I have a Dell 8400 XP Pro. It has a 160 GB. Seagate SATA drive. I bought another Seagate 160 GB drive and a Kingwin External enclosure for the SATA drive. It is connected to one of the SATA connectors on the system board. I have an adapter that plugs into the board and has a connector on the rear of the computer. The cable that came with the enclosure connects the two. I got everythig set up and went to My Computer and turned on the power to the enclosure and expected to see the drive indicated on MY Computer, but nothing happened. I plan to backup my computer to the drive with Ghost 2003. What do I need to do? Please help.

WilliamP

Have you re-booted since you hooked the enclosure up?

During boot--enter your BIOS and make sure it is being detected by the BIOS.

Let us know if that helped.

Can you see the drive in Windows? Normal Windows explorer?

Is the drive partitioned/formatted?

Do you have links to the products you are using?

NightOwl wrote on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 7:45pm:

During boot--enter your BIOS and make sure it is being detected by the BIOS. .

WilliamP,

I have a Dell 8400 too. In your BIOS make sure the drive is set to ON.

The drive has not been formatted yet .  Let me get some things straight. I had planned to only power up the enclosure when I was going to Ghost an Image to it or do something with it. Now first off ,will that work? If it will, then do I need to reboot with power on the enclosure ,enter BIOS and get it to recognize the new drive,then formatt it?

Quote:

I had planned to only power up the enclosure when I was going to Ghost an Image to it or do something with it. Now first off ,will that work?

Yes



Quote:

do I need to reboot with power on the enclosure ,enter BIOS and get it to recognize the new drive,then formatt it

Yes. You can't see the HD in Windows Explorer until it's been partitioned.

you can use disk management in win xp to initialize, partition, and format the drive without having to reboot. of course bios will have to detect it first before windows can see it.

Thank you all for the help. I will try to get BIOS set up this week end.  I have to work for a living. I want to have the time in case I run into trouble.

WilliamP wrote on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 7:30pm:

"... It has a 160 GB Seagate SATA drive.  I bought another Seagate 160 GB drive and a Kingwin External enclosure for the SATA drive. It is connected to one of the SATA connectors on the system board. I have an adapter that plugs into the board and has a connector on the rear of the computer. The cable that came with the enclosure connects the two..."

Before tampering with your BIOS, make absolutely sure that the physical HDD containing your OS - logical Drive C: - is connected to the lowest-order SATA port (probably '0', but possibly '1').  Then, connect the external Kingwin enclosure to the SATA port with the next ascending numeric sequence.

Be advised that external HDDs connected via USB and FireWire are categorized as external devices by your system, but despite its proximity and its independent power supply your SATA-connected device is categorized as being internal.  Were you to perform a Clone procedure with Norton Ghost 2003 (prudently using Pesky's Trick I would hope), you can boot from the external SATA HDD enclosure by simply routing the Kingwin to the low-order SATA port after disconnecting the onboard SATA HDD.


WilliamP wrote on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 9:06pm:

"... I had planned to only power up the enclosure when I was going to Ghost an Image to it or do something with it.  Now first off ,will that work?  If it will, then do I need to reboot with power on the enclosure, enter BIOS and get it to recognize the new drive, then format it?

Once you have initiated the BIOS to recognize the SATA HDD mounted in the powered-up external enclosure, whenever the external SATA device is not both connected and powered up in future boot iterations you simply perform a bypass by pressing the F1 key when the system cannot find the missing SATA HDD.

EP :'(

What do you mean about Pesky's trick? Also from what you said, once I have it set up ,everytime I boot it will look for the drive and I will have to hit F1 so it will contiue?

WilliamP wrote on Oct 28^th, 2005 at 6:27pm:

"... What do you mean about Pesky's Trick?"

CLICK HERE to view *Pesky's Trick* - and while you are over there be sure to vote in the poll right above it ... LOL !!!

Here a few months back, I decided to clone the MASTER 160 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 SATA NCQ HDD on my Dell Dimension 8300 to a 160 GB Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 IDE HDD mounted in a Metal Gear Box combo USB 2.0/SATA external enclosure kit via USB 2.0 - and you can bet that I used my eponymous "trick".  Before I removed the non-bootable removable media to reboot in XP Pro, I definitely turned off the power to the Metal Gear Box.

Be advised that Norton Ghost 2003 is quite friendly with the Metal Gear Box in USB 2.0 mode but it is very tricky - nay, hostile - with SATA because the IDE-to-SATA bridge causes CRC32 errors during Restores and Integrity Checks.  


WilliamP wrote on Oct 28^th, 2005 at 6:27pm:

"... Also from what you said, once I have it set up, everytime I boot it will look for the drive and I will have to hit F1 so it will continue?"

That is what my Dell 8300 requires.

EP :'(

El_Pescador in your last post you mentioned the IDE to SATA bridge. Mine will be the same as Ghosting two internal SATA drives. Is there any problems with that?

WilliamP wrote on Oct 28^th, 2005 at 9:25pm:

"... you mentioned the IDE to SATA bridge.  Mine will be the same as Ghosting two internal SATA drives.  Is there any problems with that?"

The beauty of your rig is that - not only do you lack an IDE-to-SATA bridge to consider - you do not have any bridge within your external enclosure to consider.  The IDE-to-USB2 bridges incorporated into external HDDs and external enclosure kits can often be quite troubling for users of Norton Ghost 2003, and even on rare occasion so can the IDE-to-FireWire bridges.

Mounting an IDE HDD in a combo USB2/SATA Metal Gear Box allows communication in the SATA mode at rates approaching that of a pure SATA-to-SATA rig like yours, but it fails miserably with both the Windows-to-DOS-to-Windows and the DOS-to-Windows procedures required by Norton Ghost 2003.

EP :'(

El_Pescador, I have read Pesk'y Trick and I don't understand step 4 unless the source drive is being replaced by the new image drive. Is that correct?

WilliamP wrote on Oct 29^th, 2005 at 7:15pm:

"... I don't understand step 4 unless the source drive is being replaced by the new image drive.  Is that correct?"

El_Pescador wrote on Oct 27^th, 2005 at 10:53pm:

"... Were you to perform a Clone procedure with Norton Ghost 2003 (prudently using Pesky's Trick I would hope), you can boot from the external SATA HDD enclosure by simply routing the Kingwin to the low-order SATA port after disconnecting the onboard SATA HDD..."

El_Pescador wrote on May 28^th, 2005 at 6:56pm:

"... Before performing a Norton Ghost 2003 "disk-to-disk" Advanced Clone, consider the following procedure as a "failsafe" measure to avoid rebooting with two bootable HDDs available - sometimes doing that can cause a real headache..."

Quite correct; were I in your shoes, I would regularly perform a Norton Ghost 2003 "disk-to-image" Basic Backup on the external SATA HDD as opposed to a "disk-to-disk" Advanced Clone.

EP :'(

I have been reading these posts and I do appreciate your help. I have some questions. First is, you have mentioned a backup image ,cloneing. and disk to image basic backup. Is there really a difference   or are  they the same? What I want is a duplicate image of my system on my second drive and the ability to update that drive to keep it current. Second question is how should I treat the second drive after setting it up. If I'm correct it should not have the power turned on when booting. Will it be ok to be connected and the power off. After booting the computer and the power is then  turned on to the second drive will the computer recognize the drive. Thank you for the help.

WilliamP,

What imaging software do you plan to use?

I will use Ghost 2003.

WilliamP wrote on Oct 26^th, 2005 at 7:30pm:

"... I plan to backup my computer to the drive with Ghost 2003..."

All of my responses below are strictly in the context of Norton Ghost 2003.


El_Pescador wrote on Oct 30^th, 2005 at 2:49am:

"... were I in your shoes, I would regularly perform a Norton Ghost 2003 "disk-to-image" Basic Backup on the external SATA HDD as opposed to a "disk-to-disk" Advanced Clone

WilliamP wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2005 at 6:12pm:

"... you have mentioned a backup image, cloning and disk-to-image basic backup. Is there really a difference or are they the same?.."

In my world, there are two kinds of Norton Ghost 2003 Basic Backups: (1) the "disk-to-image" Backup; and (2) the "partition-to-image" Backup.  On the other hand, I cannot even begin to wrap my mind around a "partition-to-partition" Advanced Clone.


WilliamP wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2005 at 6:12pm:

"... What I want is a duplicate image of my system on my second drive and the ability to update that drive to keep it current..."

By "duplicate image of my system", do you mean: (1) the source image from which your HDD can be faithfully reconstructed with a Norton Ghost 2003 Basic Restore; or (2) a "bolt-for-bolt" copy that can be physically substituted for your MASTER HDD in the form of a "disk-to-disk" Advanced Clone?


WilliamP wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2005 at 6:12pm:

"... Second question is how should I treat the second drive after setting it up. If I'm correct it should not have the power turned on when booting. Will it be ok to be connected and the power off..."

Yes.


WilliamP wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2005 at 6:12pm:

"... After booting the computer and the power is then turned on to the second drive will the computer recognize the drive..."

To do so comes under the heading of "hot-swapping" like USB.  Although I have seen commentary posted in online reviews that it does work with SATA External HDDs, it has never worked for me - and frankly, I don't care for the notion even if it ever had.

EP :'(

Hi El_Pescador, By "duplicate image of my hard drive " what I guess I am looking for is a" Disk- to- Disk" Clone. What I wanted to do was be able to pull out the old drive and install the new one and bootup and have everything as it was . I want to be able to Clone the drive and keep it updated. If that is possible.

WilliamP wrote on Nov 4^th, 2005 at 6:27pm:

"... I am looking for a" Disk-to-Disk" Clone.  What I wanted to do was be able to pull out the old drive and install the new one and bootup and have everything as it was..."

As described back upstream, external HDDs connected via USB and FireWire are categorized as external devices by your system.  However, despite the nature of its proximity and its independent power supply, your SATA-connected device is categorized as being internal by your system.

Were you to perform a Clone procedure with Norton Ghost 2003 (prudently using Pesky's Trick I would hope), you can boot directly from the external SATA HDD enclosure by simply routing the Kingwin to the low-order SATA port after disconnecting the onboard SATA HDD.  Just for "schitz-und-giggles" if nothing else, you ought to give it a try - be sure to remember the F1 key during bootup.

EP :'(