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I have another question about hard drives

16 years ago

All you guys/gals have been so helpful to me. I think I have done all the backups covered in my previous post. I have bought a WD hard drive and what I would like to know is if there is a suitable program that is cheaper than Norton's Ghost. I also understand it is a little difficult to use. I appreciate any answers or help or suggestions you can give.

Thanks Janette

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Comments (8)

owbist
16 years ago
I believe Acronis True Image is better than Ghost these days. Norton seems to be losing ground. This is based purely on what I have read.

Perhaps Acronis will have another giveaway soon if you are in no hurry. I got version 7 free when 9 came out. Their idea of course is to get you interested then bait you to upgrade with a nice offer on the latest model.
mikie_gw
16 years ago
Western Digital should have a free download of a utility, if you are replacing a drive. Usually the retail versions of drives come with a cd that included the neccessary program to clone a drive.

www.WDC.com Support ... "If you plan on copying the contents of a boot drive, Western Digital recommends using the DOS version of Data Lifeguard Tools."
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Many thanks, everybody, for your advice! That does help a lot. Yes, my photo files do seem to be saved, as they are still there when I turn the drive off and back on. Actually, once I turn the drive off the little "safely remove hardware" icon disappears from my computer screen. So I suspect it's only available when the computer can detect extra hardware plugged in. So is it okay to remove the drive from the computer, as long as the drive is turned off, without going through that "safely remove" thing first? To answer some of your questions, no, there was no pamphlet included with the drive so I didn't get the key code. It is a 500 GB drive and I think it was about 99 dollars that I paid for it. Though, as there was actually only 465 GB free on it, I knew there must be something else on there somewhere--even if it wasn't showing up! I had looked at the Seagate web site before, and I think I saw something on there which said they would send you the software if you gave them the serial number of the drive and a little other information. Though, at the time, I thought they met the installation software and I didn't think I needed that, as it had installed okay. So maybe I'll look into that--or demand a pamphlet from the seller!
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The documents and pictures are (mostly) still there. When something is deleted, all that really occurs is that the first letter of the file name is dropped and the file becomes "invisible." You should be able to recover most or all of the files with the right software. However, if you keep using your computer, you stand a good chance of over-writing the files because the space they occupy is "free space" as far as the computer is concerned. My advice: use another computer and do a Google search for "recover deleted files" to find some software that works for you. It's been several year since I've had to hunt for deleted files, so I'm not up-to-date on what's out there. If possible, install the software you select on the new drive so that you don't over-write more accidentally deleted files when you install the new software.
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cboy
16 years ago
I use Acronis True Image 10.0
You can buy it at the lowest price here.
Acronis

$46.00 includes shipping. It will backup everything on
your hard drive and it will also clone your hard drive.
I had an extra hard drive. I first put on my computer as a
slave and format it and than I cloned it. It has to be removed after cloning.
If you use this I would only save a full backup to it Secure Zone until you learn how to use it better.
Save both Partitions C and D
Don't save the Secure Zone in a backup it is protected.
Janette_ORz7
Original Author
16 years ago
Thank you all for your help. I'm looking at the Acronis program and I'm wondering if there is advantage of buying it from the site cboy mentioned rather than downloading it from the Acronis site. Maybe they send a hard copy of a users guide book, etc.? Other than cost, that is. I see that I can get a free 15 day trial by down loading from Acronis.

I have another ?. As I said I bought a WD My Book Essential Edition external drive. I tried just a few minutes ago to back up my Documents & Settings folder to it. I get the following message: "You have either run out of space, or the back up file (.bkf) is too large for this disk. Note: If this disk is formatted with FAT32, the maximum possible size for the backup file is limited to 4GB, The backup operation will stop." Then this "End of Media encountered while backing up to non-removable media" What am I doing wrong?
I'm using XP, 160GB internal HD, 320GB external HD
cboy
16 years ago
I can only answer for Acronis. If you order from their
website it will cost around $25.00 more. They offer a
download but with my dialup I new that would take forever.
Actually I first registered at JR and forgot about it and
used forgot password at Acronis Website.

After I installed and registered at Acronis Website I was
offered and update download for Acronis. It mostly dealt
with Vista. I downloaded for 4 hours (39.1 GB)and gave up.
I don't know how big a file, they don't say. The CD is all
I really need anyway. The CD has a user Guide that can be
downloaded separate and also Adobe can be downloaded separate from the CD.
cboy
16 years ago
Post Correction
(39.1 MB)
johnkr
16 years ago
Regarding your FAT32 volume, you can convert the drive to the NTFS file system. That should solve the limitation problem. The Convert command will retain all of your data and is the preferred file system for Windows XP. Here's a link explaining file systems and the use of the convert command.

Here is a link that might be useful: Convert
Janette_ORz7
Original Author
16 years ago
johnkr, thanks for your response. I'm going to check that out. Thanks. I can use all the help I can get.

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