HD Clone question

[bobster]

I recently bought a Vantec external drive enclosure and a WD320 gig Sata
hard drive identical to my "C" drive - to be used as a "hot spare" in case
of "C" drive failure. Using this setup and Casper 5.0 cloning software, I
created a clone, then physically substituted it for the "C" drive and voila,
it booted without incident.

My question:

Is there a way I could leave the cloned drive in the external enclosure and
temporarily boot directly from there rather than have to physically swap it
into the internal "C" drive position? Would I have to change any boot
sequence or BIOS settings?

Intel dual processor 2.2
2 gig ram
XP home SP3
IE7

TIA

 

[Timothy Daniels]

You didn't say whether the external drive enclosure connects to
the PC via USB or eSATA. If it's USB, the answer is "No, unless
your BIOS can boot from a USB hard drive - which is unlikely."
If it's eSATA, the answer is "Probably yes. Just tell the BIOS
which hard drive to boot from."

*TimDaniels*

 

[bobster]

Thanks Tim,

The external HD enclosure connects to the computer via a USB cable so it
sounds like a direct boot from the external drive enclosure won't work.
Actually the physical changeout only takes about 15 minutes and I don't
expect to have to do it very often.

============================================================
You didn't say whether the external drive enclosure connects to
the PC via USB or eSATA. If it's USB, the answer is "No, unless
your BIOS can boot from a USB hard drive - which is unlikely."
If it's eSATA, the answer is "Probably yes. Just tell the BIOS
which hard drive to boot from."

*TimDaniels*

 

[Randem]

Your computer can attempt to boot from the USB drive but Windows will soon
fail. It will look like it will work but it will not. I haven't found out
why yet but I have tried it and it fails... I imagine that if it is attached
via a SATA cable it should work for it is directly attached to the bus, it
is just on the outside of the computer.

--
Randem Systems
Your Installation Specialist
The Top Inno Setup Script Generator
http://www.randem.com/innoscript.html
Disk Read Error Press Ctl+Alt+Del to Restart
http://www.randem.com/discus/messages/9402/9406.html?1236319938

 

[John John - MVP]

It fails on USB because the USB stack is initialized well after the
Session Manager attempts to start the session. To get this to work you
have to change the way the USB stack is loaded.

John

 

[Anna]

You didn't say whether the external drive enclosure connects to
the PC via USB or eSATA. If it's USB, the answer is "No, unless
your BIOS can boot from a USB hard drive - which is unlikely."
If it's eSATA, the answer is "Probably yes. Just tell the BIOS
which hard drive to boot from."

Thanks Tim,

The external HD enclosure connects to the computer via a USB cable so it
sounds like a direct boot from the external drive enclosure won't work.
Actually the physical changeout only takes about 15 minutes and I don't
expect to have to do it very often.

bobster:
As Timothy has pointed out it's highly unlikely you'll be able to boot from
your USB external HDD.

While you indicate your Vantec external enclosure is connected to your PC
via a USB connection, are you sure it doesn't have eSATA connectivity as
well? Most of the current Vantec enclosures do have this capability, i.e.,
SATA-to-SATA connectivity as well as USB connectivity, and it's a most
desirable feature to have for the reason Tim mentions, i.e., you can then
boot directly from the external device.

But even if your enclosure doesn't have this capability it's still a
relatively simple matter using the Casper 5 program to just clone the
contents of the USBEHD to your internal HDD in order to restore the system
to a bootable, functional state. I assume you understand that it's
unnecessary to "physically swap" the external HDD into your system (as you
have indicated) at least in those cases where the internal HDD is
non-defective and you simply want to restore the system to a functional
state because the system has become unbootable/dysfunctional. Presumably the
only time you might wish to "swap" the drive is when the internal HDD has
become defective. But of course that "swap" option is always open to you.
Anna

 

[Anna]

bobster:
As Timothy has pointed out it's highly unlikely you'll be able to boot
from your USB external HDD.

While you indicate your Vantec external enclosure is connected to your PC
via a USB connection, are you sure it doesn't have eSATA connectivity as
well? Most of the current Vantec enclosures do have this capability, i.e.,
SATA-to-SATA connectivity as well as USB connectivity, and it's a most
desirable feature to have for the reason Tim mentions, i.e., you can then
boot directly from the external device.

But even if your enclosure doesn't have this capability it's still a
relatively simple matter using the Casper 5 program to just clone the
contents of the USBEHD to your internal HDD in order to restore the system
to a bootable, functional state. I assume you understand that it's
unnecessary to "physically swap" the external HDD into your system (as you
have indicated) at least in those cases where the internal HDD is
non-defective and you simply want to restore the system to a functional
state because the system has become unbootable/dysfunctional. Presumably
the only time you might wish to "swap" the drive is when the internal HDD
has become defective. But of course that "swap" option is always open to
you.
Anna

bobster:
I neglected to mention in my post above that if your external enclosure is
equipped with an eSATA port (or you eventually obtain one such enclosure)
your PC - assuming it's a desktop machine - will similarly need to be
equipped with either a SATA or eSATA port in order to achieve SATA-to-SATA
connectivity between the external enclosure & the PC. You probably already
know this but I thought I would mention that requirement now.

If your desktop PC case is not equipped with either a SATA or eSATA port,
you can purchase an adapter to provide this capability. They're generally
quite inexpensive - in the $10 to $15 range or thereabouts. See, for
example...
http://www.usb-ware.com/sata-port-adapter-internal-external.htm
It's simply a matter of affixing the adapter to the backplane of the
desktop's case. The internal SATA data cable is connected to a motherboard's
vacant SATA connector.

With a laptop/notebook machine you can use an ExpressCard with an eSATA port
to achieve this capability.
Anna

 

[Twayne]

I recently bought a Vantec external drive enclosure and a WD320 gig
Sata hard drive identical to my "C" drive - to be used as a "hot
spare" in case of "C" drive failure. Using this setup and Casper 5.0
cloning software, I created a clone, then physically substituted it
for the "C" drive and voila, it booted without incident.

My question:

Is there a way I could leave the cloned drive in the external
enclosure and temporarily boot directly from there rather than have
to physically swap it into the internal "C" drive position? Would I
have to change any boot sequence or BIOS settings?

Intel dual processor 2.2
2 gig ram
XP home SP3
IE7

TIA

As long as your BIOS sees it as a bootable device, yes.

 

[Bill in Co.]

bobster:
As Timothy has pointed out it's highly unlikely you'll be able to boot
from
your USB external HDD.

While you indicate your Vantec external enclosure is connected to your PC
via a USB connection, are you sure it doesn't have eSATA connectivity as
well? Most of the current Vantec enclosures do have this capability, i.e.,
SATA-to-SATA connectivity as well as USB connectivity, and it's a most
desirable feature to have for the reason Tim mentions, i.e., you can then
boot directly from the external device.

AND also that it is so much faster in transfers (like for backing up or
restoring an image) than USB. It probably would be worth his considering
getting a Vantec enclosure with SATA capability, assuming he has a SATA or
eSATA port on his computer to be able to use it.

 

[bobster]

Timothy, Randem, John John, Anna, Bill & Twayne:

Thanks to all of you for your quick replies and sage advice. Here's the
latest:

I looked more closely at the Vantec package and identified the SATA
cable/connector assembly, installed it to the SATA 5 internal jack,
reassembled everything, powered up, and the external WD drive was
immediately recognized. I made a new clone using Casper 5 and it only took
9 minutes! I then went into the BIOS and set the SATA 5 as the boot drive,
rebooted, rechecked the boot position to assure that it truly was booting
from the Vantec/SATA 5 -- it was. I then went back into the BIOS and
returned the boot sequence to the original SATA 0 position.

To say I am satisfied that I now have a foolproof backup system would be an
understatement. Should I have a hard disk failure or a complete crash, I
can recover in the time it takes me to go into the BIOS and change the start
sequence to the SATA 5 drive. Also, I can make a new clone any time in
about 9 minutes using the Casper 5.0 1 click shortcut.

Again, thanks for all your help.

=============================================================
You didn't say whether the external drive enclosure connects to
the PC via USB or eSATA. If it's USB, the answer is "No, unless
your BIOS can boot from a USB hard drive - which is unlikely."
If it's eSATA, the answer is "Probably yes. Just tell the BIOS
which hard drive to boot from."

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

If your desktop PC case is not equipped with either a SATA or
eSATA port, you can purchase an adapter to provide this capability.
They're generally quite inexpensive - in the $10 to $15 range or
thereabouts. See, for example...
http://www.usb-ware.com/sata-port-adapter-internal-external.htm
It's simply a matter of affixing the adapter to the backplane of the desktop's case. The internal SATA data cable is
connected to a
motherboard's vacant SATA connector.

With a laptop/notebook machine you can use an ExpressCard with
an eSATA port to achieve this capability.
Anna

While an eSATA ExpressCard will enabel hight speed data transfer
between the laptop and the external eSATA hard drive, it won't enable
BOOTING from the external eSATA hard drive. I found this out *after*
I had bought an eSATA ExpressCard. :-(

*TimDaniels*

 

[Anna]

While an eSATA ExpressCard will enabel hight speed data transfer
between the laptop and the external eSATA hard drive, it won't enable
BOOTING from the external eSATA hard drive. I found this out *after*
I had bought an eSATA ExpressCard. :-(

*TimDaniels*

Tim:
You are correct based upon our experience as well with a number of these
eSATA ExpressCards. I should not have added that final comment to my post
above.

We've experimented with a number of these eSATA ExpressCards (about 4 or 5 I
think) and with one exception we've never been able to boot from that
device.

The one exception was with the Addonics ADEXC34-2E eSATA ExpressCard, a
device recommended by a poster to this newsgroup or another XP newsgroup.
While we were able to boot XP from a cloned copy of the OS installed on that
device, we could achieve that capability *only* on one notebook. (I believe
it was either an Acer or HP, or Panasonic machine, but I really can't
recall. And even with that one machine the boot capability was erratic or
inconsistent). In any event we couldn't achieve that capability on any other
make of laptop/notebook.

I should also add that we've never been able to achieve boot capability
either using a SATA or eSATA CardBus device (the "predecessor" to the
ExpressCard) with a wide variety of those devices and various makes/models
of laptops/notebooks.

We still encounter reports on the net from time-to-time about the
"bootability" of ExpressCards, but as I say, our experience parallels yours.
So it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has had *direct*
experience booting XP from an ExpressCard device.
Anna

 

[Anna]

Tim:
You are correct based upon our experience as well with a number of these
eSATA ExpressCards. I should not have added that final comment to my post
above.

We've experimented with a number of these eSATA ExpressCards (about 4 or 5
I think) and with one exception we've never been able to boot from that
device.

The one exception was with the Addonics ADEXC34-2E eSATA ExpressCard, a
device recommended by a poster to this newsgroup or another XP newsgroup.
While we were able to boot XP from a cloned copy of the OS installed on
that device, we could achieve that capability *only* on one notebook. (I
believe it was either an Acer or HP, or Panasonic machine, but I really
can't recall. And even with that one machine the boot capability was
erratic or inconsistent). In any event we couldn't achieve that capability
on any other make of laptop/notebook.

I should also add that we've never been able to achieve boot capability
either using a SATA or eSATA CardBus device (the "predecessor" to the
ExpressCard) with a wide variety of those devices and various makes/models
of laptops/notebooks.

We still encounter reports on the net from time-to-time about the
"bootability" of ExpressCards, but as I say, our experience parallels
yours. So it would be interesting to hear from anyone who has had *direct*
experience booting XP from an ExpressCard device.
Anna

Tim:
I forgot to mention that nearly all of our disk-cloning operations were with
the Casper 5 program, although I'm pretty sure we also used the Acronis True
Image program (probably v10) on a number of occasions.

I would guess that it probably wouldn't matter in that the results would
most likely be the same, i.e, an inability to boot from the ExpressCard
regardless of the disk-cloning program that had been used.
Anna

 

[Timothy Daniels]

[............]
I would guess that it probably wouldn't matter in that the results
would most likely be the same, i.e, an inability to boot from the
ExpressCard regardless of the disk-cloning program that had
been used.
Anna

I think an MVP once explained this as being due to the
ExpressCard driver being loaded too late in the boot process.
It sounds to me to be similar to the boot-from-USB-HD problem.

*TimDaniels*