Recovering HD Image from Maxtor 3200 HD

I have just replaced my desktop PC hard drive. I have a backup (complete disk image) in Acronis 10 on a Maxtor 3200 external USB drive but the Acronis bootable media disk I created previously states that it does not contain USB drivers, and when I power up the PC does not recognize the Maxtor. I have Googled for a Maxtor 3200 driver and all I can find is a lot of links to various computer forums that say Maxtor do not provide a driver for this unit. I have looked at some previous questions on this sort of issue in this forum, but I can't find one that covers my particular situation. Can anyone point me in the right direction, please? (Keep it simple, please!)

 

Do you already have an operating system on the new drive? If so what is it?
If not, do you have an installation cd for the OS?
When you had the old drive, did you try the Acronis bootable disk to see if it recognized the external Maxtor?
When you made the Acronis bootable did you include both Safe and Full Modes?
Do you know what build number of version 10 you have?

 

1. There is no OS on the new drive and it is unformatted.
2. I do have a disc for the OS (XP Home).
3. The old drive did recognise the Maxtor.
4. The boot disc offers the option of safe and full modes.
5. Build 4,871.

Regarding questions 1 & 2, by taking an image of the complete old hard drive, doesn't that mean that when this image is transferred to another drive, everything, including the OS is included and if not, why bother to do a complete backup?

 

3. I meant the bootable Acronis cd recognizing the maxtor - not the old hard drive.
Did you use the Full mode when you tried the restore? This should make Acronis see the external.
That build number is not the latest, which I think is 4942. You should download the latest - but of course you need to have a functioning computer.

Yes, if you made an image of the entire hard drive you only need to restore it to the new drive to have everything including OS.

What you said here, "when I power up the PC does not recognize the Maxtor." has me confused. You need to have a working system before the pc will recognize the external Maxtor. Is the old drive still working in the computer?

 

No, as you imply it's the Acronis boot disc that does't recognise the Maxtor (presumably because the former doesn't contain any USB drives?). I did use the full mode. Regarding your last comment, the old disc is not in the PC - at the moment as it is unusable (a long story – please refer to
http://www.experts-exchange.com/OS/Microsoft_Operating_Systems/Windows/XP/Q_22711432.html for the reason, and this is partly why I decided to change it).

Notwithstanding its present shortcomings, if I reinstalled the old HDD as a slave drive, could it then be used to get the Maxtor recognised as it still contains the OS?

 

You need to have a working system before the pc will recognize the external Maxtor. If the old drive is still bootable to the Windows desktop, then, yes, it will recognize the external.

If you can get ahold of another working system, use it to connect the external Maxtor, then boot with the Acronis boot cd and see if it will recognize the Maxtor. If it doesn't you need to download build 4942 and create another bootable True Image cd.

 

The fact that you upgraded to a new desktop drive should have no bearing on whether the Maxtor is viewable--either by Windows or the Recovery CD. The operating system is the same. If however, your OS was a newly installed OS after the larger drive was installed, then a driver may be lacking. Did you get an install disk with the purchase of the Maxtor drive?

The external drive should be powered up and data cable connected (preferable to a rear connector) before booting up using the Rescue CD in Full mode. See note-1 below.

To get the drive recognized in Windows:
Have external drive powered up and attach the data cable to rear connector. Drive should show in Windows Explorer as another drive letter.

Note: if the external drive is connected prior to desktop bootup, it should normally be recognized by Windows. If it isn't then, you might try using the "find new hdwe option.

Note-1: Some users have found their external drives to be troulbesome and have found success in attaching the drive just prior to selecting the full mode with the CD. Even a new usb cable may be worth trying. Updating your CD to the newest version (as suggested) should be a definite option.

 

Responding to a couple of points raised, I do have a very ancient and unstable PC that I am using at the moment and I have already restored some specific files from the Maxtor to it (though via the normal Acronis 10 programme and not the boot disc). As I said in my initial posting, no installation disc is supplied with Maxtor (it installs directly in XP) and therefore I have no separate driver software. It would therefore seem that the Maxtor works off some generic driver contained in XP.

Is this a possible solution? -

1. Install basic the XP software on my new drive from my XP installation disc.
2. Reboot from the Acronis bootable media and copy over the old disc image.

(It seems that I would then have 2 'versions' of Windows on the drive - one that I installed and the other from the transferred disc image - but perhaps there is a way round this?)

 

Hello grandsire02,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

We are sorry for the delayed response.

Please make sure you use the latest build (4942) of Acronis True Image 10.0 Home, as DwnNdrty suggested. To get access to updates you should first register your software. Don't forget to recreate Acronis Bootable Rescuse Media after updating.

If updating doesn't solve the problem, please try booting with "acpi=off noapic" parameter as it is described in Acronis Help Post.

If the issue persists, please collect some information to let us investigate it thoroughly:

Please create Linux system information (sysinfo.txt) as it is described in Acronis Help Post on the computer in question.

Please also create Acronis Report in the way described below:

- Download and run Acronis Report Utility;
- Select the "Create Bootable Floppy" option;
- Insert a blank floppy disk in the A: drive and proceed with creation of the bootable floppy;
- Boot the computer in question from this diskette and wait for report creation process to finish;
- Collect the report file from the floppy.

Then submit a request for technical support. Attach all the collected files and information to your request along with the step-by-step description of the actions taken before the problem appears and the link to this thread. We will investigate the problem and try to provide you with a solution.

P.S. Please also note that a possible workaround is to use a BartPE-based bootable CD created using Acronis True Image plug-in for BartPE and allowing one to boot the computer into a Windows-like environment loading the appropriate drivers for any hardware devices installed in the computer at startup.

Acronis True Image plug-in for BartPE comes with the Acronis True Image installation and can be found in the
\Program Files\Acronis\TrueImageHome\BartPE folder.

Also, you could proceed as you described in your last post: create two partition on the new drive; install Windows XP into one of the partitions; copy the image archive from the external drive to another partition of the two created; reboot the computer using Acronis Bootable Rescue Media and restore the image over the temporarily Windows XP installation. This way you will have your original Windows intallation on one partitions, and the image archive on the other.

Thank you.
--
Marat Setdikov