BartPE, ATI 10 and Seagate FreeAgent Pro

Weird problem:

1. Dell Dimension 8300 with WinXP Pro
2. ATI 10 , B4942
3. Seagate 750GB FreeAgent Pro external USB2 HDD

The ATI 10 recovery boot cd sees the Seagate HDD just fine. However, the BartPE cd with the Acronis plugin does not see the drive.

Why is there a problem with the BartPE cd?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Is there a special driver required for the Seagate? If so, it would have to be added to the BartPE build.

 

I don't know - but windows recognizes the Seagate HDD just fine with its basic set of USB2 drivers. Also, its strange that the ATI boot disc appears to have no problem recognizing it.

I thought that the BartPE cd was suppose to capture all of the winxp drivers.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Well, I went to the Seagate site and look what I found - it doesn't solve my problem but what a surprise.

http://www.seagate.com/support/discwizard/dw_ug.en.pdf


Harvey

 

Which BartPE Plugin are you using, the one provided by Acronis or Mustang? If you aren't using Mustang's I would recommend that version as it is identical to the Windows version of Acronis.

 

Now where did I see those screen shots before .... hmmmmm Surprise indeed - never would have thought.

 

Maxtor has down the same thing. These re-badged versions of TI only support Seagate and Maxtor drives according to the info I've seen.
@hgratt
If you boot the BartPE CD does the A43 file manager which is included in the basic BartPE build see the drive?

 

No, A43 file manager does not see the drive. It appears that this is a failure of BartPE, not the Acronis plugin.

FBMachines, I'm using the Acronis version not Mustang's. But since the BartPE file manager does not see the disk, does it matter which plugin is used?

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Does this drive require a special driver? That's the only thing I can think of for this to occur. In this case it doesn't matter which plugin you use. Is this drive connected through an adapter card?

 

No special driver or adapter card - plain old USB2 interface. WinXP sees it fine.

Harvey

 

You are right, it doesn't sound like a plugin issue. What Win XP source are you using? Is it a Dell recovery disc or is it a standard Win XP disc? Does it include SP2? If not, did you slipstream it? You could also use a product like RyanVM Integrator or NLite to include all the post SP2 hotfixes to the BartPE disc. Also, from what I remember (I could be wrong), inorder for BartPE to see an external HD it has to be connected and powered up before you boot into the BartPE enviroment. If none of these help you could update your Acronis Drivers then build your BartPE disk again but this really only helps if Acronis TI isn't seeing your drive. One more thing, are you using any XPE addons to Bart (like Reatogo)?

 

I don't know if this will point to anything, but try the BartPE cd and the Seagate on another system.

 

It looks like dbknox, another TI user, is also having this same issue...
look at posts #6 and up
https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=172243

 

O.K. - some further information:

1. I looked at the indicated threads, but they seem to indicate that you have to start in windows first and then boot from the BartPE cd (I think that's what it says). This may not be possible in a "disaster" situation.

2. I have the drive plugged in and powered up before booting the BartPE cd.

3. No XPE addons.

4. The regular TI boot disc works correctly - I can see the drive and access from the D8300.

5. I tried using a BartPE cd both made from the Dimension 8300 and from an IBM laptop (both SP2). Neither saw the drive in the Dimension 8300.

6. I then tried the drive and the BartPE cd in the IBM laptop - lo and behold, it DID see the drive and was able to access it correctly. This seems to be a problem only with the Dell Dimension.

Any thoughts.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Very odd indeed. Which USB ports have you tried pluging the HD into? Front , rear or both? When you selected the source for the PE Builder what is the path? Did you copy the complete Win XP CD to your HD for the source or are you just using the I386 dir?

 

Here is something I found on Mustang's Bartpe Guide

 

I am now using a BartPE cd which was built from the IBM laptop - do I still need the fixdellxp file.

I 've tried 2 USB2 ports which are on my flat panel with no success. This worked before with a different Seagate USB2 external drive. The problem just started when I decided to "upgrade" to the FreeAgent model.

Thanks,
Harvey

 

Hey Harvey,
What are your BartPE source files? A recovery CD, an I386 directory or a Win XP Install CD?

 

Those ports are an adapter or extender of some sort. Try pluging directly into the back of the tower and see if the HD is found.

 

BartPE recognizes most USB hard drives, but is not perfect. As you have seen, failure to recognize can depend on the USB controller and the USB hard drive brand.

You can try using the HWPnP plugin for your problem setup. Download the plugin from http://www.paraglidernc.com. Also download and print the usage documentation. First, try just adding the plugin to your build. If that doesn't help, try doing a "Force Install" of USB devices only. Read the usage file to learn how to do this. It should be something like opening a command prompt, changing directories to X:\Programs\HWPnP and entering "HWPnP.exe -all /log /p +STORAGE\VOLUME +USB\ +USBSTOR\ /a /u" without the quotes.

Please let me know if this helps.

 

Tried all of the above - built the cd and also tried the forced install. No luck, BartPE still does not see the external drive.

Harvey

 

Thanks for the reply. I don't know of anything else you can try. You're lucky the TI Recovery CD works with the drive. You need to stick with that method on that machine.

 

Mustang, thanks for your help - it would have been nice for your suggestions to have worked for the way I have my USB ports setup (connecting thru the Dell flatpanel USB2 ports).

HOWEVER, FBMachines, your suggestion DID work! I just now tried connecting the drive thru the front mounted ports on the desktop instead of the flatpanel ports and the drive was recognized by both BartPE directly and thru the ATI plugin.

What a pain this has been. The flatpanel ports were nice and easy to access and I never would have thought that this would have been an issue - it wasn't before. Thanks for your help.

Harvey

 

That's the nice thing about standards so many to choose from.

 

Yer got that one right!