About a year ago I purchased the MyBookWorld 1TB network attached storage drive. It was working fine for quite some time - then I could no longer access it. I could not get to the "web interface" for managing the drive. Tried to "reset" it, tried tons of things. Nothing worked. And worst of all - I could not get to my data. I googled and found that this was a common problem. This is not supposed to happen. That is the reason for having a backup system!I Needed My Data!
I just happened to know that the drives in the device were SATA and that my desktop supported SATA drives. I took apart the MyBookWorld case and put the SATA drive into my desktop. The drive was not recognized. I googled a few things and found that the drive is formatted as HGFS or IFS and Windows cannot see it without a driver.
Linux File System Driver for Windows
I googled some more and found a driver that would allow Windows to interact with the Linux file system without any problem. The "Ext IFS for Windows" available from http://www.fs-driver.org/download.html. Downloaded it, installed it, ran the tool, and voila! I could see the data on my drive! What a pain.
External SATA Drive
So, I pulled all my data off of it, re-partitioned it and formatted it as NTFS using Partition Magic. I then purchased a NexStar 3 External Hard Drive Enclosure by Vantec from Fry's Electronics for $29.99. It came with a SATA extension, all the hardware, and was super easy to setup. I put the MyBookWorld 1TB drive into the enclosure, and connected it to the computer. The external drive was not yet recognized - so I went into the BIOS and enabled the 3rd drive. All is working well, and fast!
Network Share
So, I setup the security on the drive for Sharing from My Windows XP Desktop so that the other computers in my home could still use it as a backup. It is SO MUCH FASTER now! I can backup my main desktop in 1/18th the time! It used to take 18 hours to perform a full system backup. Now it only takes an hour.
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