1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 I am now thinking of getting an external hard drive to do some backing up of pictures etc. My machine is getting a biot tight for space, it only had a 40gb hard drive as standard when i bought it and thought that it would be plenty Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 You would be better served buying a larger disk for your machine Colin, and an external enclosure for you existing 40Gb drive so it can be the back up drive. Transferring your system is pretty straight forward too, I put a post in the user fixes thread on UBI regarding Seagates excellent, and free, partion migration utility. I have used it and would recommend it without reservation. USB link will be slower than IDE, and is best used for backups really. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum Friar Posted September 10, 2007 Author 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 ok, thanks again for your wonderful help o wise one, not to be confused with O'Dimone, the Irish Chicken breeder from County Bilmarmney in Southern Ireland who has been breeding Chickens with 4 legs so that everyone can have a drumstick for Sunday lunch, trouble is they are so fast no one has yet been able to cath one to see what they taste like! Frior Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Awesome post on the UBI forum m8...... I had purchased a 350 gig external HDD for the purpose of backing up my entire 250 gig internal HDD, but when I attempted to do so It would always fail on system files and the like............ So I had just resigned myself to just backing up the important things (photos/downloaded software/etc) manually and hoped that I would never have the need for a complete reinstall........... I've just downloaded that Diskwizard and hopefully it wiil do a complete back up of my 250 gig HDD which has been partitioned into 2 drives (C and D).... Thanks..... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Well, I installed the wizard and I cant get it to work. I am using a Maxtor HDD (partitioned into 2 drive letters)......... When I run the discwizard this is the error I get: "E000101F4: Seagate Discwizard has detected unsupported Hard disc drives. Seagate discwizard doees not support Windows Dynamic disks, EZ-drives, etc." A second error message opens up suggesting that at least one Seagate or Maxtor device should be installed on my system. Since I'm not a techie, I am lost..........lol Does that fact that my HDD is partitioned in to 2 drive letters casue this application any grief? What is/are dynamic drives? This discwizard does recognize my external HDD if it is attached (and would appear to be able to back it up, if I chose to...) and it isn't a Maxtor/Seagate product............ Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Windows Dynamic disks I suspect that is your problem m8. If you right click 'My Computer' -> 'Manage' then look down left column for 'Disk Management' and click it you will see your disks. Does the second partition say 'Dynamic' or 'Basic'. If Dynamic you have a choice, back it up then delete the partition and then create a new, non dynamic one then format it and copy data back. Disk Wizard should then work for you Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 BTW Dynamic disks have, IMO, limited (if any) benefit in a domestic situation. They are designed to be expanded, non-destructively, via the addition of new drives. You can't make the system drive dynamic though! But you can convert an existing non-system drive. If more than mildly interested there is this article: http://www.petri.co.il/difference_betwe ... 0_2003.htm I feel asleep before the page loaded, it's that boring... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 this is what I have: I single 250gig HDD "Partitioned" (if that is the correct term for my situation) into 2 parts. A 25 gig chunk for my OS and a few other things and the remainder is where I install my other apps/games/files/photos/etc. If I had to change this to basic would I lose anything (from either "drive") Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Oops my bad, must be getting rusty....perhaps (in light of your experience) it shouldn't be possible to convert system to dynamic. Yes they are both Dynamic, ouch...but at least that demonstrates you are running XP pro. Because you are running XP Pro you have a nice utility installed called....'Backup' Start->programs->accessories->system tools->backup. You can use this to hot back up (using what they call 'Shadow Volume Copy') your disks in their entirety. It will also, if you choose to do the entire system, create a bootable rescue disk - all said and done I don't use it, I use Norton Ghost and basic volumes. I would look at getting the disks repartitioned at some point, as Dynamic disks can be a biatch (most imaging software doesn't like them and only professional version costing more $$ support them) then you can use DiscWizard/Ghost/Acronis to back up. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 I guess I can take a looksy at that windows backup utility. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
BBloke Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 I just checked paragon drive copy (pro) and as good as it is it doesn't look like it will do dynamic disk.. you are of course welcome to test drive it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Acronis do a Home trial for 10 days, but sadly it doesn't either. Dynamic disks were verbotten in HP...and Nokia.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Bah......at work now and wifey called to say she was shutting down my pc due to weather. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 External drive is formatted with fat32...tsk tsk. NTFS is so much better, but you know that now! If the supplier of your PC made your disks Dynamic I think you should go round and frighten them, it's a mean stunt to pull with zero benefit on a home system. On a corporate network server it is a real boon being able to slam another disk into a spare slot on an external enclosure, and then add it to an over subscribed array in windows. But on a workstation, or home PC, when you don't have the luxury of 'slipping in' an extra drive... Sorry M8, Backup is and always has been an 'also ran' but it will do the job in it's own quirky way. Over a network it can be suicide inducing though, I once backed up a load of stuff, and 'cos I was bored I frigged around with my network settings. Caused the network adapter to reset and lost the entire backup, completely evaporated.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 On a positive note, I now know that Norton/Symantec Ghost 12 supports Dynamic disks. It (so far) has been excellent for me and has worked well. Unfortunately it's not free, and the way it works you would not be able to back up dynamic disks and restore them as basic. It would back up all of your data which you could then use to restore following a repartition and format. They do a trial version. So next time you feel your system would benefit from a refresh: 1. Install Ghost 12/13/14 (or whatever) 2. Do a full back up to external disk of both partitions 3. Re-install XP and delete existing partitions and formatting as required. 4. Re-install Ghost (within trial period time) 5. Restore data 6. Check all data req is back 7. Repeat #6 above for as long as possible and as often as possible 8. Un-install ghost 9. Use Diskwizard (or Ghost on it's last gasp) to copy small drive to large drive. 25GB is a little on the small side, like 50%, for a system drive if you want to install applications on it too. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 thanks for all the info........ I'm gonna just backup the stuff I reaaaallllly dont want to lose.....using the same old method as before. I never did format the external drive as FAT32....It must have came that way......it is just a USB 350gig external HDD.......if it can be formatted then I will do it before I begin this backup. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1. DDz Quorum B16Enk Posted September 10, 2007 1. DDz Quorum Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 Yep FAT32 is the default. NTFS is much better, it has error recovery and supports larger file sizes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 10, 2007 Report Share Posted September 10, 2007 yes, I know NTFS is better....my system HDD is NTFS....never thought to look at the external....just assumed it worked like my little USB 2 gig key.....lol Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lil_sparrow Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Salute: May I offer a suggestion on over heating safety? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fireman Posted September 11, 2007 Report Share Posted September 11, 2007 Well, my solution to overheating is simple........ Plug in the external HDD.............. Backup whatever files necessary.......... Shut off and unplug external HDD............... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enforcer57 Posted September 12, 2007 Report Share Posted September 12, 2007 I use an Iomega external HD.....320 gig I think (Getting old, cant remember stuff anymore). I have photos, my skins backed up, all sorts of crap I use that I dont want to lose. I work on photos in photoshop on the drive and it performs as quickly as my internal HD does. Easy to organize files etc, and I have left that thing on overnight when I fell asleep after flying with some of you guys (its all your fault). It was kinda hot, but it still functioned, so it's not that delicate. I don't think it's good form to leave it on all night, but I have worked for several hrs in it with no problems. I would also do a backup of photos on DVDs. They are slow to work with, but make a great storage back up to the back up. The advantage of the external HD is that you can work with stuff on it in a timely manner. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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