Coolgear External USB HD Enclosure

My apologies up front if this has been addressed elsewhere. I went through a number of pages of recent posts and saw nothing about it, and very unfortunately, the search engine refuses to accept 3-letter words, so searching for USB (or CD or DVD) is not possible. Someone should revisit that concept...

Setup:
-- HP Pavilion ZX5000 Notebook running WinXP SP2
-- Coolgear Multilink Hard Drive Enclosure (supports both USB 2.0 and firewire) with a Maxtor DiamondMax 200GB HD installed.
-- Acronis True Image Trial Version 9.0 build 2,344

Running under WinXP, I have successfully created a full-image backup of the notebook's HD to the USB external HD, verified it, and restored a number of unimportant files from it for test purposes. Moving on with the recovery scenario testing, I then booted off of the Rescue CD I created, but it does not recognize the presence of the USB HD.

My recollection of the install of the Coolgear HD enclosure is that it required drivers from the USBGear website to become functional. There appear to be drivers available only for the Windows operating system on the USBGear website -- no Linux drivers. (I haven't done any sort of exhaustive search for a Linux/Coolgear solution from elsewhere.)

Questions:

1) Does this mean that I am out of luck as far as recovering using the Rescue CD and the Coolgear HD enclosure?

2) If so, is there a list (or does anyone wish to volunteer what works for them) of USB enclosures that will work with the Rescue CD? Note: I am looking for an enclosure only. I have the hard drive which I am willing to wipe, if necessary, to install in an enclosure that works with the Rescue CD.

3) The HD enclosure supports 1394 (Firewire) as well as USB. Does anyone know if the 1394 connection would increase my chances of success?

4) If by chance I stumble across Linux drivers (assuming drivers may be the issue), is there any way to get those drivers included on the Rescue CD? I don't need to know the method right now, just that there is a way to do it...

Thanks for your help.

 

I’m not that familiar with the concept, but do a search on BARTPE.
Here’s a link: http://www.acronis.com/enterprise/support/bartpe/

 

Ok, I have BartPE. I found the WinXP installation files on my harddrive to use with it. Now all I need is the Acronis plugin for BartPE. Going to the page to which you linked on the Acronis website, I followed the instructions there and logged in using my Acronis registration email and password. For some reason I was expecting after I returned to the BartPE page that it would have changed and I would "be able to download the plug-in." and I would "also see detailed instructions on how to create the BartPE CD with Acronis True Image plug-in." Alas, that is not the case. Please don't tell me I need to register a purchased version of Acronis before getting the plugin. Any ideas?

Thanks for your first quick reply...

 

Yes, you need a registered purchased version.
Did you create an account? If you did you should be able to login. If your using the trial version you can't do this.

 

“I’m not that familiar with the concept” – I’m afraid that about sums it up for me and the amount of help I can offer – sorry.
Maybe a new thread with a “BART Help Needed” title will get some answers for you.

PS - Looks like you've got your answer.

 

Ok, you guys deserve to earn sales commission from Acronis. I am going to purchase and register my trial version only because of the quick response from the forum members. It would be more comforting if Acronis was this quick, but hey...

Thanks again.

(If anybody else has input on the original issue, I'd still love to hear it. I now got 30 days from today to make sure TI does what I need.

 

The Rescue CD and USB2 external drives has been problematic because of the drivers used. Do a forum search and you'll see lots of discussion. The Rescue CD is a linux environment. BartPe is a windows environment, so USB2 support should not be such an issue. I'd recommend you download TI from Newegg. Its inexpensive.

 

Too late, Tom, but thanks. Could have saved $20 had I gotten it from Newegg.

Got the BartPE loaded and burnt my first coaster (CD-R). I like the concept, but I can see where I'm going to have a large collection of coasters before I get all the drivers in all the right places. (No joy on the first cut. USB drive still not detected.) I'm reasonably savvy at this computer stuff, but if the BartPE doesn't work out of the box for you, it's not for the faint-hearted to customize. An investment in CD-R/W blanks is definitely warranted. Now where's that 20 bucks I could have saved downloading from Newegg!

FWIW: The True Image plug-in for BartPE from Acronis is only version 8. Coincidentally, there has been forum activity today ("TI9 and BartPE plug-in") beating on Acronis for a delivery timeframe for the V9 plug-in, but no answer as of yet. One would think (hope) Acronis's software development procedures are mature enough to be able to configure a plug-in build that cranks it out without a lot of additional effort, but apparently it takes more than one would expect.

FWIW2: There appears to be an unofficial version of a V9 True Image plug-in for BartPE: "TI 9 plugin for BartPE is available ". Scary that guys without access to source code can do this yet Acronis cannot...

 

Yes, the Acronis plugin is V8.0 but it works with V9.0. Once you get the drivers sorted out it will be OK. Yes you need CDRW's.

 

Hello all,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

Please accept my apologies for the delay with the response.

SMRosenberry, first of all, please disable USB Legacy Support option in the BIOS. If the drive is connected to the computer through a hub then please try to connect it directly.

If this does not help, please create Acronis Report and Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

Please submit a request for technical support. Attach the collected file and information to your request along with the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with the solution.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko

 

Thank you to everyone for your assistance. I am happy to report that all is well! In the course of performing the further diagnostics requested by Kirill from Acronis, I found that the True Image Rescue CD was indeed detecting my USB external drive. I have successfully verified a full image backup with an incremental backup using the Rescue CD.

Most likely the initial failure to recognize the USB drive was because it was not connected during the Linux boot sequence. (My bad. I thought the USB drive being connected during reboot on a previous attempt caused the notebook to stop in what looked like some sort of BIOS report which required a power off reboot to move on(?). My second attempt was with the USB drive disconnected. The notebook of course rebooted correctly but prevented the USB drive from being detected when I later plugged it in. It appears the first attempt was just another of those random failures that make computers so much fun. )

For anyone who finds themselves here because of the mention earlier in this thread of the unofficial V9 plug-in. I can also confirm that it appears to work as well. (Completely ignoring the use of BartPE solely as a means of running True Image for the moment, anyone with an interest in booting a minimally functional version of WinXP without a hard drive, the Reatogo version of BartPE built from the instructions in the above link is very interesting...)

Again thank you everyone. After 20 years of working with computers, I can sleep soundly at night knowing I finally have a reasonable disaster recovery plan (as opposed to simply having all the important data handy and a four day rebuild plan ).

 

Hello SMRosenberry,

I'm glad to hear that your issue has been solved.

If you have any further questions please feel free to ask.

Thank you.
--
Kirill Omelchenko