[springle]

I have noticed that more and more external hard drives are full of crapware. Junk I don't want.

And it's hard to get rid of.

For example, I purchased a 1.5 TB Seagate EHD. I didn't install the crapware that came with the drive and found that every 20 minutes, the drive restarted, with Windows asking what I wanted to do, etc. The data stored on it was completely accessible. It just kept restarting.

With another one, I installed the crapware, but didin't allow one program to access the internet. Some sort of backup software. Then I found that when I shut down, I started getting a write exception, where the computer was trying to write to a protected address. So I did a system restore to a date prior to the installation of the crapware to get rid of that problem.

Now I sense one of my older EHDs is dying and must buy another.

Has anyone had any positive experience with a particular brand, one that has no crapware, or a minimal amount?

 

[topherpaquette]

i own a few Lacie drives and haven't had any crapware on them. though I do use Mac's in my home so maybe that is why. I hope that someone else here with Windows use can help you out

 

[CenturyBreak]

I've bought a half-dozen iomega external drives to use with Windows machines... and my Bell 9242... over the last few years: zero pre-installed crap!

 

[eljay]

It's a shame you've had issues with your Seagate drive. I've had my 1Tb Seagate FreeAgent Desk USB external HDD for almost a year and a half now and I haven't had any issues with it. (I have my PC - running Vista Home Premium 64-bit - set up to run regular weekly back-ups.)

 

[NeilN]

Why not just buy a bare bones hard drive and an enclosure?

 

[Jake]

Why not reinitialize the drive? It gets rid of any goofy partitions and data in one swipe. I have seen WD, HP and Lacie drives with "crapware" so I doubt you are going to be able to avoid it entirely.

 

[Francois Caron]

The crapware is now being installed at the BIOS level. The last WD Passport drives I got for a client required a firmware downgrade to get rid of it!

At least WD gave me the option of not using it, but it was still a pain having to deal with the situation at all.

 

[DavidT]

A personal rule of thumb: Whenever you buy a new hard drive or an OEM system - format it.

 

[753951]

Corollary to the personal rule of thumb: before format - delete all partitions and create new one(s).