external hard drive problems

[joejoe123]

i have a lacie usb external hard drive . i went to back up some program files and my pictures to free up some space on my local hard drive . everything transferred over to the external drive so i went and deleted some program files like photoshop and other picture editing software  and my pic. well now i cant use my editing software it wont open . anybody know what might be wrong

Joey

[miguynmkoi]

Sounds like you deleted the program.  Just re-install or download it again.

[joejoe123]

ok one other question can you even put the photo eediting software on the external hd and thn take them off your local hd and the program still work or is the external hd just for backing up pics and music ???

Joey

[Bonnie]

Any programs have to be installed on your computer to work...... files such as pix are different because they require a program to open them.

[miguynmkoi]

Your external hard drive is just for storage. Period. 

Like Bonnie said.  I don't know all the ins and outs but I know what I can or cannot do with computers and the external hard drives.  Very important to backup all your important and valuable files from your computer's hard drive to an external hard drive.  I learned that lesson the $$$ way.

[LeeAnne151]

Mechanical devices can and do fail, put photos that you want to keep on CD or DVD and another drive.

[Timgod]

joejpe123,
I am guessing that your lacie is a real hard drive, not a thumb drive.
If so you can run programs from it just like any other logical drive on your computer.
The caveat is that is must be installed to that drive, not just moved over as a file.
In addition, lets say you install photoshop on lacie and it is drive G: for example.
It will work on your computer that you installed it form but if you unplug it and move to a separate computer and try to run it, it will not work as there are registry entries that are on the main source drive... ie. usually C:
You cannot run it from computer to computer unless you reinstall on each so that all of the filters, registry entries, scratch disks etc. are in place.
We won't even discuss the licensing issues this causes you from Adobe.

If it is a thumb drive then that is another matter. Some open source software is available for thumb drives and some drives such as the U3 variety can run some software.
So far though, there is no legal way to run Photoshop from a thumb drive.

Tim