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Thanks, it all sounds a bit complicated for me, I'm totally computer illiterate! Is teher any utlity taht you can recommend which I can load onto mjy C drive in order to diagnose the faulty external drive?
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Thanks, it all sounds a bit complicated for me, I'm totally computer illiterate! Is teher any utlity taht you can recommend which I can load onto mjy C drive in order to diagnose the faulty external drive?

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I have a Dell desktop, to which I have attached via firewire a Lacie Big Disk; the Lacie drive is listed, but says 'I/O error' when I try to look at it in Explorer. Anwyay, I downloaded Hard Drive Mechanic and, having copied the HDM files onto a floppy and having created a boot disk, I then noticed in the instructions that HDM would access or scan &nbsp;the so-called primary drive. I haven't tried it yet, but if HDM does this, how can i 'switch off' the primary drive so that I can get HDM to look at the Lacie external drive?
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I have a Dell desktop, to which I have attached via firewire a Lacie Big Disk; the Lacie drive is listed, but says 'I/O error' when I try to look at it in Explorer. Anwyay, I downloaded Hard Drive Mechanic and, having copied the HDM files onto a floppy and having created a boot disk, I then noticed in the instructions that HDM would access or scan  the so-called primary drive. I haven't tried it yet, but if HDM does this, how can i 'switch off' the primary drive so that I can get HDM to look at the Lacie external drive?

How to swicth off primary drive when usign HardDrive Mechanic

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, is a technology consisting of computer components and recording media used to retain digital data. In addition to local storage devices like CD and DVD readers, hard drives and flash drives, solid state drives can hold enormous amounts of data in a very small device. Cloud services and other new forms of remote storage also add to the capacity of devices and their ability to access more data without building additional data storage into a device.