External hard disk connected via FireWire port

Greetings everyone,

I recently purchased a new Maxtor OneTouch 160GB external hard drive to be used on my Dell Dimension XPS PC (running Windows 98SE).

After reviewing three products (True Image, Ghost, and Drive Image), I have decided on True Image. I am not sure, however, if it (or the other products) can meet my needs.

I want to use True Image to backup/restore image files to/from my external hard drive. Moreover, I want to be able to recover my system in the event that my primary internal hard drive fails and will not reboot. It’s important to note that my external drive will be connected via a FireWire PCI controller card.

I asked Symantec about doing this with their Norton Ghost product. This was their email reply:

"Norton Ghost 2003 does support the use of FireWire drives. The FireWire port should, however, be native to the Motherboard (do not use a FireWire hub, pcmcia or pci buscard)."

Here are my questions:

1) Does True Image support an external hard drive connected via a FireWire controller that occupies a PCI slot and is NOT native to the motherboard?

2) Moreover, if my primary internal hard drive becomes inoperable (and must be replaced), can True Image recover the backup image files (from my external drive) when True Image must be run from a DOS boot floppy/CD?

3) If so, how does True Image find the external drive? Does it need additional drivers (or special software) loaded on the True Image boot floppy/CD? If so, does True Image provide a way to add said drivers?

The True Image trial copy disables this functionality; otherwise, I would try before I buy.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Incidentally, I emailed Acronis technical support these questions but never got a reply (after seven full business days).

Regards... Timos

 

I finally got an answer from Acronis. They were apologetic for taking so long. Here is their reply:

Acronis True Image 7.0 supports external hard drives connected via the Firewire PCI card. There are not any limitations for the motherboard and the Firewire card compatibility.

Acronis True Image 7.0 supports external hard drives in Windows and from Bootable Rescue Media. All necessary drivers are included.

My new Maxtor drive arrives tomorrow from ZipZoomFly. After I install it and test it with True Image 7, I will post a new thread with the results.

By the way, does anyone know a good place to buy a boxed version of True Image 7?

Regards... Timos

 

I've got an older Maxtor FW drive on my main PC with a FW add-in card, and it works fine with TI7. The boot disk recognizes it and browses it with no problems, though I haven't had to restore from it yet.

It's a fair bit faster than a USB2 drive, and much faster than backing up over the network.

 

I'm not sure why they even state this. I've successfully used Ghost with a PCI firewire card. And it's not even a dedicated firewire card. It's a Pinnacle Deluxe (Calisto) card that happens to have a firewire port on it.