New Dell won't see external drive

[Guest]

A new Dell arrived at my friends. I set it up - created partitions
ensured that all serious apps were in the C: partition and all data
elsewhere.. I installed the latest version of Acronis True Image and
connected to USB an external hard rive that had previously been used
to backup XP systems. We backed up, creating a single 14GB file. The
drive has only one partition (NTFS).

A month later the computer crashed whien we went to control panel and
launched scanners and cameras and chose to install KYE Web Cam
Recorder Messenger. It wouldn't start at all but very gradually it
regained its composure. After 24 hours it was working pretty normally
but before that Windows Explorer could only see the C: drive but not
its contents. Nothing else could be seen.

After it had calmed down Windows Explorer could see everything except
the external drive.

I took that drive home (let's call it externalold) and connected it to
my XP system where it worked perfectly. I took my own external drive
(let's call it externalnew) to the new Dell running Vista and that was
seen properly.

However, when I tried to copy the 14GB file from a month ago onto
externalnew it said that the file was too big for its file system
(NTFS). I did a True Image backup and it defaulted to 4GB chunks.

1) Why did Vista write a 14GB file to externalold a month ago when it
can't see it now?

2) Why does Vista write a 14GB file to its own internal drive on a
separate partition and 4GB chunks on an external drive?

Why does that KYE webcam software that comes with Vista create such a
devastating result?

At the time of the crash there were no external drives connected, nor
was the webcam.

I'm still scratching my head.

 

[CBoom]

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A new Dell arrived at my friends. I set it up - created partitions
ensured that all serious apps were in the C: partition and all data
elsewhere.. I installed the latest version of Acronis True Image and
connected to USB an external hard rive that had previously been used
to backup XP systems. We backed up, creating a single 14GB file. The
drive has only one partition (NTFS).

A month later the computer crashed whien we went to control panel and
launched scanners and cameras and chose to install KYE Web Cam
Recorder Messenger. It wouldn't start at all but very gradually it
regained its composure. After 24 hours it was working pretty normally
but before that Windows Explorer could only see the C: drive but not
its contents. Nothing else could be seen.

After it had calmed down Windows Explorer could see everything except
the external drive.

I took that drive home (let's call it externalold) and connected it to
my XP system where it worked perfectly. I took my own external drive
(let's call it externalnew) to the new Dell running Vista and that was
seen properly.

However, when I tried to copy the 14GB file from a month ago onto
externalnew it said that the file was too big for its file system
(NTFS). I did a True Image backup and it defaulted to 4GB chunks.

1) Why did Vista write a 14GB file to externalold a month ago when it
can't see it now?

when the OS is booted all the drivers are loaded and it can see an
external drive.
when you boot the pc from the acronis cd, it only loads a small number of
generic drivers that it seems
doesn't include the one needed for your USB controller.

2) Why does Vista write a 14GB file to its own internal drive on a
separate partition and 4GB chunks on an external drive?

This is not correct, if you define it to write 4gb chuncks it will write 4gb
chunks. Period. You did something wrong.

I suggest you reformat your external hard drives to ntfs (general tip)

Why does that KYE webcam software that comes with Vista create such a
devastating result?

Don't know abut that

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your input.

when the OS is booted all the drivers are loaded and it can see an
external drive.
when you boot the pc from the acronis cd, it only loads a small number of
generic drivers that it seems
doesn't include the one needed for your USB controller.

I didn't boot from the Acronis rescue disk. I ran the installed programme that had previously seen externalold and written the 14GB file to it.



This is not correct, if you define it to write 4gb chuncks it will write 4gb
chunks. Period. You did something wrong.

Acronis has not been set up to write any particular size. It defaulted
a moth ago when it was brand new to a single 14GB file. Now it has
defaulted to multiple 4GB chunks. I thought that maybe the Vista
formatting was responsible for the file size on its internal drive and
that accounted for the difference. Both external drives are NTFS.

I suggest you reformat your external hard drives to ntfs (general tip)

I think that formatting externalold is a good idea. Maybe Vista will
see it again.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

I can't really address your problems, but:

As you probably know, NTFS has essentially no file size limitation. (Under
Win98 with FAT32, it was 4 GB.)

I've used True Image Home 11 to image a partition. The destination was an
external HD (formatted NTFS). The default was to create a single file. (It
was larger than your 14 GB.)

I'm not knowledgable about NTFS, but I have some vague recollection that
there are old and newer versions of it. I have had difficulty installing XP
or Vista on partitions that I formatted with Partition Magic 8, for example.

 

[Bob Knowlden]

I forgot to mention:

The rescue CD created by True Image doesn't use a DOS variant, but rather
some form of Linux.

I've had trouble with newer motherboards, with the rescue CD not supporting
the latest chipset. For example: True Image Home 11 insstalled on my new
system with an Intel X58 chipset. This was under Vista X64. I was able to
create an image of my C: drive (SATA) onto an external USB drive, but TI did
not see the D: drive (a separate SATA drive) at all. The rescue CD was
basically useless; it wouldn't see the internal hard drives at all.

I've since gone to True Image Home 2009 (aka TI 12). It works OK on the new
mainboard, but it won't install on Windows 7 x64 build 7000. (I'm using that
as my primary OS, against Microsoft's advice.) The rescue CD works fine.

I can't really address your problems, but:

As you probably know, NTFS has essentially no file size limitation. (Under
Win98 with FAT32, it was 4 GB.)

I've used True Image Home 11 to image a partition. The destination was an
external HD (formatted NTFS). The default was to create a single file. (It
was larger than your 14 GB.)

I'm not knowledgable about NTFS, but I have some vague recollection that
there are old and newer versions of it. I have had difficulty installing
XP or Vista on partitions that I formatted with Partition Magic 8, for
example.

(snip)

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

A new Dell arrived at my friends. I set it up - created partitions
ensured that all serious apps were in the C: partition and all data
elsewhere.. I installed the latest version of Acronis True Image and
connected to USB an external hard rive that had previously been used
to backup XP systems. We backed up, creating a single 14GB file. The
drive has only one partition (NTFS).

A month later the computer crashed whien we went to control panel and
launched scanners and cameras and chose to install KYE Web Cam
Recorder Messenger. It wouldn't start at all but very gradually it
regained its composure. After 24 hours it was working pretty normally
but before that Windows Explorer could only see the C: drive but not
its contents. Nothing else could be seen.

After it had calmed down Windows Explorer could see everything except
the external drive.

I took that drive home (let's call it externalold) and connected it to
my XP system where it worked perfectly. I took my own external drive
(let's call it externalnew) to the new Dell running Vista and that was
seen properly.

However, when I tried to copy the 14GB file from a month ago onto
externalnew it said that the file was too big for its file system
(NTFS). I did a True Image backup and it defaulted to 4GB chunks.

1) Why did Vista write a 14GB file to externalold a month ago when it
can't see it now?

2) Why does Vista write a 14GB file to its own internal drive on a
separate partition and 4GB chunks on an external drive?

The 4GB chunks are done by Acronis. To be more specific: my older version
of TrueImage gave me the choice of creating one backup file or a set of
smaller backup files on my NTFS external drive.

I don't use Acronis anymore - it didn't like my Vista setup - so I can't be
100% sure that it's still like that.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

The option for smaller chunks was so that those chunks could be
written to optical discs.


I've used every version starting with 8 to the present 2009.

Can't remember how long it's been since I was given that option.

I just this minute went to my partner's computer, where Acronis 8 is
installed. I pretended that I was going to create a new backup.

Acronis gave me the option of splitting a new backup file *and* the option
of specifying the size of the chunks. It also notified me that if the
destination drive was FAT32, it would split the backup file accordingly.

 

[Gene E. Bloch]

Ver 8 was a loooooooooooooong time ago. It's no wonder I don't
remember.

Yeah, well, you're not alone

OTOH, I used it until a couple of months ago, well within my memory span on
a good day. It (*and* version 2009) made my new Vista computer unbootable,
so I abandoned them.

FAT32 has a 4gig limit.

See "split the backup file accordingly" above. I kind of assume (or at
least hope) that lots of people here know that limit...