External USB/Firewire drives that work

Discussion in 'Acronis True Image Product Line' started by Hoopster, Mar 10, 2005.

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  1. thisisside5

    thisisside5 Registered Member

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    In the past I used a Western Digital 200 GB external USB/Firewire (I used only the USB) with no problems or corruption. Currently I'm using a Smartdisk 80 GB Firelite for all my imaging. No problems with creation or restore. It fits in my shirt pocket and is powered via the bus, so I don't have to lug an AC adapter around with me. I love it!
     
  2. ratcheer

    ratcheer Registered Member

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    Cool, thanks. I was hoping that would be the case. Should be a snap.

    Tim
     
  3. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    I just found out that the IOGEAR GPU202 USB 2.0 PC card for notebooks uses the ALI chipset. It's the cheapest USB 2.0 PC card I could find, so I'm not surprised.

    Has anyone used one of these for backup images? Did you have corruption issues?

    I bought a second Adaptec AUA-1420A even though it was twice the price since I know that works without errors.

    John
     
  4. Hoopster

    Hoopster Registered Member

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    Success! Success! Success!

    The Macally PHR-100AC arrived today. I immediately installed my WD 250 GB drive into the enclosure, connected it via Firewire and created a backup image of my internal 120 GB Maxtor system drive. As usual, the image created successfully. Immediately, I started an image verification and, unlike every other time I tried, it actually began the process without an immediate "Image Corrupt" error. Nine minutes later, I had a verified backup image. WooHoo!

    Anyone want a cheap USB 2.0 enclosure by Bytecc? :D It's ALi 5621 USB 2.0 chip was obviously not up to the task. Hello eBay.

    The Initio INIC-1430L firewire chip in the Macally enclosure is up to the task. It is connected to my nForce2 based Asus MB built-in Firewire port via a powered USB 2.0/Firewire 7-port combo hub. I'll try next time on the USB 2.0 (NEC) connection just for a comparison.
     
  5. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Hoopster,

    Congratualations!

    John
     
  6. Euser

    Euser Registered Member

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    I see that you created your image successfully, however can you test with the boot CD to see if you can access your external drive while under the linux environment. Please let us know if you can restore your image from external hard drive. I've tried three different enclosures and can create images all day long, but can not restore them if I need them....
     
  7. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    Why can't you restore them?
    1. Can't see the external drive?
    2. Image is corrupt?
    3. Restore fails with an error message?

    Can you Explore your backup images?
     
  8. Hoopster

    Hoopster Registered Member

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    Way to rain on my parade :'(

    I just tried the boot cd to see if I could verify the image from the external firewire drive. Before getting a good image this was a moot point. All my drives are recognized except the external drive. I get the following error when ATI is booting up from CD

    ohci1394_0: Self ID received outside of bus reset sequence.

    After about 1 minute of staring at this error, the ATI GUI boots up. When I try to check image, it "processes" for a couple of minutes and I finally get an error about not being able to read from sector 0 of HD 0 (the first time I tried this I got an error at sector 120,316,114 of HD 3 which I assume was my external drive). All drives (minus the external drive) then show up in the drive list. They all report the correct labels, sizes, used space, free space, etc.

    I guess it's on to the next problem. I hope I don't need to do a system restoration before I get this all figured out. This should not be so difficult :mad:
     
    Last edited: Mar 19, 2005
  9. Jeff_H

    Jeff_H Registered Member

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    I've had the same experience as iflyprivate, in that my Vantec NexStar 3.5" USB 2.0 external drive (Samsung 160GB PATA HD) will often times not be recognized by True Image 8. I just make another attempt at cloning, and then all seems to go well.
     
  10. tuttle

    tuttle Guest

    I use a Sabrent USB 2.0 card, which was really cheap: $13 Canadian (about $10 U.S.). It works fine, and True Image creates and restores images without problem through that card to my Pocketec Datastor USB hard drive.

    I have no idea what chipset is used, but given the low price it must be an inexpensive chipset.
     
  11. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Hello Hoopster,

    The above error message used to be caused by an empty USB flash card reader. If you have one connected, either insert a memory card into it or disconnect it altogether.

    Out of interest, have you tried the Macally PHR-100AC on your USB 2 connection yet and what was the result?

    Regards
     
  12. Hoopster

    Hoopster Registered Member

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    I do not have a flash card reader connected. I have not received that error on subsequent attempts to boot and verify from the CD. Other than the ohci1394_0 error at boot up, I am not seeing any more errors. Of course, the FireWire drive is still not recognized.

    I just tried creating and verifying a backup image with the drive connected via USB 2.0. Everything worked great (although it was about 25%-33% slower in both operations than with FireWire). My next test is to see if the drive is recognized by the boot CD if it is connected as a USB drive instead of via FireWire. Of course, since FireWire appears to be a faster connection, I'd like it to work that way.

    This new Macally enclosure is a very good enclosure and is very nice looking as well.
     
  13. iflyprivate

    iflyprivate Registered Member

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    Just an update...........

    I have a Dell Inspiron 5160 laptop (Windows XP Pro) with a Fujitsu 40GB internal hard drive and a CompUSA 2.5" USB 2.0 enclosure ($19.95) with a Hitachi Travelstar 60GB hard drive inside (sometimes I swap it with a Fujitsu 40GB hard drive). The enclosure works perfectly in all respects.

    When using TrueImage 8, build 796 or 800, it is almost impossible to clone because upon the TI-initiated reboot, TI fails to detect the external USB drive and generates the message ERROR-DISK NOT FOUND. If I reinstall all the system software and TI, sometimes it will clone successfully.

    However, when I boot from the TI Rescue CD which I burned from within TI and clone the internal hard drive, it works fine. It detects the external drive.

    Why TI fails to detect the external hard drive when cloning, I don't know. I can't believe they released the program before being sure that it worked reliably in this application, which is why I bought the program in the first place. I have sent Acronis Support the reports that Ilya asked for but have not heard back from them at all.

    So, try cloning by first booting from the Rescue CD. It works for me.
     
  14. Euser

    Euser Registered Member

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    On two of the external drives they show up as floppy drives and will not let me explore them to find the images.
    On the third enclosure it is a usb and firewire drive (prolific chipset I believe) and any time I connect it via firewire (which works great when using in windows) will recognize as a disk but says that it is empty. The other thing that made me mad on the firewire is that everytime I try to boot up using the boot cd upon detection of the drive I hear a strange noise and once the gui comes up it reports that the disk is empty. Well then I boot into windows and my external disk is unaccessible (corrupted). I had to buy special recovery software to get my important files back (very scary :eek: ) This only happens when I try to use the firewire under the boot cd. I have been testing this for about a month and a half. After I format the drive again under windows using firewire it is fine for weeks, many reboots, etc... but as soon as I try the boot cd.... It makes the noise, gui comes up, disk reported as empty, boot back to windows and drive label is gone and inaccessible............... I have sent support many emails when the first enclosure was not recognized and tried a few special builds that they sent, then after a while got frustrated and decided that I would purchase one more drive enclosure that had both usb and firewire and this is where I ended. I have tested on a few different PC's with different usb and firewire chipsets, swapped different hard drives in the enclosures and the same results................I'm so frustrated... That is why I asked the previous poster to see if he/she could verify or see their created image under the boot (linux) environment.... I've seen many people happy that they can create an image to an external drive, but am sure that many of them have not attempted to use the boot cd and see if they can get to their backups when they need them..... I am not bashing acronis, but this seems like it should be core functionality... It either works or it doesn't :'( The software works great if imaging to secure zone or to a network drive, but having the external drives FULLY WORKING is of utmost importantance for any disaster recovery plan. Also for the record, I have tried with the last 3 builds (currently at build 800) and two or three special builds.
     
  15. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    The Sabrent SBT-PD2 PC card uses the NEC chipset according to the Sabrent web site. The SBT-P2MU card chipset isn't identified.
     
  16. Hoopster

    Hoopster Registered Member

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    I was able to access the Macally external drive as a USB drive when booting from the CD. Of course, I still get the FireWire-related ohci1394_0: error; however, ATI sees the drive and the backup images on it. I was able to verify an image although it was very slow (38 minutes from the Linux boot CD vs. 19 minutes under Windows as a USB 2.0 drive). My only problem seems to be getting things to work with FireWire. I have not actually tried imaging a drive from a backup, but, I assume if the image is good and it is accessible, that it should work fine (we all know where assuming gets us!). Reimaging my system drive just for kicks is not something I want to try. I do have a spare 120 GB drive that has some sector errors and failed a couple of months ago. Once I have all the data I need off that drive, I will do a test image to it.

    I am really pleased with the Macally PHR-100 AC external drive enclosure.
     
  17. beenthereb4

    beenthereb4 Registered Member

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    Argosy external enclosures from Dealsonic work in both USB and Firewire mode for me (Plus they look cool to me).
     
  18. tuttle

    tuttle Guest

    Mine is the SBT-ALI5Y. I can't find any info as to chipset. For ten bucks, it wasn't much of a risk anyway. All I know is that it seems to work well, and True Image works fine with it and my USB drive.
     
  19. stuck4now

    stuck4now Registered Member

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    I have a Dell Dimension 8300 P4 2.8GHz 1GB RAM 2-160GB HDD on RAID 1.
    Would like to image backup to an external Maxtor OneTouch II 250GB HDD.
    First, Ghost 9 says it's incompatible with RAID 1, only RAID 0,5 (Striping). How about TrueImage? Can it do an image backup of a RAID 1 configuration?
    Second, I read from other threads here that I would need some of the Dell Diagnostic disks to start a recover process. As a novice here, could someone please elaborate on that? I assume something in the diagnostics disk would assist in recognizing the external HDD well before the image can be reloaded?
    Thanks in advance for assistance.
     
  20. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    TI can create a full image from within Windows and therefore should be compatible with your RAID 1 array. However, when restoring a primary/master drive or partition, TI will need to reboot into the Linux based rescue environment. This will contain all the Linux open source device drivers available to Acronis at the time of a particular build release. Therefore, depending on the make and model of the RAID controller chip, your HD array may or may not be detected correctly. You can download the free trial version of TI 8, create the boot rescue CD and see how it goes.

    I think this refers to the situation where you are restoring an image to a new or replacement hard drive. To ensure the new/replacement drive is bootable the image must have been created of the whole source drive (i.e. all partitions including the Dell recovery and diagnostic ones) otherwise the Master Boot Record will not be included. This is achieved by selecting the tick box next to the source drive rather than boxes next to the individual partitions.

    Regards
     
  21. Milehigh

    Milehigh Guest

    I am currently testing a new, Compusa external USB 2/Firewire enclosure, sku 306103. The external enclosure uses a Prolific PL3507 chipset. The drive added to the enclosure is a Western Digital WD2500, a 250 GB drive formated in NTFS. The WD2500 contains only one partiton.

    The external drive and enclosure are attached to an HP Pavilion ZE5185 notebook computer with XP Pro and SP2. The HP has Firewire but only USB 1.1 ports. The controler for the Firewire port is listed in Device Manager as: Texas Instruments OHCI compliant IEEE 1394 host controler. The conroler for the USB 1.1 ports is listed as: ALi PCI to USB open host controler.

    What works: The USB 1.1 connection. I have made about seven large (6 to 10gb) images with TI build 800 and have done a full restoration of my HP's C: drive with two of them. I always verified the images and had no problems in backing up or restoring using USB 1.1. I used the original inexpensive USB cable that came with the Compusa external enclosure.


    What does not work: Firewire does not work well with this set up. When I attempt to look at files or move even small files in the external drive, using Window Explorer, I get a long message that starts of with "Windows Delayed Write Failed" I get the same messge when trying to backup and image using TI build 800. I am using a Belkin 6 pin to 4 pin USB cable. Based on the information I find on the Internet, is seems to b a problem that is common with the Prolific PL3507 chipset!! Just do a Google on "Windows Delayed Write Failed" and BusTrace Technologies" and you should find a long discussion about this error.

    I expect to return the Compusa enclosure and try a different one soon

    Thanks
    Milehigh
     
  22. storage_man

    storage_man Registered Member

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    I have tried two different enclosures with no problems. The first is used by my laptop (IBM Thinkpad R31 w/a USB 2.0 Cardbus PCMIA adapter). The TP runs Windows XP Home w/SP1. The USB device is a Bytecc 2.5" USB 2.0 HD-201U2. It costs $18 at NewEgg. I looked all over but I could not find out who's chipset is in this device. The Hard disk in the device is a 20gb Hitachi unit. I have used this external unit for imaging and cloning. Both worked without any hitches.

    The next device is connected to my desktop (ASUS A7N8X v2.0 MB, WD800JB 80gb disk, 512mb memory) The DT runs Windows XP Pro w/SP1. The USB device is a Stortecc PM-350U2-ECS. It cost $28 at Dealsonic. It has a Cypress Chipset. The disk in the device is a WD 120gb drive. I have not cloned to this device, but have done numerous image backups with all of them verifying clean and have perfromed a recovery of individual files along with a full restore for the boot drive partition "C:". All have been successful.

    Imaging to these units have been performed both from windows and the TI recovery boot disk. CLoning is only done from the recovery boot disk.

    I hope this helps,

    Storage_man
     
  23. Menorcaman

    Menorcaman Retired Moderator

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    Decided to go mad today and purchase an external USB 2 hard disk enclosure. I had the choice of two - LG or Conceptronic (a.k.a. Tulip) CHD3U. Searched the Web and couldn't find any info at all on the LG let alone which which chipset it used. However, I found out that the Conceptronic CHD3U contained a NEC chipset. Guess which enclosure I ended up buying?!!

    Fitted a redundant IBM Deskstar and created an image on it that verified o.k. Copied the image back to one of my internal HDs and carried out the MD5 checksum comparison just to be sure. No problem. Finally, as proof of the pudding, I did a full system restore. Again, no problem.

    So that's another thumbs up for the NEC chipset (specifically the D720133GB).

    Regards
     
  24. tuttle

    tuttle Guest

    With all this discussion about chipsets of USB 2.0 cards, I thought I'd ask: which chipsets are either tested and proven, or even generally considered, to be the best?

    I have a Sabrent USB 2.0 card, model SBT-ALI5Y. I suspect that that model number might suggest that it uses the ALI chipset, but I really don't know. The manufacturer's web site doesn't provide chipset info on this model.

    I have to buy some USB 2.0 cards for other PCs, so I might as well look for the best or most reliable chipset, if that is conclusively known.
     
  25. jmk94903

    jmk94903 Registered Member

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    The NEC chipset is the most reliable. Others may work, but in this forum, we seem to see the most consistent error-free results with the NEC chipsets.
     
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