Brand New Defective External HD?

[bunyshaven]

Hello,

I just got a 250gb Western Digital External HD, and I've been having some problems.

Last night after I transferred over some video files (rather large, 350 mb) I opened them up to see that while they pixelated in small, random areas.

Frusturated, I turned it off. Shut it down properly mind you.

This afternoon, I turn it on to realize that entire folders have disappeared. Gone. There's no one in my apartment that would do this manually, so it has to be something with the hd.

Any ideas? I'm on a laptop, a Dell at that.

 

[da_foosh_masta]

dell laptops don't support that type of function. the video files don't stream properly causing the pixelation. i would suggest using the hard drive on the laptop while viewing videos. by trying to stream the files in that manner, the external hd was probably very confused, causing problems. be glad it isn't dead.

 

[HAVOC]

dell laptops don't support that type of function. the video files don't stream properly causing the pixelation. i would suggest using the hard drive on the laptop while viewing videos. by trying to stream the files in that manner, the external hd was probably very confused, causing problems. be glad it isn't dead.

They don't stream properly because dell laptops don't support these types of functions? What the the heck are you talking about?

Is this External HDD a USB device? If so, Dell laptops certain have USB support. If it's older 1.1 if it's newer 2.0

USB 1.1 bandwidth is 12Mbits/second.
USB 2.0 bandwidth is 480Mbits/second

If it's an older 1.1 USB - that will be your problem.
If it's a new 2.0 USB - it should be more then enough bandwidth to play movies from an external HDD.