Windows wants to Format drive

[Daniel]

Hi

I have a Vista Ultimate PC

I have en external drive connected through USB, the drive works fine, I can
write to it and from it, moving big files both ways.
I am trying to use this as my backup drive but when my backup program fires
up I get a message from Windows that the drive needs formatting?

Is there some way I can stop this message?

Thanks

Daniel

 

[Richard Urban]

What backup program are you using? Are you certain that it is not wanting to
have exclusive use of the drive? Check the documentation for this program.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Daniel]

Richard

thanks for your response.

I'm using Casper 4, which is brilliant on my XP Machine where I did not have
this problem, and which worked superbly when the C: drive failed, I was able
to restore to my new C: drive without any problems.

Casper does want exclusive use of the drive but why does Windows want to
format it, Windows has already formatted the drive and it works well with
normal Windows tasks?

Any thoughts?

regards

Daniel

 

[Richard Urban]

As per the web site, Casper 4 is a cloning program. By definition, a clone
is an exact duplicate of the source drive. So, of course it wants to format
your destination drive. It is **NOT** a backup program. I suggest you read
the manual for the software of your choice and find out how it works and
what it does to accomplish this work.

http://www.fssdev.com/products/casper/default.aspx

--


Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User
(For email, remove the obvious from my address)

 

[Michael Solomon]

Richard

thanks for your response.

I'm using Casper 4, which is brilliant on my XP Machine where I did not
have this problem, and which worked superbly when the C: drive failed, I
was able to restore to my new C: drive without any problems.

Casper does want exclusive use of the drive but why does Windows want to
format it, Windows has already formatted the drive and it works well with
normal Windows tasks?

Any thoughts?

regards

Daniel

Maybe it's not Windows making the call, maybe it is Casper. In other words,
as you state, Casper wants exclusive use of the drive; perhaps it is a part
of Casper's routine or its routine in Vista.

 

[Daniel]

Richard

I think it is a semantic difference, a backup is a safety net in case you
lose data on a drive for whatever reason, a clone of a drive is an excellent
backup, in any case it worked brilliantly when the C: drive on my XP Pro PC
failed, I was able to replace it then write the "clone to the new drive,
reboot and carry on as if nothing had happened, to me that is an very
effective backup program.

And the need to format again was not there with the XP PC, so I'm a bit
lost, the behaviour is not coming from Casper, I don't think, but then you
never know, perhaps the difference between XP and Vista causes Casper to
work this way.
I will ask the excellent Casper support people.

Thanks for you replies.

regards

Daniel

 

[Daniel]

"or its routine in Vista."

True, I only thought of that while replying to Richard, I am checking it
out.

regards

Daniel

 

[dennis@home]

Richard

I think it is a semantic difference, a backup is a safety net in case you
lose data on a drive for whatever reason, a clone of a drive is an
excellent backup, in any case it worked brilliantly when the C: drive on
my XP Pro PC failed, I was able to replace it then write the "clone to the
new drive, reboot and carry on as if nothing had happened, to me that is
an very effective backup program.

Its quite difficult to do daily backups using a disk cloneing tool and
remember you need more than one backup as the system *is* going to fail
halfway through the cloneing and you won't be able to recover it (thats just
a rule that can't be broken by any known method BTW).

 

[Daniel]

HUH??

word? openoffice.org is awesome. i suggest you try it and then you'll
avoid these silly little problems.

 

[parabola]

word? openoffice.org is awesome. i suggest you try it and then you'll avoid
these silly little problems.

 

[Michael Solomon]

word? openoffice.org is awesome. i suggest you try it and then you'll
avoid these silly little problems.

Parabola, how precisely does this apply to the OP?