Booting From External Enclosure: Copying Files For Backup?
Nov 24, 2007
I recently decided to start backing up my computer files. I read somewhere you can copy your drive so that way is something goes wrong with your main drive you can still boot from the backup.I have a Biostar P4M80-m4 Mobo, Windows xp is installed. I was wondering if I backed up to an external enclosure could I boot from that in case something happened to the main drive?The program I plan on used is R-Drive Image Since it has a 15d trial. I'm using the copy disk feature.
I just bought a Hitachi Deskstar 160 gb external hard drive to back up my system hard drive on my pc. I tried using the copy & paste commands from explorer, but the ext hard drive wouldn't allow this. What do I need to do to get this done?
I want to back up my files to an external hard drive using Windows Backup, but it is not shown as an option. The only options shown are the floppy and f: drives. Can you use this program to back up to an external drive? If so, how do you tell it where to send the data?
Ive recently bought the "Enermax Laureate 3,5" HDD Enclosure Powered (USB 2.0)" and i put in a "Western Digital Caviar SE WD2500JB 250GB (7200rpm/uATA100)". The problem is that i have a folder in there with the name "software" every time i want to access this file the external disk crashes and i need to turn off the power and turn it on again.The other folders works ok.i have erase and create again the file but nothing happens.i have the same folder with the same files in built-in hard disk and works perfecty.
I am ready to connect to my PC an external enclosure with an old 40 Gb HDD containing data . However I don't dare to do it without some good advise on what previous steps should I have to consider, if any, before connecting it to power and to the USB gate. Unfortunately there were not instructions in the box.
I just bought me a new SATA 250GB Hard Drive and a external hard drive enclosure. I received the items today and I just realize the hard drive enclosure doesn't build into the way to connect to the SATA 7-pin data connector. All it has is the Parallel ATA 40-pin data connector. Can anyone recommend any external hard drive enclosure that can connect to SATA connector directly. And there is a main reason why I choose a SATA hard drive.
I have a very tired samsung X20 laptop. It has: 1.7 ghz, 2 gig ram, 250 gig western digital hard drive WD2500BEVE - with IDE type connection. Windows xp home with sp3.All has been rosey untill the connection where hard drive is placed onto the motherboard was broken. Not a problem I though as I have an enclosure to put the drive in then connect using the usb. All wired up I turned the computer on, nothing in the drive bay and the same hard drive in the enclosure connected via usb.
I have a Compaq presario v2658au laptop. I wish to upgrade to a new larger HDD.I have lost the single copy of the xp operating system that the laptop allows me to make from the backup partition.I have tried to copy both the active partition and the backup partition using Norton Ghost. Both times it did not allow this.How can i copy either of these partitions or get the laptop allow me to make a fresh copy of xp.
Can I copy my C drive to an external usb drive and then later boot from the usb drive if my C drive fails without having to go through the complete installation of the WinXP-pro on the usb drive? If so, what program(s) can I use to do the copy?
I have one laptop that has been corrupted and will no longer boot. I have since removed the HD and place it in an USB enclosure. I have connected it to another Laptop running xp and have no problem viewing the contents of the drive.
At first I was unable to access the administrators documents, but after booting in safe mode, I changed ownership of the entire drive. At this point I am able to access every folder though I can not open any of the files.
my laptop gave me the blue screen and the boot disk could not get it back up.I purchased a plug n play USB 2.5" hard disk enclosure.I connected it to my second laptop and it recognizes it as another drive F:I can see all the directories and files, but cannot access them.I ran a Scan for Virus on the F drive and it found nothing.I get an error popup "File or directory is corrupted and unreadable" when I double click.
I have a usb 2.0 Vantec NexStar 3 external hard drive enclosure, it is packed with a Western Digital 80gig hard drive. After about 10 minutes of continuous use it will go unreconized by my computer and i have to restart the external drive in order for my computer to see it again. Is this a hardware failure in the enclosure or is it my computer? Now, if there is on and off use (like listening to mp3's or videos) it will go a lot longer time before it quits on me.
I need to learn more about backups. Bottom line is what do I do right now to make sure what I need is saved, because there's some indications that my hardware may be failing. But I want to do it right from the git-go so I don't waste a lot of time redoing things.
A) I have read the 1/26/06 thread started by cway's question--["Originally Posted by cway I am a 'Novice' to Backups, but am trying to learn..."]. It all seems to make sense to me.
B) Now I want to use what Stallcup (in that post) suggests as the 3rd option--["3) You want to avoid having to reinstall WinXP and have the quick, less labor intensive way of frequently backing up programs files and data." namely "frequently clone the system HDD to the backup HDD. In this way, if the system HDD gets corrupted, I can clone the backup HDD back to the system HDD"]
C) I have MAJOR concerns about what Bob Cerelli mentions about having outdated datafiles backed up--["...data has changed since the image was made, you will have old data restored. But a lot depends on how the computer is orgainized. For example, if just the OS and programs are on one partition which is imaged, and data on another, then restoring that first partition it will not affect data."] I have ADD-like memory problems about when I back up what, and I can't afford to overwrite new data with old...
Soooooo... I'm planning to buy a 200gb external hard drive. Then what?
1) what software do you recommend? a) Should I use the HP software that came with my computer? or buy something? b) Ghost? is that Symantec? (Can someone say more about the concerns with using that software?) c) Does "ghosting" mean the same thing as "cloning" (in Stallcup's post--#2 above)?
2) how do I know if all my OS and programs are on one partition? (I have an HP and the hard drive is obviously partitioned into "HP_Pavilion (C)" and "HP_Recovery (D)".
After backing up on this drive for nine months (and with a reformating three months ago), now the backup will not recognize the E: drive. No error message is given. MY Computer shows that it is now 3/4 full with plenty of space (46 gig) on the Acomodate 160 gig drive under NTSF format. I am thinking of changing to a fire wire from the USB.I have been doing a complete system backup and maybe I'll change to just backing up my documents after we get it working.
What laptops are available for purchase and would like to know if Windows can be installed on an external device so that it boots from there, not the internal Hard Disk. How would I be able to determine this so that I know the laptop's capabilities/limitations prior to buying it ?
I am backing up data to an external USB hard drive. What should I backup? I don't have enough room to backup my whole hard drive onto the external. I'm looking for suggestions of specific folders ie. Documents and Settings, etc. as opposed to advice like "whatever can't be downloaded or replaced easily".
I want to update my external hard drive that I keep music and photos on, but I don't know how to do it with completly rewritting the file. There has to be a way to update it, but I can't seem to figure it out. I'm running XP, and I have and External hard drive that runs through teh usb.
I have 4 PC's all running WinXP/SP3 on a workgroup using simple sharing. All PC's had access to all other PC's shared folders and external backup drives. Norton Ghost worked successfully from each PC, writing to either of two external backup hd (one ea on two of the four PC's). Life was good. Then I moved two PC's and changed the Computer Name on each. Now I am able to access the My Documents shared folder from/to any computer, but I'm unable to access the external backup harddrives. I have admin privledges on all machines.
My system totally crashed. I reformatted the drive and reinstall XP. Well, everything seems to be going along just fine until I get to 70% finished with copying installation files and I get message after message saying that the files cannot be copied.
I have an external hard drive (150GB) which is partitioned into two parts. One partition , about 145gb, is data and files of my own. Then there is an extended partition at 5gb in size, which contains windows xp installation files. What I did was take my windows xp cd, make an ISO, and then extracted the iso and put the files into the extended partition of my external usb hard drive.The computer I want to install to has a cd drive that is not working and thus i cannot install windows xp from a cd. The BIOS of the computer DOES support booting from a USB device.I have partition magic software and have used it to create the 5gb extended partition on the usb external drive. However, I don't know how to configure anything so that it will acutally know to boot from this partition and what files to use to start the installation.
My computer seems to work fine except when I try to do a copy in Casper XP to backup my hard drive to external HD. I also got this stop code last night when trying to do a disk check to correct errors. Stop 0X0000000A (0X00000188, 0X000000FF, 0X00000000, 0X804E35E9). I have located online page for stop 0X0000000A codes which states could be driver problem... that last one parimeter 4 -- 804E35E9 how/where would I find out which/if this is associated to a particular driver so I can possibly correct it?
I have a little problem maybe someone has a answer for me. I have a WD 250 GB HDD labeled as the D Drive. Well this morning I cannot get to it from windows at all a error message pops up saying MBR is corrupted or unreadable and that is it, the drive has worked flawlessly until the past week. Whenever I copied a file to it then tried to view or play it it wouldn't let me into the folder where i placed it saying a similiar message the folder has become corrupted and locked me out as to say. Today the system doesn't even recognize the drive at all.
I suspect we did not allow the write operation to finish but why this should affect boot up is beyond me.WE were copying a Folder containing word docs and gif files using right click/Send to/CD Drive. The files were copied ready for burning in the usual way and the burned to the CD.Being anxious to check the copy my partner clicked on the ready to burn icon instead of exiting and looking at the drive and the system froze. the only way was to power down and now it will not boot.It hangs on the windows logo screen (with the blue horizontal scrolling bar) and eventually the screen goes blank.I booted to safe mode and the screen hung at the end of the files loading, at least I thought it hung but in fact i had not waited long enough because on the second attempt it booted to safe mode after 4 minutes.Device manager shows no problems so rebooted as normal. Got the usual windows has encountered a problem screen and selected safe mode again. This time it took 25 minutes to boot.
I'm trying to install Win XP pro onto a brand new hard drive. I'm able to fully format it to NTFS without any problem. Once the format is complete, it then begins to copy over all the Windows system files from the disk to drive. It gets between 70-80% complete when it starts to encounter errors copying files over.
I've used two seperate rom drives as well as 3 different installation disks and I get the same error at the same point in time after every attempt.
I am trying to copy a file (4gig) from another computer. When I copy with a wired adapter it takes about 10 minutes. When I copy with the wireless adapter it takes about 50 minutes. I am using Windows XP Pro.
I have a computer that I need to take all of my existing files off of so that I can erase the HDD. I also have a 150gb external USB HDD. What is the fastest way to transfer all of my files on to my external HDD, and make them so that they are viewable by my other computers. I am running all Dell computers with Windows XP Professional on them.
My old XP crashed 2 days ago (All thx to WIndows Auto Update). I tried to use the Windows XP original CD but after repairing, it just stuck at the loading bar with an error message saying that "System32drivers tfs.sys is missing or corrupted".Using the recovery console, I copied the ntfs.sys from the CD to replace the new one, but it didn't solve the problem.
Tired & Frustrated, I decided to install a new one on D:. Now my new XP worked great, but I kinda need all the program that I installed on the old XP back. They're all there on my hard drive with my old XP system. So I guess if there's someway for me to copy all the registration files from my old XP system to my new one, I can run all my programs. I'm really appreciate if anyone can help me with this.
I am trying to install Windows XP Prof. and it keeps failing to copy over files right after a format. It never is the same files, it has been about 15-20 different files on about 5-6 tries of installation.It asks you if you want to retry and sometimes that works, sometimes it doesn't, sometimes you have to skip. It says it could be the windows disk, but the windows disk works fine in my test machine and I can install windows perfectly over there.
Im trying to copy a file from one folder to another but the batch file is not working, it says incorrect syntax. the command line im using is: COPY C:TEST *.* C:BACKDIR Does anyone know why this isnt working?
I'm trying to write a batch file that will copy files from a folder on the desktop to various files on the C drive. From what I understand it should be like this: copy c:documents and settings\%userprofile%desktopinstallfilename.txt c:windowsfilename.txt with %userprofile% in place of the actual user profile name because it will be different each time I run this batch file.This, however, is not working.
