Alternative to True Image (nervous nellie)

As I am a firm believer in imaging outside of Windows, I thought I would try IFD. It sadly does not recognise my external USB HD because the computer only has USB 1.1 even though the HD is connected via a PC.... to USB 2.0 converter thingy.
I have edited the ini file for IFD as per the instructions in the manual but no good.
It is strange and disappointing that Terabyte dont support USB 1.1 as I am sure there are many computers still with it. My comp is only 3 years old and I dont regard it as obsolete yet.
I have spent days on the forums and reading the manual but cant see any way to use this program with my setup. Sad Really.

 

Have you tried comntacting Terabyte support about IFD not recognising your external USB HD ?

 

Hmm, I guess it's time to change belief and perform your system backup from Windows using the Phylock (freeware Terabyteunlimited add-on). Just to be on the safe side, stop every non essential application, especially those with high HDD I/O, disconnect every non essential USB peripheral (not your HDD), and everything should be OK.

I have done several system restore from such backups and never had a problem.

 

If I do this, I still cant restore the system partition can I?

I am going to build a Bart PE disk with the IFW/IFD plug in. It occurred to me that if I use the PE environment to image and restore, Bart will see the Ext HD, and no system files should be running........or have I got that wrong?

 

You are correct about BartPE kennyboy. If it still doesn't recognize it to start with, try re-building BartPE with any drivers that came with your PCMCIA card and external HD.

 

Thanks Defenestration. I am currently doing a system backup with ATI (in case the IFW/Bart backup idea doesnt work.) Not happy to depend on ATI, but got to be done.
Sadly, the PCMCIA card didnt come with any software at all. Just uses Windows. (Bit primitive here ) Looking into the HD drivers at the moment.
Will report back. Thanks.

PS. Other thread was a typo on my part.

 

Well, some good and some bad.

The Bart/IFW disk did work and created the image and verified byte for byte.
It restored also with no problem.
Problem was...........it took 3.5 hours to image and verify and 2 hours to restore!!
What I forgot about is that it must have only been using USB 1.1 because it would not be using the PCMCIA 1.1 to 2.0 converter.......because there was no Windows drivers to find..............I think!
Not sure if Bart uses the native Windows drivers or not, but that certainly isnt USB 2.0 speed.
I will look into the possibility of downloading the drivers for the PCMCIA card, and adding them to Bart, but quite honestly have no idea how I would do this. Plug-ins ...yes, drivers...always a pain for me.

Have just Googled "adding drivers to Bart" but it only allows for Storage or Network drivers. Nothing about PCMCIA cards.

 

Hmm, you are probably right. However, if you burn afterwards the image files onto a DVD, make it bootable thanks to the IFW add-ons, you can boot your PC with them and restore from them.

 

kennyboy - Try using Image For Linux, which apparently has PCMCIA drivers enabled.

 

Defenestration. Yes I did download IFL but when I ran it, it said it could not find the IFL program. Left me a bit lost actually. I didnt know where to go from there.

 

Did you create the boot disk by running the makedisk utility ?

 

Yes, thats what I did. I got the message "Can not find Linux program" or something like that. (Cant reboot now because I am in the middle of something)
I had high hopes for the Linux version as I had heard it MAY help. I just assumed that I needed to have some sort of Linux O/S installed when I got that message.

 

Just to be clear, you extracted the entire contents of the IFL ZIP archive to a folder, then ran the windows program makedisk.exe (ie. not the script "makedisk") to create the boot CD ?

After rebooting with the boot CD, you got the error message "Can not find Linux program" (ie. not within Windows) ?

 

Yes I am sorry. I didnt really make it clear.

I extracted the IFL download to a seperate folder on the desktop. Then ran "Makedisk.exe" Incuded the switch for USB 1.1 on the first line, and then burnt the disk. Booted to that disk and it started the process with lots of script on the screen, and said it was "Looking for Linux.....something" Then the message, "Can not find "Linux....something" and that was it. Couldnt get any further. I tryed it several times, and to be honest I really dont know why it did this, because I did IFD and IFW disks exactly the same and they both booted and found the program.

 

Ah, you don't need to include the switch for USB 1.1 with IFL.

Also, once you boot with IFL it still might not recognize your external drive automatically, in which case you will need to mount it from the prompt.

 

OK. I will re-build the IFL disk and try again, but dont believe it lets me get as far as the prompt.
Come back to you ASAP.
Many Thanks.

 

Hi Defenestration. Sorry to have been so long. Had a few problems with the Internet connection here.

Anyway, just to update, rebuilt the IFL disk. Steps as follows :-
Extract IFL archive to seperate empty folder. Run "makedisk.exe" Burnt to empty cd, and it then showed 1. Boot.bin and 2. Boot.cat. ...that is ALL.

Booted to this CD and got the following:-
1. "Loading VM Linux."
2. Then a load of scrolling lines of stuff (too fast to read) then...
3. "Looking for IFL Boot Disk." then.....
4. "Image for Linux program not found on the Boot Disk."

Then had to reboot to get out of this and back to Windows.

Is it something I am doing or is it my system?

Many Thanks again.

 

Did you activate "Verify" when burning the image with makedisk ?

If yes, was it OK?

Also, are you burning a CD, a DVD, a RW ?

Try first with a CD-RW, then with a CD-R.

 

There is no "Verify" option in my copy of IFL Makedisk.

I tried first burning to a cd-R and then when that did not work with a CD-RW.
Makedisk reported both had burnt successfully.

Both CD-R and CD-RW have the same 2 files burnt to them and give exactly the same message when trying to boot.

 

Do you have any other disks in the drive apart from the boot CD ?

I ask because when booting, it appears to check the floppy drive first on my system when at the "Looking for IFL Boot Disk." stage. BTW, you will probably want to use the IFL Network beta 2 version instead of the standard IFL, since the standard IFL does not include PCMCIA drivers. There is no need to use makedisk.exe for this as you simply burn the ISO file to a CD-R/RW. Terabyte have a utility for burning ISO's, but I use an app called ImgBurn (imgburn.com).

When I look at the IFL Network boot disk in Windows, it has a single root folder called "isolinux", which contains

boot.cat
initramfs.gz
isolinux.bin
isolinux.cfg
menu.txt
vmlinuz

FYI, I have recently had some luck connecting my external USB Hard drive to my laptop via the PCMCIA USB card. However, it is temperemental and doesn't always detect it. When it does detect it though, it was completely automatic on my system with no need to manually mount it. As mentioned, I was using the IFL Network beta version (can be downloaded from the Terabyte website).

HTH

 

Thanks for the replies.

No other disk in the drives.

Am downloading the Network version now, and will report back.

 

@Defenestration

Really appreciate your sticking with me through this. I installed the Linux Network disk and it went very well. Backup up a trial partition with validation and restored it very quickly. The Network version is a beta and has a few bugs but it did work and obviously uses the PCMCIA card as the time was so quick.

many thanks for you help. Just one more question to you.........how on earth did you know about this stuff, particularly to use the Network install of Linux? I hope this will help others in the same situation.
Anyway, again, appreciate your time.
Regards

Ken

 

Glad to see you got it working Ken. You will not be sorry you picked IFW/IFD/IFL.

If I told you, I'd have to kill you

Seriously, it's a combination of asking the excellent Terabyte support (usually get a reply within an hour, and sometimes within a few minutes if it's within Las Vegas office hours), reading the manuals, and trial and error.

 

Well, I am very grateful for your help. I have just done my first restore with the Network disk, and it was fine. Not sure if it is quite up to USB 2.0 speeds, but certainly quicker than 1.1. Most important thing is that I have more confidence in the image now than I did with ATI. While ATI worked MOST of the time, that doesnt exactly inspire total confidence. It seems particularly vulnerable when imaging/restoring from DVD.
Anyway, first line of defence will certainly be IFL from now on, and I certainly could not have used it on this system without your help.
Regards
Ken

 

@kennyboy and defenestration

Well done, congrats to you both.
Kennyboy = tenacity ++++
defenestration = guru.