)...if it doesn't find a driver you have to point it in the right direction...on the USB drive itself.


If you can do that (point the OS to something on the drive itself), it
seems that you don't need the driver.

Win98 had
fairly good USB support...95 did not.



A lot of USB stuff I got around that time (when Win 98 was new) had
separate driver disks for 95 and 98.

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living." -- Lemuel
K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 05/01/2016 07:56 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

[snip]

If the drive really fails, there is a way to get to
computer management through control panel. Been a while
since I used that. You can find and reformat a drive
that doesn't otherwise show up in windows explorer.


I do that frequently, "Administrative Tools Computer Management Disk
Management". This IS available on Windows 10, although they make it
harder to get to.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.



--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living." -- Lemuel
K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 05/02/2016 02:48 PM, wrote:

[snip]

I know .jpg . gif . mp3 .htm are universal. I suppose .doc is too, as
well as .txt. (not sure what a .xls is used for).


I seem to have heard of that filetype. Proprietary Excel spreadsheet format?

--
Mark Lloyd
http://notstupid.us/

"A dogma is the hand of the dead on the throat of the living." -- Lemuel
K. Washburn, Is The Bible Worth Reading And Other Essays


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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 5/2/2016 5:49 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:
On 05/01/2016 07:56 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:

[snip]

If the drive really fails, there is a way to get to
computer management through control panel. Been a while
since I used that. You can find and reformat a drive
that doesn't otherwise show up in windows explorer.


I do that frequently, "Administrative Tools Computer Management Disk
Management". This IS avail[Thanks, very helpful.]able on Windows 10, although they make it
harder to get to.

-
.
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
. www.lds.org
.
.




Center posted, as a courtesy.

--
..
Christopher A. Young
learn more about Jesus
.. www.lds.org
..
..
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

On 05/02/2016 07:18 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 5/2/2016 5:49 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:


[snip]

I do that frequently, "Administrative Tools Computer Management Disk
Management". This IS avail[Thanks, very helpful.]able on Windows 10,
although they make it
harder to get to.

-
.
Christopher A. Young


[snip]

.
.




Center posted, as a courtesy.


This may be the first time I've seen a reply in the middle of a WORD of
the quoted text.
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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

Sam E wrote:
On 05/02/2016 07:18 PM, Stormin Mormon wrote:
On 5/2/2016 5:49 PM, Mark Lloyd wrote:


[snip]

I do that frequently, "Administrative Tools Computer Management
Disk Management". This IS avail[Thanks, very helpful.]able on
Windows 10, although they make it
harder to get to.

-
.
Christopher A. Young


[snip]

.
.



Center posted, as a courtesy.


This may be the first time I've seen a reply in the middle of a WORD
of the quoted text.


That's just the Stormin' Moron seeking attention .
--
Snag


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Default (OT) Portable USB drive (makes no sense)

wrote:

The drive is NTFS. Will a Mac read that?


Yes, but it won't write to it without it has some additional (non-Apple)
software. A modern Mac can read and write FAT (including FAT32), exFAT,
and HFS+ (its native file system).

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