I bought myself a very cheap aluminium enclosure on Ebay and put a nice
Seagate 120Gb drive in it. Works perfectly under Windows 2000, but when
Ghost jumps to PC-DOS to create an image it can't find the USB drivers.

A better quality "Metal Gear Box" enclosure (also from Ebay but almost twice
the price) worked first time. Is my cheap enclosure an exception or is it
hit-and-miss? I have a customer who wants to buy a ready-assembled drive
and I'm at a loss how to advise her without trying one first.

--
####################
## PH, London
####################

Philip Herlihy wrote:
> I bought myself a very cheap aluminium enclosure on Ebay and put a
> nice Seagate 120Gb drive in it. Works perfectly under Windows 2000,
> but when Ghost jumps to PC-DOS to create an image it can't find the
> USB drivers.
> A better quality "Metal Gear Box" enclosure (also from Ebay but
> almost twice the price) worked first time. Is my cheap enclosure an
> exception or is it hit-and-miss? I have a customer who wants to buy
> a ready-assembled drive and I'm at a loss how to advise her without
> trying one first.

You have deduced in what I think is a correct way.
I once bought one of those cheapo boxes too.. Then I bought a better one
(albeit still under $40) and haven't missed a beat since.

If your customer is buying a pre-assembled (from the hard drive
manufacturer) combination, more than likely, they will be fine - but
guaranteeing it would require testing/finding someone else with said box.

--
<- Shenan ->
--
The information is provided "as is", it is suggested you research for
yourself before you take any advice - you are the one ultimately
responsible for your actions/problems/solutions. Know what you are
getting into before you jump in with both feet.

My own experience with GHOST 2003 are that it can not see all USB drives.
Further, it can only see the first USB contoller. Finally, I have read that
it can not handle mixed USB 1.1 and 2.0. Overall, GHOST 2003 is not
reliable with external hard drives.

You might have better luck with GHOST 9, which is based on Drive Image by
PowerQuest, which was purchased by Symantec. Or, try True Image 8 by
Acronis, which has worked well for me and several friends with an assortment
of USB and firewire devices and contollers.

"Philip Herlihy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>I bought myself a very cheap aluminium enclosure on Ebay and put a nice
>Seagate 120Gb drive in it. Works perfectly under Windows 2000, but when
>Ghost jumps to PC-DOS to create an image it can't find the USB drivers.
>
> A better quality "Metal Gear Box" enclosure (also from Ebay but almost
> twice the price) worked first time. Is my cheap enclosure an exception or
> is it hit-and-miss? I have a customer who wants to buy a ready-assembled
> drive and I'm at a loss how to advise her without trying one first.
>
> --
> ####################
> ## PH, London
> ####################
>

I, too, have a Metal Gear Box that works just fine... I also have several
others that I bought and have used, including an ADS enclosure that is a bit
larger than any of the others and has a fan (very important no matter what
anyone tells you) most of the aluminum enclosures tell you the aluminum
dissipates HD heat, and maybe they do, the only way to know is if your HD
doesn't die.....My guess is the chipset on each one may be different; the
USB drivers should not be any problem if you use Windows XP, I did not
'install' anything from the CD each manufacturer included, XP does supply
all that without any hesitation...The ADS enclosure is pricey and doesn't
look as 'cool' as the Metal gear Box, but it works.

"Shenan Stanley" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
news:(E-Mail Removed)...
> Philip Herlihy wrote:
> > I bought myself a very cheap aluminium enclosure on Ebay and put a
> > nice Seagate 120Gb drive in it. Works perfectly under Windows 2000,
> > but when Ghost jumps to PC-DOS to create an image it can't find the
> > USB drivers.
> > A better quality "Metal Gear Box" enclosure (also from Ebay but
> > almost twice the price) worked first time. Is my cheap enclosure an
> > exception or is it hit-and-miss? I have a customer who wants to buy
> > a ready-assembled drive and I'm at a loss how to advise her without
> > trying one first.
>
> You have deduced in what I think is a correct way.
> I once bought one of those cheapo boxes too.. Then I bought a better one
> (albeit still under $40) and haven't missed a beat since.
>
> If your customer is buying a pre-assembled (from the hard drive
> manufacturer) combination, more than likely, they will be fine - but
> guaranteeing it would require testing/finding someone else with said box.
>
> --
> <- Shenan ->
> --
> The information is provided "as is", it is suggested you research for
> yourself before you take any advice - you are the one ultimately
> responsible for your actions/problems/solutions. Know what you are
> getting into before you jump in with both feet.
>
>

> "Philip Herlihy" <(E-Mail Removed)> wrote in message
> news:(E-Mail Removed)...
>>I bought myself a very cheap aluminium enclosure on Ebay and put a nice
>>Seagate 120Gb drive in it. Works perfectly under Windows 2000, but when
>>Ghost jumps to PC-DOS to create an image it can't find the USB drivers.
>>
>> A better quality "Metal Gear Box" enclosure (also from Ebay but almost
>> twice the price) worked first time. Is my cheap enclosure an exception
>> or is it hit-and-miss? I have a customer who wants to buy a
>> ready-assembled drive and I'm at a loss how to advise her without trying
>> one first.
>>
>> --
>> ####################
>> ## PH, London
>> ####################



"Bob Harris" <rharris270[SPAM]@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:%23e%(E-Mail Removed)...
> My own experience with GHOST 2003 are that it can not see all USB drives.
> Further, it can only see the first USB contoller. Finally, I have read
> that it can not handle mixed USB 1.1 and 2.0. Overall, GHOST 2003 is not
> reliable with external hard drives.
>
> You might have better luck with GHOST 9, which is based on Drive Image by
> PowerQuest, which was purchased by Symantec. Or, try True Image 8 by
> Acronis, which has worked well for me and several friends with an
> assortment of USB and firewire devices and contollers.

Bob:
I've used Symantec's Norton Ghost 2003 version to clone USB external hard
drives countless times, using a wide variety of USB EHD's and many different
hard drives in USB external enclosures. I routinely use a Ghost 2003
bootable floppy (on occasion a Ghost bootable CD) to perform the cloning
operation and I can't recall the last time I had any difficulty in doing so
that was attributable to the Ghost program. Whatever problems I've run into
were due to either defective USB enclosures or defective hard drives, not
the program itself.

It is true that earlier builds of Ghost 2003 did have problems cloning to
USB EHD's. Symantec released a patch to correct the problem sometime in
2003. The version you should be working with is Ghost 2003.793. If you have
an earlier build you can update it using Ghost's built-in Live Update
feature.

I work nearly exclusively with USB 2.0. It is simply too slow to clone in a
USB 1.1 environment. I'm not sure I understand your statements that Ghost
"can only see the first USB cont(r)oller", nor that you have read that "it
cannot handle mixed USB 1.1 and 2.0". If a user is going to routinely clone
the contents of his internal hard drive to a USB EHD, I encourage him or her
to upgrade to USB 2.0 should their system not have this capability.

I've been using various versions of Symantec's Norton Ghost program for
about four years now. I find the program simple to use and effective in what
it does. For me that means cloning the contents of one drive to another
drive. I have frequently said that I wish every software program I use (and
will use) was as simple to use, straightforward in design, and effective in
what it does as Ghost.
Art