How to Use a My Book External Hard Drive

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With a My Book external hard drive, produced by Western Digital, you can store large amounts of digital data, including music, videos and photos. In addition, you can use a My Book hard drive to back up your computer's internal hard drive in case of data loss. My Book hard drives use a USB connection, which means that you can connect the hard drive to both PC and Mac computers.

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PC Instructions

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Step 1

Insert the My Book power adapter into the back of the hard drive, and plug the other end into a standard electrical outlet. The external hard drive will automatically power on.

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Step 2

Connect the My Book external hard drive to your PC computer using a USB cable.

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Step 3

Open the "Start" menu and click on the "My Computer" icon.

Step 4

Double-click on the icon of the My Book hard drive, which is usually assigned to the E: or F: drive.

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Step 5

Drag-and-drop files into the My Book window to begin copying data to the external hard drive.

Step 6

Click on the green "Safely Remove Hardware" button in the lower-right corner of the screen to eject the My Book hard drive. Then unplug the drive from your computer.

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Mac Instructions

Step 1

Insert the My Book power adapter into the back of the hard drive, and plug the other end into a standard electrical outlet. The external hard drive will automatically power on.

Step 2

Connect the My Book external hard drive to your Mac computer using a USB cable.

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Step 3

Open a new Finder window by clicking on the icon in the Dock.

Step 4

Click on the My Book icon underneath the "Devices" list on the left side of the Finder window.

Step 5

Drag-and-drop files into the My Book window to begin copying data to the external hard drive.

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Step 6

Click on the eject symbol next to the My Book icon to safely eject the external hard drive from your computer. Then unplug the hard drive from your computer.

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