Ed -
You said <<< What are people's thougths on using USB 2.0 external hard drives
for backups? I like to assume the "worst case scenario" so that if my hard
drive crashes, I could be up and running in less than an hour with a high
degree of certainty that all my files (or most nearly all) were intact.
Thoughts, suggestions, input?>>>
I also use Drive Image (thanks to Fred Langa!). I have a fairly new laptop
with a 40 gig hard drive. Purchased an external firewire 40 gig drive so I
could use Drive Image 5.0 to mirror the laptop to the external drive.
Unfortunately, I didn't know until after I had purchased the software (and
too late to return it) that D.I. 5 and D.I. 2002 (just released) do NOT
support either USB or firewire.
Did a web search and found something called Instant Recovery from NovaStor -
bought that one because it specifically said it supported firewire and USB.
Didn't know until after I had installed it that it only works on removable
drives, not external drives.
Went to Langa's bulletin board and posted a plea there. Someone was kind
enough to suggest I go to www.dantz.com and try Retrospect Express - works on
both USB and firewire external hard drives. I believe he was right - it's a
bit trickier than Drive Image but short of actually restoring my C drive on
my laptop, I am assuming it will work. I first picked the "duplicate hard
drive" option - seemed to make sense in that it said it would, in essence,
image one drive to the other. Wrong choice - the tech support gentleman told
me to pick the "backup" option. Then you have to go to the Disaster Recovery
option and create a bootable CD. That will have your system files and will
enable you to get to the backup you've made (I backed up the entire C drive)
and use it to restore. There is a 30 day free trial of the Restrospect
Express.
Sorry this is so long, but after all my trials and tribulations, I thought
I'd better explain it in detail. If you need more info, feel free to contact
me directly.
Marilyn Milbrandt
PCSOFT maintains many useful files for download
visit our download web page at:
http://freepctech.com/downloads.shtml
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