[phazer11]

I said might have a virus. But it would be a good idea to try an anti malware like IOBit Security 360 or Ad-Aware just to be sure as a lot of antivirus and some antispyware don't detect some of the Win32 wurms even when they are up to date.
As for the drive working fine after you format it then not after you plug it in really makes me think you have a usb virus or something corrupting your drivers or something.

[Akira27]

I recently heard from my friends that keeping the data with .Iso extension is more efficient..
Is that true?

[Lemnear]

To figure out the beep noise I'd go to the manufacturer's website and download their disk tools. Since their external drives you can do it while logged into the OS, though booting from a cd/floppy is preferable. The tests that you can run will tell you exactly what's physically wrong with the drive. Sounds like it could be a SMART error, meaning the disk is about to fail as its detected failures in the disk's operation.

Having two copies of any important/critical data is a must, not doing so is taking a huge risk. Some of my stuff is backed up in 4 different locations. All my data resides on my SAN, which is a Raid 5 array with 5 500gb disks. In the past I've had 1 disk fail and was able to replace it and rebuild the array without loosing my data.

Secondly I'll put data onto a separate external drive, though any drive used for data storage I only turn on to either retrieve something or add to it to decrease the chance of physical disk problems.

Third I'll use a usb thumbdrive or media card. This is generally limited to mostly documents and important pictures (like family photos or others that can't be replaced).

Fourth I'll burn data to dvd, since they're so cheap now if 1 in 20 fail its not so tragic. After each burning I go to a different machine and make sure it can read the disk before I put it into storage. Oddly enough the built in burning software for Windows Vista proved to be better than Roxio or Nero. I was trying to backup some anime but they kept saying the dvd was corrupted and to insert a new one. Finally I tried the basic Windows one and it worked perfectly.

With regards to external drives, keep in mind they aren't designed for 24/7 usage; you can use them in that manner but it will reduce their lifespan. The only consumer level drives that I can think of that are designated for 24/7 usage are WD Raptors. I've got a pair that I bought when they first came out (7 years ago I think) and they've been in constant operation since and have shown no signs of failure or decrease in performance.

[Silent.Hunter]

meh, burn 3 dvds

ihave 2 tb internal storage and arnd 1.5 tb of data on dvds ( yes u calculated correctly , i have arnd 350 dvds :P )

[Akira27]

Originally Posted by Silent.Hunter

meh, burn 3 dvds

ihave 2 tb internal storage and arnd 1.5 tb of data on dvds ( yes u calculated correctly , i have arnd 350 dvds :P )

Wow.. How do you organize that 350 DVD..
Isn't it going to be hard when you want to find a data in 1 of those hundreds DVD?

[Silent.Hunter]

Originally Posted by Akira27

Wow.. How do you organize that 350 DVD..
Isn't it going to be hard when you want to find a data in 1 of those hundreds DVD?

i have numbered the dvds and indexed them in a text file ... so all i have to do is search and i will get the dvd number :D