In case of a sparse checkout (i.e. not fully recursive), externals are omitted

In case of large repositories, which is often the case with data repositories such as openearthrawdata, it is recommended to create a sparse checkout. This allows you to maintain the directory structure identical to the repository itself, but only get the data for specific parts that are of interest for you. In order to create a sparse checkout, you use the same menu of TortoiseSVN you would use for an usual (fully recursive) checkout; the only difference is the checkout depth:

Another option is to use command line tools. The options for the checkout depth are: