External Hard Drive?

In considering how to back up my hard drive i noticed that rightnow Office Max has on sale a Western Digital 120 GB external hard drive for $69.99 after rebates. That seems like a good deal for backing up the internal hard drive.

Are there any problems to using an external drive that connects to USB ports?
Some techs told me it was just like using the internal hard drive and instead of using C it will be D.
I am also of the opinion that the Norton Ghost is probably the best since I have read of the problems with Acronis and corruption of data when saving to a USB port device.

Thanks for any information.

Jerry

 

JerryM,

I don't know anything about Acronis; however I use a lot of USB storage devices (128MB-1GB) and have had no problems at all till date, except when I was using Windows 98.

 

Jerry,
My ext. Seagate 80Gb in a caddy came with both firewire & USB cables. I've used both with no noticeable difference. Your comp. will just recognise it as an external storage device just like any usb memory stick or digital camera! In fact I've used my dig camera to store and copy files to a friends computer!
Buck.

 

PS. Jerry,
I've never had any strife with Ghost. I think I'm using Network Ghost V8 Intel?
Got it from the Techies at work on two floppies.
Buck

 

For image/restore program, check out: http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/

I've been using Image for DOS for months for image/restore to/from DVD media. I've successfully restored my OS partition several times. Solid reliablity with byte-for-byte image verification. All offerings are compatible with USB drives.

Inexpensive purchase, 30-day demo is fully-functional.

Hope this hel;ps!

 

Buck,
It seems that the USB requires it to be disconnected before shutting down, but the firewire does not. Is that correct, and how is the firewire connected to the computer?
Is that a great advantage? I can see it would be more convenient.

Jerry

 

Not sure....I suppose so? I only ever connect it to backup and then disconnect afterwards. FW is connected to its own port (IEEE 1394). It's a big brick of a laptop, which I mainly use a desktop. So the ext. HDD is truly external.....lives in its own little box and is only connected when required.
HTH,
Buck.

 

Was going to ask about data transfer speeds. Make sure if your using USB, you are using USB 2 instead of 1.

Jimbob

 

Buck,
Thanks, I am getting this little by little.

Jim, I don't know the difference between USB 1 or 2. I don't even know what my computer has.

Jerry

 

Now you will see the extent of my knowledge when I ask what is hot plugged?

Jerry

 

Ron,
Thanks for the help.
Jerry

 

Warning!!!!

I have 5 external drives 2 support firewire as well as usb. 1 is a Vantec-Nextar2 the others are Maxtor. I had no problems with these drives until I upgraded to WinXP SP2. Now I am habing serious data corruption problems. Using these devices as backups are very risky. If you do a check on the web you will find there are a lot of problems with external drives recently. Mind you most were with Maxtor (Their reliability is very poor) 2 of mine are 2 years ols and making weird noises, usually a sign of pending doom. However I am also having problems with the Nextar enclosure (has a WD 200g drive). I love the external drives but this latest batch of problems has caused me endless hours of recovery attempts. (if you need a good recovery package look at getdataback. It's been great. but you can potentially spend hours recovering important data. I have begun backing up to DVD. This is far more reliable. Too bad 8.5g DVD's (dual layer burner) are still too expensive.

I hope this helps.

Stan

 

I use a Western Digital 250 GB external hard drive to:
1) make partition images using BootIt NG, and
2) make backups of My Documents folder (& subfolders) using the Windows XP built-in backup program.

I would take gud4u's suggestion in his (her?) 2/8/05 post above and check out TeraByte Unlimited. I use their BootIt product...for $35 you get an imaging program and full partition manager program. I restored an image of my Windows operating system already which saved my bacon.

I was told you should click the icon in the lower right system tray to disconnect USB devices from the operating system before physically pulling them out of the PC.

Regards,
Stro

 

That's good to know. I just started using one for the portable version of Roboform. I pulled it out today and got a warning screen. Didn't realize I was doing anything wrong.

Thanks

Dan