External hard drive for backup.

[Tom Scruffy]

Hi, I'm looking for something to back up both of my computers on, that I can remove and store somewhere in case of system failure. I'm thinking an external hard drive.

Can anyone recommend a unit that has worked well for them or is there any alternatives that any of you like better?

Thanks, Tom

 

[Boyo]

Vantec NexStar 3 with eSATA and USB 2.0. Great Enclosure, not alot of money. If your mobo supports eSATA, I highly recommend using it.

 

[Tom Scruffy]

What is that, an exclosure that you plug a hard drive into? One of my computers has an Asus P5B motherboard and the other is a HP Paviliion from a few years ago. I think the P5B supports eSata, I don't know about the HP. I just basically want to store stuff on it, not use it externally all the time. The Asus computer has a 320 GB hard drive, the other has an 80 GB hard drive.

 

[bob4432]

do the vantec enclosure and whatever hdd you want - get a regular internal hdd and get the longer warranty, then just put it in the enclosure and you are good to go. i use acronis true image for my backing and it works flawlessly

 

[Tom Scruffy]

Thanks, one more question. When you get the recovery software, is this software you load on the computer to be backed up or the external hard drive? If it goes on the active computer is there any software that is loaded on the empty hard drive?

I know these questions sound basic but I have never used a backup before.

 

[jkresh]

there are some options that can be loaded on the drive and run off the usb drive but most are loaded on the machines and just save the backup files (or images) onto the external drive.

 

[bob4432]

with acronis you put the software one the main machine, then you can create a boot cd (possibly usb and/or floppy too) and then you could restore stuff from you external hdd to the internal one should the need arise

 

[Tom Scruffy]

Well, I finally decided to back up my system. I bought the Vantec enclosure with a 320GB hard drive in it. I attached it through the eSata outside port and went to turn the system on. For some reason, even though the boot priority has my CD drive, then the floppy and then my internal IDE drive, the system is trying to boot (or read from the external drive) on startup and this is causing my computer not to start up right. At first when I turned it on, the external drive light came on, the drive started spinning and it wouldn't boot. Then the second try it booted, but booted without the proper video drivers (big fonts like safe mode) and then a thing came up and told me that an unauthorized change to my Vista license was made and I had to validate online. The third try booted up and I am typing this with big safe mode style letters and the ATI graphics thing is popping up telling me I have no drivers. How do I get my computer to start, and recognize the external drive, but not try and boot from it?

Anybody have this happen before?

 

[moonsite]

why don't u unplug the external drive and then try to boot? See if you can boot up the same way as before first. It is probably recognizing your external drive as a SATA drive and try to boot from there. In your boot priorities list, it does tell you which hard drive is listed. Is it the internal drive or the external drive?

 

[Tom Scruffy]

This morning when I booted with the external drive disconnected, it booted normally, but last night when I had shut power off to the enclosure, it still was not booting right.

The thing that I think is strange, is that it is not even listed in the boot priorities.
The first priority is the cd drive, the second is the floppy and the third is my internal drive, the fourth boot option isn't enabled.

This is a Seagate Barracuda 7200 320 GB drive and it came with no software, I wonder if I need to install drivers from the website? It is listed in the hard drives in the Bios. My internal drive is listed as #1 hard drive and it is listed as #2, although in the splash screen on startup, it shows it as hard drive 0 and my internal drive as drive 1

 

[ATLien247]

I was just about to post a similar thread, but I saw this one and figured I would see if I could share...

Anyhow, I'm looking for an external enclosure that has room for two HDDs, and does disk mirroring automatically. Any recommendations?

 

[corkyg]

I use that exact enclosure with a Seagate SATA drive that is exactly the size of my internal drive. I don't do a "backup/restore" but rather, a complete clone of my internal drive. Using Acronis TI 10, it creates a bootable CDR, and I start there and clone the internal to the external.

The result is a totally dupolicate drive that is bootable.

I never have your boot problem using the external, because external drives are not in my boot sequence, and I never run it unless I am cloning. I hot plug it as needed.

And, ATLien247, what you are looking for is an external RAID 1 array. Google for that. Example:

eRAID

 

[Boyo]

When you boot up a PC, you should always have your eSATA drive turned off, otherwise it will conflict with your normal boot up. JUst turn it on once the rig is up and running and you want to make a backup using Acronis True Image 10. Otherwise, a backup drive doesn't need to be turned on.

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: bob4432
with acronis you put the software one the main machine, then you can create a boot cd (possibly usb and/or floppy too) and then you could restore stuff from you external hdd to the internal one should the need arise

Acronis True Image boot cds don't always work though in new systems. This has a big a huge problem and shouldn't be. What if your boot cd gives you errors when trying to restore the image? Not because the image is corrupt because the stupid boot cd doesn't want to work ? Out of luck ?

 

[Tom Scruffy]

I never have your boot problem using the external, because external drives are not in my boot sequence, and I never run it unless I am cloning. I hot plug it as needed.

It isn't in my boot sequence either, but it still tries to boot from it. How do you hot plug it? When I turn it on, Windows doesn't see it.



Also, can't you just use the backup utility in Windows Vista, instead of an outside program? That Acronis is $50.00

 

[pcslookout]

I rather just close the hard drive that way you don't have to worry about boot cds or dvds not working, restore not wanting to work without errors because if this happens your out of luck and have to redo windows xp or windows vista all over again with all your little settings, applications, etc.

Clones of a hard drive or raid 1 or raid 0+1 would be even better sense it does it in the background for you.

 

[Tom Scruffy]

I still don't see my drive when I turn the power on with the computer already started, I searched the Asus site to see if there was possibly a driver for the eSata port on the back of the motherboard that wasn't working, but if that were the case it wouldn't do those things on startup (I'm guessing).

The Vantec manual says the drive should show up on disc management,but it doesn't. I'm kind of out of ideas.

If i turn the external drive on, it should show up on disc management, right? I did have an error message a few days ago, that said "National Instruments Shared stopped working and was closed. A problem caused the application to stop working correctly". Could Windows have shut some kind of service off that would detect an eSata drive?

 

[Tom Scruffy]

And now Windows has popped up and told me that is has been de-activated due to a hardware change and my key doesn't work? What exactly is that all about? It's telling me I have to buy a new copy of Vista?

 

[Old Hippie]

Tom, this is sounding like your computer thinks your external SATA drive is inside your machine and Vista has been disabled because of a hardware change. You're gonna hafta call MS to get that fixed.
This also means your Esata port doesn't support hot swap. I have used an internal SATA port for an external drive and it wasn't recognized unless it was turned on when the machine was booted, but I didn't experience your start-up problems.
I would get MS to fix ya up, connect your external drive via USB and partition it, tell your bios to only boot from C drive and go from there.

 

[Puffnstuff]

Tom before you make that call use system restore and put your system back to like it was before you attached that drive to it. Then stop booting your system with that drive attached. I'd also check to make sure that you're running the latest bios from your mb manufacturer.

 

[Tom Scruffy]

Yea, I've been meaning to update my bios, but there's so many listed on the website, I'm not sure which one would be the current one to download. I have an Asus P5B- Deluxe Wifi-Ap edition with a current bios version of 0507. Anybody know what the current version that I should be running?

 

[Roguestar]

This one:
http://dlsvr03.asus.com/pub/ASUS/mb/soc...75/P5B%20Deluxe%20Wifi-AP/P5BD1101.zip

 

[Old Hippie]

connect your external drive via USB and partition it,

I don't wanna get ya confused here Tom, I meant format it, if it hasn't already been done.
I should never post before I have at least one cup of tea.

 

[Tom Scruffy]

It's already formatted and partitioned

 

[Tom Scruffy]

Thanks Rougestar for the bios version, I wasn't sure if I should just get the latest one on top or had to pick from any of the others.

I updated the bios and everything works OK but I still don't see that drive. I did, however, get that error message again that I had mentioned a few replies back...

National Instruments Shared stopped working and was closed. A problem caused the application to stop working correctly. Windows will notify you if a solution is available.

Of course we all know that Windows won't get back to me on that one.


Now I'm wondering if this National instruments thing is the issue as I had mentioned earlier. My motherboard manual says that the eSata port supports hot-swapping and googling this error message does yield a vague description that this might have to do with the system bus. I'm wondering if booting with the drive attached earlier caused Windows to shut a service off that controls that. When I had first gotten the drive, a month ago, I was able to initialize, format and partition it but after trying to boot with it attached it no longer is being seen and that error message comes up occasionally.