HDD Image Backup Restore Software Recommendations

[bobster]

Pete B,

I can't say for sure if the procedure will work for IDE drives as I only
have SATA drives on my Dell 530 machine but I don't see why it shouldn't
work OK for IDEs.

My first hookup to the external Vantec enclosure was via a USB2 port and it
worked fine. I then discovered a SATA cable that came with the HD and
connected the Vantec box to an unused SATA port. Also worked fine and is
supposedly faster than the USB2 hookup although I didn't notice any
difference in performance.

And don't forget that there was an "Oops" to the procedure. At the point in
(2) where it says "left click" it should read "right click".

You started an interesting topic. Who would have thought there would be
some 60 responses! I think we all learned a lot.

============================================================
I do not currently have a second HDD, but I am saving your post permanently
for reference if I have to install one, since it sounds very easy. I assume
it works with IDE drives? I don;t know much about the various types of HDD
drives other than their relative speeds and such, I don't even know if my
system could use SATA devices or anything other than IDE and USB.

Thanks all for all the good advice.

 

[N. Miller]

***I*** didn't do anything to my PC at all between the first post he complained
about and the second one he said was OK. I think perhaps the problems/changes
occur when you folks **read** the posts. Like I said, I never have seen anything
like you describe at all in any of my posts here since I have been posting to
newsgroups for years back.

No. Formatting is done by the sending client. The reader just renders the
formatting of the sender's output.

 

[Gord Dibben]

My first computer(8086) had one 5.25" drive.

Sure was fun swapping disks in and out.

What a relief to be able to add an external 3.5" drive later<g>

Of course, when I bought my next computer(20286) with a monstrous 40mb HDD
my life was changed forever.


Gord

 

[Mike Easter]

No. Formatting is done by the sending client. The reader just renders
the formatting of the sender's output.

Letting a term like 'formatting' to mean many things, and a term like
'renders the formatting of the sender's output' to mean more than one
thing, the relationship between how the sender sends and how the reader
renders what the sender has sent is what this sidebar discussion/
subthread/ is about.

The purpose of the QP in OE and elsewhere is to affect what happens to
the 'rendering' on the reader's end. Likewise the purpose of others'
f=f is also to so affect how the other reader 'renders'.

Participants here are trying to convince Pete that the QP configuration
has an adverse affect on how some readers render/wrap/ don't wrap/ what
he 'formatted' or wrapped.

His headers contain instructions to the reader's agent about how to
handle the linewrapping. Those instructions are understood and acted on
by the OE of the reader's agent. How those instructions are interpreted
by the reader's agent depends on many things, including which OE and
which version of which other agent is operative.

Naturally Pete doesn't see what others see because when he looks at -
reads/renders - what he has 'formatted'/instructed with his OE's
instructions, those instructions are being interpreted by the same OE as
wrote the instructions.

 

[Anna]

You (Pete B) said,

"Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect
it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA)."

...
If you have read any of my previous posts, you would know that I have done
just that -- added a second (and third) bootable drive numerous times.
Here's exactly how I did it for my XP Dell Inspiron 530.

(1) Mount and connect a new HD of equal or greater capacity than the "C"
drive HD in the second SATA slot or a suitable external enclosure. It
will
NOT be recognized as a bootable drive nor assigned a drive letter until
the
following steps are carried out.

(2) Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
Under
Storage, Select Disk Management. In my case, it identified my "C" drive
as
Disk 0 and the new HD as Disk 1. Left click on the cross hatched portion
of
the Disk 1 entry. Click on "format" and follow the directions to format
to
NTFS. This took about 45 minutes for my 320 Gig new drive. When it
finishes, you will see a new, bootable drive in your BIOS and "My
computer".
It will have been assigned the next available drive letter -- in my case
it
is my "F" drive. You can then, using cloning software such as Casper,
clone
the contents of your "C" drive to your new drive. The "C" drive will
remain
your default bootable drive and unless you select your new drive during
the
pre-boot sequence, your computer will always boot to "C". To boot to the
new drive, on a Dell computer after the Dell logo appears, you are offered
the opportunity to click on F12 which will take you into the BIOS boot
page
and you can select the new HD, hit enter and it will boot to the new
drive.
I have added another 320gig WDC bootable HD located in an external Vantec
(eSATA connected) enclosure using the above method. Booting to any one of
the three HDs takes less than one minute. The active booted HD can be
cloned to either of the other 2 HDs in 6-8 minutes using Casper.

The above procedure has proved to be fool proof for me. As always, YMMV

I do not currently have a second HDD, but I am saving your post permanently
for reference if I have to install one, since it sounds very easy. I assume
it works with IDE drives? I don;t know much about the various types of HDD
drives other than their relative speeds and such, I don't even know if my
system could use SATA devices or anything other than IDE and USB.

Thanks all for all the good advice.
--
Pete B

Pete B,

I can't say for sure if the procedure will work for IDE drives as I only
have SATA drives on my Dell 530 machine but I don't see why it shouldn't
work OK for IDEs.

My first hookup to the external Vantec enclosure was via a USB2 port and
it
worked fine. I then discovered a SATA cable that came with the HD and
connected the Vantec box to an unused SATA port. Also worked fine and is
supposedly faster than the USB2 hookup although I didn't notice any
difference in performance.

And don't forget that there was an "Oops" to the procedure. At the point
in
(2) where it says "left click" it should read "right click".

You started an interesting topic. Who would have thought there would be
some 60 responses! I think we all learned a lot.

bobster:
Just to clarify your comments in step (2) above as it pertains to installing
a new HDD that the user intends to employ as the "destination" drive to
receive the cloned contents of his/her "source" HDD.

Using your example involving the user adding a new
(unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB HDD to serve as that destination HDD (and
it doesn't matter whether it's a PATA or SATA HDD in this example)...

After installing/connecting that HDD in the PC (or in a USB or SATA external
enclosure) one would *not* have to use XP's Disk Management snap-in to
partition/format that disk prior to using the Casper disk-cloning program to
clone the contents of the user's source HDD to the 320 GB HDD assuming a
disk-to-disk cloning operation. Casper's disk-cloning operation would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting of the destination disk without the
need to invoke the Disk Management utility.

Let's say that the user's source HDD (as I believe in Pete's case) is a 120
GB HDD. We'll further assume that the drive is single-partitioned. Should
Pete clone the contents of his 120 GB HDD over to the 320 GB HDD the latter
drive will similarly be automatically set up with a single partition to hold
the contents of the 120 GB drive. Again, this is accomplished through the
disk-cloning operation without any need to invoke the Disk Management
utility.

Should Pete's source HDD contain two partitions, say one of 40 GB and
another of 80 GB, then the 320 GB destination HDD would be automatically set
up with two partitions - one of (about) 106 GB and the other of 214 GB. The
figures are approx. of course but note the two partitions would represent
the same percentage of disk space reflected on the source HDD. Again, this
would be accomplished through the disk-cloning operation without the need to
invoke the Disk Management utility.

Using another example, should the user desire to set up a different
partition scheme on his/her destination HDD then again Casper will "do all
the work" without the necessity of using Disk Management prior to the
disk-cloning operation. Let's say, for example, the user desired to set
aside a 150 GB partition on a new (unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB
destination HDD to hold the cloned contents of the 120 GB HDD since he/she
desired to use the remaining disk space on the destination drive for other
purposes. Using Casper, with a couple of simple mouse clicks the user would
have an option to create/format the 150 GB partition and clone the contents
of the source HDD over to that partition. The remaining disk space on the
destination HDD would, of course, become "unallocated" - disk space that the
user can subsequently partition/format according to his/her needs. Once
again there would be no need for the user to invoke the DM utility for
purposes of partitioning/formatting the destination HDD. Casper would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting & disk-cloning in one fell swoop
during the disk-cloning operation.
Anna

 

[Bill in Co.]

I do not currently have a second HDD, but I am saving your post
permanently
for reference if I have to install one, since it sounds very easy. I
assume
it works with IDE drives? I don;t know much about the various types of
HDD
drives other than their relative speeds and such, I don't even know if my
system could use SATA devices or anything other than IDE and USB.

Thanks all for all the good advice.
--
Pete B





bobster:
Just to clarify your comments in step (2) above as it pertains to
installing
a new HDD that the user intends to employ as the "destination" drive to
receive the cloned contents of his/her "source" HDD.

Using your example involving the user adding a new
(unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB HDD to serve as that destination HDD
(and
it doesn't matter whether it's a PATA or SATA HDD in this example)...

After installing/connecting that HDD in the PC (or in a USB or SATA
external
enclosure) one would *not* have to use XP's Disk Management snap-in to
partition/format that disk prior to using the Casper disk-cloning program
to
clone the contents of the user's source HDD to the 320 GB HDD assuming a
disk-to-disk cloning operation. Casper's disk-cloning operation would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting of the destination disk without the
need to invoke the Disk Management utility.

Let's say that the user's source HDD (as I believe in Pete's case) is a
120
GB HDD. We'll further assume that the drive is single-partitioned. Should
Pete clone the contents of his 120 GB HDD over to the 320 GB HDD the
latter
drive will similarly be automatically set up with a single partition to
hold
the contents of the 120 GB drive. Again, this is accomplished through the
disk-cloning operation without any need to invoke the Disk Management
utility.

Should Pete's source HDD contain two partitions, say one of 40 GB and
another of 80 GB, then the 320 GB destination HDD would be automatically
set
up with two partitions - one of (about) 106 GB and the other of 214 GB.
The
figures are approx. of course but note the two partitions would represent
the same percentage of disk space reflected on the source HDD.

I find it interesting that Casper would try to maintain the same % and not
the same partition sizes. Why on earth it would do that is beyond me - it
would make a lot more sense to clone the partitions while retaining their
original sizes as the default behavior, at least to me.

 

[bobster]

Anna,

As I recall when I first installed my external HD (unpartitioned,
unformatted) in the Vantec enclosure (initially using USB2) it did not show
up in "my computer". Thinking that it might have to be formatted before it
would show up, I went to Disk Management and found that it did show up
there as an unformatted drive, identified only as "Drive 1", with no drive
letter assigned. After following the formatting instructions, it emerged as
Drive "F" and then appeared in "my computer" as Drive "F". At that point
cloning "C" to "F was a no brainer.

I'm not sure how I could have cloned my "C" drive to a new drive that did
not appear on "my computer" as a new HD with its own drive letter. Maybe I
missed some step when installing the new HD that prevented it from being
recognized but I don't know what it could have been as I followed the
directions accurately. In fact, IIRC, the WD instructions told how to
format the drive using Disk Management and that's what led me to go that
route.

To summarize, when I connected my new external 320 gig WD HD to my Dell 530,
it did not show up in "my computer". Using DM, I formatted the drive and it
came out as "F" and worked perfectly from there on. It appeared to me to be
the only way I could get it recognized and hence used as a Casper
destination drive.

along the way

You (Pete B) said,

"Point is, I do not think you can just drop in a new added HDD and expect
it
to run as a second bootable HDD. The BIOS would probably not allow that
since it requires that only one physical HDD be the one with bootable
partitions (else you could not set it to start up without asking which HDD
to boot from every time, and that would be a PITA)."

...
If you have read any of my previous posts, you would know that I have done
just that -- added a second (and third) bootable drive numerous times.
Here's exactly how I did it for my XP Dell Inspiron 530.

(1) Mount and connect a new HD of equal or greater capacity than the "C"
drive HD in the second SATA slot or a suitable external enclosure. It
will
NOT be recognized as a bootable drive nor assigned a drive letter until
the
following steps are carried out.

(2) Go to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
Under
Storage, Select Disk Management. In my case, it identified my "C" drive
as
Disk 0 and the new HD as Disk 1. Left click on the cross hatched portion
of
the Disk 1 entry. Click on "format" and follow the directions to format
to
NTFS. This took about 45 minutes for my 320 Gig new drive. When it
finishes, you will see a new, bootable drive in your BIOS and "My
computer".
It will have been assigned the next available drive letter -- in my case
it
is my "F" drive. You can then, using cloning software such as Casper,
clone
the contents of your "C" drive to your new drive. The "C" drive will
remain
your default bootable drive and unless you select your new drive during
the
pre-boot sequence, your computer will always boot to "C". To boot to the
new drive, on a Dell computer after the Dell logo appears, you are offered
the opportunity to click on F12 which will take you into the BIOS boot
page
and you can select the new HD, hit enter and it will boot to the new
drive.
I have added another 320gig WDC bootable HD located in an external Vantec
(eSATA connected) enclosure using the above method. Booting to any one of
the three HDs takes less than one minute. The active booted HD can be
cloned to either of the other 2 HDs in 6-8 minutes using Casper.

The above procedure has proved to be fool proof for me. As always, YMMV

I do not currently have a second HDD, but I am saving your post permanently
for reference if I have to install one, since it sounds very easy. I assume
it works with IDE drives? I don;t know much about the various types of HDD
drives other than their relative speeds and such, I don't even know if my
system could use SATA devices or anything other than IDE and USB.

Thanks all for all the good advice.
--
Pete B

Pete B,

I can't say for sure if the procedure will work for IDE drives as I only
have SATA drives on my Dell 530 machine but I don't see why it shouldn't
work OK for IDEs.

My first hookup to the external Vantec enclosure was via a USB2 port and
it
worked fine. I then discovered a SATA cable that came with the HD and
connected the Vantec box to an unused SATA port. Also worked fine and is
supposedly faster than the USB2 hookup although I didn't notice any
difference in performance.

And don't forget that there was an "Oops" to the procedure. At the point
in
(2) where it says "left click" it should read "right click".

You started an interesting topic. Who would have thought there would be
some 60 responses! I think we all learned a lot.

bobster:
Just to clarify your comments in step (2) above as it pertains to installing
a new HDD that the user intends to employ as the "destination" drive to
receive the cloned contents of his/her "source" HDD.

Using your example involving the user adding a new
(unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB HDD to serve as that destination HDD (and
it doesn't matter whether it's a PATA or SATA HDD in this example)...

After installing/connecting that HDD in the PC (or in a USB or SATA external
enclosure) one would *not* have to use XP's Disk Management snap-in to
partition/format that disk prior to using the Casper disk-cloning program to
clone the contents of the user's source HDD to the 320 GB HDD assuming a
disk-to-disk cloning operation. Casper's disk-cloning operation would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting of the destination disk without the
need to invoke the Disk Management utility.

Let's say that the user's source HDD (as I believe in Pete's case) is a 120
GB HDD. We'll further assume that the drive is single-partitioned. Should
Pete clone the contents of his 120 GB HDD over to the 320 GB HDD the latter
drive will similarly be automatically set up with a single partition to hold
the contents of the 120 GB drive. Again, this is accomplished through the
disk-cloning operation without any need to invoke the Disk Management
utility.

Should Pete's source HDD contain two partitions, say one of 40 GB and
another of 80 GB, then the 320 GB destination HDD would be automatically set
up with two partitions - one of (about) 106 GB and the other of 214 GB. The
figures are approx. of course but note the two partitions would represent
the same percentage of disk space reflected on the source HDD. Again, this
would be accomplished through the disk-cloning operation without the need to
invoke the Disk Management utility.

Using another example, should the user desire to set up a different
partition scheme on his/her destination HDD then again Casper will "do all
the work" without the necessity of using Disk Management prior to the
disk-cloning operation. Let's say, for example, the user desired to set
aside a 150 GB partition on a new (unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB
destination HDD to hold the cloned contents of the 120 GB HDD since he/she
desired to use the remaining disk space on the destination drive for other
purposes. Using Casper, with a couple of simple mouse clicks the user would
have an option to create/format the 150 GB partition and clone the contents
of the source HDD over to that partition. The remaining disk space on the
destination HDD would, of course, become "unallocated" - disk space that the
user can subsequently partition/format according to his/her needs. Once
again there would be no need for the user to invoke the DM utility for
purposes of partitioning/formatting the destination HDD. Casper would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting & disk-cloning in one fell swoop
during the disk-cloning operation.
Anna

 

[Anna]

I find it interesting that Casper would try to maintain the same % and not
the same partition sizes. Why on earth it would do that is beyond me - it
would make a lot more sense to clone the partitions while retaining their
original sizes as the default behavior, at least to me.

Bill:
I believe that's the default behavior in many disk-cloning programs. But I
can understand your point of view.

In any event I trust I made it clear that during the Casper disk-cloning
operation the user has the option to size the partition(s) on the
destination HDD in any size(s) he/she desires with the obvious caveat that
the partition be large enough to contain the cloned contents of the source
HDD's partition(s). It's a very simple process involving a couple of mouse
clicks and takes but a few seconds.

So in the example I gave it would just be a trifling matter for the user to
create the two partitions of 40 GB & 80 GB on the destination HDD during the
disk-cloning operation should he or she desire that partitioning scheme.
Anna

 

[Anna]

bobster:
Just to clarify your comments in step (2) above as it pertains to
installing
a new HDD that the user intends to employ as the "destination" drive to
receive the cloned contents of his/her "source" HDD.

Using your example involving the user adding a new
(unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB HDD to serve as that destination HDD
(and
it doesn't matter whether it's a PATA or SATA HDD in this example)...

After installing/connecting that HDD in the PC (or in a USB or SATA
external
enclosure) one would *not* have to use XP's Disk Management snap-in to
partition/format that disk prior to using the Casper disk-cloning program
to
clone the contents of the user's source HDD to the 320 GB HDD assuming a
disk-to-disk cloning operation. Casper's disk-cloning operation would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting of the destination disk without the
need to invoke the Disk Management utility.

Let's say that the user's source HDD (as I believe in Pete's case) is a
120
GB HDD. We'll further assume that the drive is single-partitioned. Should
Pete clone the contents of his 120 GB HDD over to the 320 GB HDD the
latter
drive will similarly be automatically set up with a single partition to
hold
the contents of the 120 GB drive. Again, this is accomplished through the
disk-cloning operation without any need to invoke the Disk Management
utility.

Should Pete's source HDD contain two partitions, say one of 40 GB and
another of 80 GB, then the 320 GB destination HDD would be automatically
set
up with two partitions - one of (about) 106 GB and the other of 214 GB.
The
figures are approx. of course but note the two partitions would represent
the same percentage of disk space reflected on the source HDD. Again, this
would be accomplished through the disk-cloning operation without the need
to
invoke the Disk Management utility.

Using another example, should the user desire to set up a different
partition scheme on his/her destination HDD then again Casper will "do all
the work" without the necessity of using Disk Management prior to the
disk-cloning operation. Let's say, for example, the user desired to set
aside a 150 GB partition on a new (unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB
destination HDD to hold the cloned contents of the 120 GB HDD since he/she
desired to use the remaining disk space on the destination drive for other
purposes. Using Casper, with a couple of simple mouse clicks the user
would
have an option to create/format the 150 GB partition and clone the
contents
of the source HDD over to that partition. The remaining disk space on the
destination HDD would, of course, become "unallocated" - disk space that
the
user can subsequently partition/format according to his/her needs. Once
again there would be no need for the user to invoke the DM utility for
purposes of partitioning/formatting the destination HDD. Casper would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting & disk-cloning in one fell swoop
during the disk-cloning operation.
Anna

Anna,

As I recall when I first installed my external HD (unpartitioned,
unformatted) in the Vantec enclosure (initially using USB2) it did not
show
up in "my computer". Thinking that it might have to be formatted before
it
would show up, I went to Disk Management and found that it did show up
there as an unformatted drive, identified only as "Drive 1", with no drive
letter assigned. After following the formatting instructions, it emerged
as
Drive "F" and then appeared in "my computer" as Drive "F". At that point
cloning "C" to "F was a no brainer.

I'm not sure how I could have cloned my "C" drive to a new drive that did
not appear on "my computer" as a new HD with its own drive letter. Maybe
I
missed some step when installing the new HD that prevented it from being
recognized but I don't know what it could have been as I followed the
directions accurately. In fact, IIRC, the WD instructions told how to
format the drive using Disk Management and that's what led me to go that
route.

To summarize, when I connected my new external 320 gig WD HD to my Dell
530,
it did not show up in "my computer". Using DM, I formatted the drive and
it
came out as "F" and worked perfectly from there on. It appeared to me to
be
the only way I could get it recognized and hence used as a Casper
destination drive.

bobster:
When you installed the Vantec USB external enclosure containing an
unpartitioned/unformatted 320 GB HDD to your system it is true that the OS
(through the Disk Management utility) would not have assigned a drive letter
to that external drive. The disk would first have be have been initialized
(had the HDD been a "virgin" disk), partitioned & formatted to be detected
by the system so that it would be a usable device. So the drive would not be
listed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, etc., as you learned.

If (as was your intention) your objective was to use that USBEHD as the
"destination" HDD to receive the cloned contents of your "source" HDD (via
the Casper disk-cloning program), you did not have to first partition/format
the drive through Disk Management. As I indicated in my post above the
Casper program would have detected the installed USBEHD and the disk-cloning
process would have accomplished the partitioning/formatting process of that
destination HDD as an integral part of the disk-cloning process and the OS
would have assigned appropriate drive letter(s) to whatever partition(s)
were created on the cloned HDD.

Please understand that your use of the Disk Management utility to
partition/format the USBEHD caused no harm. It was merely an unnecessary
step under the circumstances of using that disk as the destination HDD while
using the Casper disk-cloning program.
Anna

 

[bobster]

Anna,

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Casper would have
recognized the new, unpartitioned, unformatted "virgin" external HD even
though it did not show up in "my computer" or in Windows Explorer as a
lettered drive. I was unaware of that, believing that a HD had to show up
there before Casper could see/use it as a destination drive. I thought that
Casper could only clone from one drive- lettered HD to another
drive-lettered HD. Fortunately, using DM got the job done although with 45
minutes of wasted time.

Maybe sometime when I have nothing else to do, I'll completely "wipe" one of
my HDs and clone my "C" to it just to get familiar with that process.
Although I've used Caspar (5 & now 6) for over a year there's still a lot
of capability I haven't used as my interest has been mainly to keep a "C"
drive "hot spare" at the ready.

Thanks for your astute observations and advice.

===============================================================

(e-mail address removed)> wrote in message

bobster:
Just to clarify your comments in step (2) above as it pertains to
installing
a new HDD that the user intends to employ as the "destination" drive to
receive the cloned contents of his/her "source" HDD.

Using your example involving the user adding a new
(unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB HDD to serve as that destination HDD
(and
it doesn't matter whether it's a PATA or SATA HDD in this example)...

After installing/connecting that HDD in the PC (or in a USB or SATA
external
enclosure) one would *not* have to use XP's Disk Management snap-in to
partition/format that disk prior to using the Casper disk-cloning program
to
clone the contents of the user's source HDD to the 320 GB HDD assuming a
disk-to-disk cloning operation. Casper's disk-cloning operation would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting of the destination disk without the
need to invoke the Disk Management utility.

Let's say that the user's source HDD (as I believe in Pete's case) is a
120
GB HDD. We'll further assume that the drive is single-partitioned. Should
Pete clone the contents of his 120 GB HDD over to the 320 GB HDD the
latter
drive will similarly be automatically set up with a single partition to
hold
the contents of the 120 GB drive. Again, this is accomplished through the
disk-cloning operation without any need to invoke the Disk Management
utility.

Should Pete's source HDD contain two partitions, say one of 40 GB and
another of 80 GB, then the 320 GB destination HDD would be automatically
set
up with two partitions - one of (about) 106 GB and the other of 214 GB.
The
figures are approx. of course but note the two partitions would represent
the same percentage of disk space reflected on the source HDD. Again, this
would be accomplished through the disk-cloning operation without the need
to
invoke the Disk Management utility.

Using another example, should the user desire to set up a different
partition scheme on his/her destination HDD then again Casper will "do all
the work" without the necessity of using Disk Management prior to the
disk-cloning operation. Let's say, for example, the user desired to set
aside a 150 GB partition on a new (unpartitioned/unformatted) 320 GB
destination HDD to hold the cloned contents of the 120 GB HDD since he/she
desired to use the remaining disk space on the destination drive for other
purposes. Using Casper, with a couple of simple mouse clicks the user
would
have an option to create/format the 150 GB partition and clone the
contents
of the source HDD over to that partition. The remaining disk space on the
destination HDD would, of course, become "unallocated" - disk space that
the
user can subsequently partition/format according to his/her needs. Once
again there would be no need for the user to invoke the DM utility for
purposes of partitioning/formatting the destination HDD. Casper would
accomplish the partitioning/formatting & disk-cloning in one fell swoop
during the disk-cloning operation.
Anna

Anna,

As I recall when I first installed my external HD (unpartitioned,
unformatted) in the Vantec enclosure (initially using USB2) it did not
show
up in "my computer". Thinking that it might have to be formatted before
it
would show up, I went to Disk Management and found that it did show up
there as an unformatted drive, identified only as "Drive 1", with no drive
letter assigned. After following the formatting instructions, it emerged
as
Drive "F" and then appeared in "my computer" as Drive "F". At that point
cloning "C" to "F was a no brainer.

I'm not sure how I could have cloned my "C" drive to a new drive that did
not appear on "my computer" as a new HD with its own drive letter. Maybe
I
missed some step when installing the new HD that prevented it from being
recognized but I don't know what it could have been as I followed the
directions accurately. In fact, IIRC, the WD instructions told how to
format the drive using Disk Management and that's what led me to go that
route.

To summarize, when I connected my new external 320 gig WD HD to my Dell
530,
it did not show up in "my computer". Using DM, I formatted the drive and
it
came out as "F" and worked perfectly from there on. It appeared to me to
be
the only way I could get it recognized and hence used as a Casper
destination drive.

bobster:
When you installed the Vantec USB external enclosure containing an
unpartitioned/unformatted 320 GB HDD to your system it is true that the OS
(through the Disk Management utility) would not have assigned a drive letter
to that external drive. The disk would first have be have been initialized
(had the HDD been a "virgin" disk), partitioned & formatted to be detected
by the system so that it would be a usable device. So the drive would not be
listed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, etc., as you learned.

If (as was your intention) your objective was to use that USBEHD as the
"destination" HDD to receive the cloned contents of your "source" HDD (via
the Casper disk-cloning program), you did not have to first partition/format
the drive through Disk Management. As I indicated in my post above the
Casper program would have detected the installed USBEHD and the disk-cloning
process would have accomplished the partitioning/formatting process of that
destination HDD as an integral part of the disk-cloning process and the OS
would have assigned appropriate drive letter(s) to whatever partition(s)
were created on the cloned HDD.

Please understand that your use of the Disk Management utility to
partition/format the USBEHD caused no harm. It was merely an unnecessary
step under the circumstances of using that disk as the destination HDD while
using the Casper disk-cloning program.
Anna

 

[Anna]

Anna wrote...
bobster:
When you installed the Vantec USB external enclosure containing an
unpartitioned/unformatted 320 GB HDD to your system it is true that the OS
(through the Disk Management utility) would not have assigned a drive
letter
to that external drive. The disk would first have be have been initialized
(had the HDD been a "virgin" disk), partitioned & formatted to be detected
by the system so that it would be a usable device. So the drive would not
be
listed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, etc., as you learned.

If (as was your intention) your objective was to use that USBEHD as the
"destination" HDD to receive the cloned contents of your "source" HDD (via
the Casper disk-cloning program), you did not have to first
partition/format
the drive through Disk Management. As I indicated in my post above the
Casper program would have detected the installed USBEHD and the
disk-cloning
process would have accomplished the partitioning/formatting process of
that
destination HDD as an integral part of the disk-cloning process and the OS
would have assigned appropriate drive letter(s) to whatever partition(s)
were created on the cloned HDD.

Please understand that your use of the Disk Management utility to
partition/format the USBEHD caused no harm. It was merely an unnecessary
step under the circumstances of using that disk as the destination HDD
while
using the Casper disk-cloning program.
Anna

Anna,

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Casper would have
recognized the new, unpartitioned, unformatted "virgin" external HD even
though it did not show up in "my computer" or in Windows Explorer as a
lettered drive. I was unaware of that, believing that a HD had to show up
there before Casper could see/use it as a destination drive. I thought
that
Casper could only clone from one drive- lettered HD to another
drive-lettered HD. Fortunately, using DM got the job done although with 45
minutes of wasted time.

Maybe sometime when I have nothing else to do, I'll completely "wipe" one
of
my HDs and clone my "C" to it just to get familiar with that process.
Although I've used Caspar (5 & now 6) for over a year there's still a lot
of capability I haven't used as my interest has been mainly to keep a "C"
drive "hot spare" at the ready.

Thanks for your astute observations and advice.

bobster:
Yes, you have it right. The "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the
cloned contents of the "source" HDD, need not be previously
partitioned/formatted or have a drive letter assigned to it prior to the
Casper disk-cloning operation. Casper will detect the new disk and carry out
its disk-cloning operation accordingly. The system will then assign a drive
letter to the partition(s) on the destination drive.

As I indicated, there really wasn't any significant downside to your prior
use of Disk Management in partitioning/formatting the new HDD that was
destined to serve as the destination drive during the disk-cloning
operation. Did it actually take 45 minutes to format that 320 GB HDD? Seems
like it would be an unusually long time for the system to complete that
operation unless you were working with a pretty old PC system. But now that
I think about it maybe it would take that long even with a fairly high-end
system.

Or did you mean that the *entire* operation, including the time to complete
the disk-cloning process, totaled 45 minutes? If so, that would not
necessarily be an unusual amount of time for a *first-time* disk-cloning
operation for Casper. As I'm sure you're aware from working with that
program, Casper's chief advantage as a disk-cloning program is its rather
extroardinary ability (its so-called "SmartClone" technology) to backup
(clone) the contents of one HDD to another HDD in a relatively short period
of time. But that advantage is truly gained only when users employ the
program on a routine/frequent basis in backing up (cloning) their source
HDD, hopefully not much less than on a weekly basis - perhaps even more
frequently so as to keep their systems backed-up on a reasonably up-to-date
basis.
Anna

 

[bobster]

Anna,

It actually did take about 45 minutes just to format my 320gig WD HD using
the DM utility. Once this was completed, the first "C" to "F" clone took
about 23 minutes as I recall, After about the 3rd run, "Smart Clone"
reduced that to between 6 and 8 minutes which is typical of my current times
using Casper 6.0. My computer is a Dell Inspiron 530 (XP/SP3), a middling
Intel dual 2.2 gig machine with 2 gigs of memory. I keep it squeaky
clean -- boots up ready to use in about 45 sec. and shuts down in about 12
sec., virtually trouble-free. I have Casper programmed to wake up and clone
"C" to "F" every Monday which it does nicely.

=============================================================

Anna wrote...
bobster:
When you installed the Vantec USB external enclosure containing an
unpartitioned/unformatted 320 GB HDD to your system it is true that the OS
(through the Disk Management utility) would not have assigned a drive
letter
to that external drive. The disk would first have be have been initialized
(had the HDD been a "virgin" disk), partitioned & formatted to be detected
by the system so that it would be a usable device. So the drive would not
be
listed in My Computer, Windows Explorer, etc., as you learned.

If (as was your intention) your objective was to use that USBEHD as the
"destination" HDD to receive the cloned contents of your "source" HDD (via
the Casper disk-cloning program), you did not have to first
partition/format
the drive through Disk Management. As I indicated in my post above the
Casper program would have detected the installed USBEHD and the
disk-cloning
process would have accomplished the partitioning/formatting process of
that
destination HDD as an integral part of the disk-cloning process and the OS
would have assigned appropriate drive letter(s) to whatever partition(s)
were created on the cloned HDD.

Please understand that your use of the Disk Management utility to
partition/format the USBEHD caused no harm. It was merely an unnecessary
step under the circumstances of using that disk as the destination HDD
while
using the Casper disk-cloning program.
Anna

Anna,

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that Casper would have
recognized the new, unpartitioned, unformatted "virgin" external HD even
though it did not show up in "my computer" or in Windows Explorer as a
lettered drive. I was unaware of that, believing that a HD had to show up
there before Casper could see/use it as a destination drive. I thought
that
Casper could only clone from one drive- lettered HD to another
drive-lettered HD. Fortunately, using DM got the job done although with 45
minutes of wasted time.

Maybe sometime when I have nothing else to do, I'll completely "wipe" one
of
my HDs and clone my "C" to it just to get familiar with that process.
Although I've used Caspar (5 & now 6) for over a year there's still a lot
of capability I haven't used as my interest has been mainly to keep a "C"
drive "hot spare" at the ready.

Thanks for your astute observations and advice.

bobster:
Yes, you have it right. The "destination" HDD, i.e., the recipient of the
cloned contents of the "source" HDD, need not be previously
partitioned/formatted or have a drive letter assigned to it prior to the
Casper disk-cloning operation. Casper will detect the new disk and carry out
its disk-cloning operation accordingly. The system will then assign a drive
letter to the partition(s) on the destination drive.

As I indicated, there really wasn't any significant downside to your prior
use of Disk Management in partitioning/formatting the new HDD that was
destined to serve as the destination drive during the disk-cloning
operation. Did it actually take 45 minutes to format that 320 GB HDD? Seems
like it would be an unusually long time for the system to complete that
operation unless you were working with a pretty old PC system. But now that
I think about it maybe it would take that long even with a fairly high-end
system.

Or did you mean that the *entire* operation, including the time to complete
the disk-cloning process, totaled 45 minutes? If so, that would not
necessarily be an unusual amount of time for a *first-time* disk-cloning
operation for Casper. As I'm sure you're aware from working with that
program, Casper's chief advantage as a disk-cloning program is its rather
extroardinary ability (its so-called "SmartClone" technology) to backup
(clone) the contents of one HDD to another HDD in a relatively short period
of time. But that advantage is truly gained only when users employ the
program on a routine/frequent basis in backing up (cloning) their source
HDD, hopefully not much less than on a weekly basis - perhaps even more
frequently so as to keep their systems backed-up on a reasonably up-to-date
basis.
Anna