[quote name='Mayson']To A Gamer: I'm one of the people that got the 250gb HD that didn't come with the right miniUSB cable. The one it came with was a bit of a splitter cable. When I connect an old miniUSB cable I had sitting around to it, my computer doesn't recognize it (despite the light being green) unless I plug it into one of my rear USB ports and my Xbox doesn't recognize it at all even though I created a 16GB FAT32 partition. Is it just a wanky cable? Did things work out OK with yours?[/QUOTE]
Not sure why it would behave that way. Both of mine work fine with a cable that came with an old Motorolla flip phone. They work fine via the front or rear ports on my consoles (both are the HDMI versions) with a single cable connection (although the console warns that it may not perform properly, the HDD is actually faster than flash memory devices).
It may be the partition is the problem on the console. I suspect that it will work fine if you format the whole thing with Fat32 (like it originally came). The console will create a folder on that partition for the 'save file'. Basically 16 Gb of encrypted 'chunk' files (I think they were 1 Gb each?). You can use the rest of the space for you own stuff.
[quote name='louiedog']These drives require more power than most USB devices, like flash drives and mice. The reason these drives usually come with splitter cables is so that you can draw power from a second USB port if necessary. It's not uncommon for older laptops and front USB ports on desktops to supply less power, which is why you're finding that you need to plug it into the rear ports. I don't know why it isn't working with your 360.[/QUOTE]
Quite true. The key word being 'older'. It is also possible (likely?) that those are USB 1.0 ports, which are much slower, too. All of the computers I have used them on only required one USB connection (i.e. they are all USB 2.0 ports).
[quote name='dpac']It would be great to use it with my 360 (and to lug around data and my LIVE profile around to friends' machines), but I guess my main motivation for getting the hard drive is to back up laptop data myself. No worries about reselling, so it's good to hear that people like the build, even if the USB power seems a bit flaky. Thanks for reminding me of info from earlier in the thread (I kinda recall some discussion of the drives in the past now), but hearing definitive word on the power issue for 360s and PCs would be helpful as well. Thanks again for all the replies.[/QUOTE]
You can use it for both. The XBOX will make a folder with 16 Gb worth of 'files' in it. As long as you don't mess with that folder, you can use the rest of the space on the drive for backup, etc.
The power issue may depend on the version of the console? I don't have any pre-hdmi consoles to test it on.
[quote name='anagram7507']Just a theory, but-- if they're putting up prizes that they've had before, could that mean that they're beginning to ship those prizes from the first time around, and they've just weeded out the cheaters which left them with some leftover prizes?[/QUOTE]
That used to be the case, which is why prizes would briefly re-appear about a month after they were first listed (i.e. the order validation/verification occurred 29-to-32 days after it was placed, basically when the prizes normally ship). But I believe they changed that in April '10, when the prizes were coming and going on a much more rapid basis. It has been 2 to 4 months since the current re-listed prizes were first listed, well beyond the normal shipping window for these prizes. I believe the prizes you are seeing re-listed now are the ones that were being returned-to-shipper because they were undeliverable? Which is also what I suspect that huge re-listing of old prizes was a while back -- someone finally got around to opening/re-stocking all those returned packages. It is quite surprising how many packages bounce back to Bing (well, technically Arvato). Course, I would not expect any of these re-listed prizes to last very long if that is the case.
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