Moving ~100Gbs from on HD to another.

[comish4lif]

My main home PC is acting up and I want to copy all of my data off to
an external HD and reinstall everything from scratch on the main PC.
However, the USB External HD isn't recognized on the main PC; it works
fine on 2 different laptops. I've been through the wringer with Western
Digital (the drive maker), HP (the PC maker) and Microsoft, and it's a
problem that just isn't getting solved.

So, my new plan is to place the laptop (Windows XP Pro) on my home
network, attach the External HD, and transfer the file from the home PC
(Windows XP Home) across the network to the external HD. Microsoft,
makes this sound easy, but for me, I wasn't able to make it happen. I
tried to map to the External HD as a network drive, looking from the
desktop, and from the laptop trying to see the desktop. Neither went as
I had hoped.

Is there anyone out there that can provide a link to a good online
tutorial? Or a foolproof set of instructions?

 

[Bob Harris]

You might want to try downloading a KNOPPIX ISO image, burning it to CD (or
DVD), and then booting the PC from it.

KNOPPIX is a free LINUX distribution that runs from the CD (or DVD). By
default, it does not write to internal hard drives, although you can change
that. However, it will easily write to external hard drives, pen drives,
ZIP, etc. KNOPPIX also has support for many NIC cards.

KNOPPIX can read partitions formated as NTFS and copy from them. Version 4
has beta capability to write to NTFS and full capability to write to FAT32.

If the problem is within XP, then KNOPPIX can bypass that. But, if the
problem is the USB controller, or the cable, or drive, then it won't work
either.

KNOPPIX is a large download for the CD image, and even larger for the DVD
image, so a high-speed internet connect is required.

Note: To burn the ISO to CD (or DVD) you need software like Nero or Easy CD
Creator, which can "burn from image".

http://www.knopper.net/knoppix/index-en.html

 

[Anna]

My main home PC is acting up and I want to copy all of my data off to
an external HD and reinstall everything from scratch on the main PC.
However, the USB External HD isn't recognized on the main PC; it works
fine on 2 different laptops. I've been through the wringer with Western
Digital (the drive maker), HP (the PC maker) and Microsoft, and it's a
problem that just isn't getting solved.

So, my new plan is to place the laptop (Windows XP Pro) on my home
network, attach the External HD, and transfer the file from the home PC
(Windows XP Home) across the network to the external HD. Microsoft,
makes this sound easy, but for me, I wasn't able to make it happen. I
tried to map to the External HD as a network drive, looking from the
desktop, and from the laptop trying to see the desktop. Neither went as
I had hoped.

Is there anyone out there that can provide a link to a good online
tutorial? Or a foolproof set of instructions?

You really should determine why your USBEHD is not being recognized by your
desktop computer. I assume you've tried all the "regular" fixes, i.e.,
changing USB port(s), deleting the USB drivers one-by-one in Device Manager,
etc., but nothing has worked to date.

So, in the interim, (assuming your USBEHD is not a commercial single-unit
where you're dealing with a sealed enclosure) why not remove the HD from its
enclosure and install it as a secondary HD in your machine and perform your
data transfer from there. Is that a viable alternative?

Then you can later get back to finding out why the USBEHD isn't being
recognized by the system and hopefully correct that situation.
Anna

 

[comish4lif]

The main issue is that I need to take my PC back to factory settings,
whihch I am sure is why the USBEHD never connects. I've tried to
determine why the USBEHD is not working. It was 2 calls to Western
Digital, 1 to Microsoft and 3-4 to HP. It's either not their problem or
they do more damage than good. HP had me uninstall my USB drivers, but
when I rebooted they never came back. Reinstalling the chipset drivers
didn't work...

That's why I am trying to find a different way to get the files across
my home network onto the USBEHD.