External Hard Drive Setup

Marg,

OK, you have no SZ then. Your mentioning the activation of recovery manager in post #15 misled me, since SZ would be required to activate the Startup Recovery Manager.

The external HD (at least the partition on it where you did store Testback) can't be FAT32. If it were, Testback.tib would have been automatically split into 3 files, the first two of about 4 GB each and the third somewhat smaller, because FAT32 limits the file size to 4 GB. That didn't happen, so the external should be NTFS, as you made it.

Where did you see that the external reverted to FAT32 after you reformatted it to NTFS?

And yes, imaging direct to the external is what you should normally do.

 

I attempted to duplicate the view of FAT32 that I had seen. I only shows when I start the back up process, then I see FAT32. I see now that IBM, the developer of this computer, has space saved with FAT32 files. That was what I was seeing no doubt. I am sorry for the detour. I do thank you enormously for all the help you have given me. Is there anything else I need to do to be in good enough shape to let you go?

 

Hi Marg,

That would be the producer's own utilities, meant to enable the user to restore the computer to the original out of the box state. They put them in partitions which are usually formatted in FAT32, yes.

Everything seems cleared and you did great. But come back here often, you'll hear that particular kind of gossip you won't find anywhere else ...

I have been using True Image some three years now and I still learn something new on this forum every single day.

Welcome to the club, Marg.

 

Marg,
bvolk has given you some excellent responses. I have added a few comments below hoping this might provide a little more detail about backup destination.

That depends on your hardware. The question comes down to validation. I am assuming that your current backups created onto C drive have been successfully validated prior to copying to the external drive. Validation is verification that the destination backup files matches the source files. Sometimes when a backup is written directly to an external drive, there can be problems and the backup cannot be validated. Backup files created on C drive and then copied from C drive to an external drive are often more reliable--as opposed to a backup being written direct to the external drive.

Try doing a "full disk" backup of C using the external drive as the destination. After completion, choose the "validate" option. If you have any old backups files still remaining on C drive, be sure and remove them before doing a new backup.

If the validation of the test backup on the external drive is successful, then you may be able to do future backups there. However, first, perform another test by rebooting using the user created Recovey CD.
Perform another "full disk" backup of C using the external drive as the destination. After completion, again choose the "validate" option. The results of validation will provide more information on which to base your choice of continuing your current copying procedure or creating backups directly to the external.

Just curious. Is your external drive a USB or Firewire? Does the external have its own power adapter?

Remember, should you ever need to replace your current C drive due to failure to needing a larger drive, be sure you have a backup which is a "full disk" backup.

 

Thanks Grover. I will do that test later on today. My external hard drive is a Maxtor 6, 250 gb and is connected by usb port. It has its own power adapter. Marg
Ok, I have backed up my C: to my external hard drive. I ran a sucessful validation. I rebooted using the rescue disk I created. I backed up my C: a second time to my hard drive. I again ran a sucessful validation. Just to be safe, I then backed up my C: to C: and ran another successful validation. All back up files showed slightly different sizes. I have no idea why that would be as there was no activity on the pc during these tests.

I do wonder why I booted with the rescue disk. Was there something I was supposed to do while in rescue mode? I doubt that you wanted me to back up C: in rescue mode.

I am also assuming by "full disk" backup you are referring to C: and nothing more.
Thanks for your help and interest Grover.