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Message started by zmdmw52 on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 8:02pm

Title: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by zmdmw52 on Jul 3rd, 2008 at 8:02pm
Happened to stumble upon this -
It seems Seagate now offers Acronis TrueImage + it's partitioning program (DiscWizard), integrated into the new DiscWizard (current ver 10.0.5077). The Manual gives useful info.


As far as can be made out, it's *free-to-use* (no licensing fees or online registration is required); however at least one hard disk in the PC should be a Seagate. Just installed it on my desktop (1 Seagate IDE & 1 WD SATA hard drives) and seems to work fine. Bootable media ("full' - with support for USB, PC Card (PCMCIA) and SCSI hard disks; "safe" - minus those drivers) can also be created from within the program.

PS: The d/l is a significant 102 MB.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TheShadow on Jul 5th, 2008 at 4:09pm
If you could download the ISO for the bootable CD, it would be only about 40 megs, if NOT compressed.  (I always compress my ISO's with 7Zip)

I have the program but I had never used it to make the bootable media.
I'll see how that works in comparison to Maxtor's "Max Blast".

I've already opened a thread on FREE backup software for Vista.

Shadow  8-)

Later:
I made the bootable media (CD) and booted up my Vista PC and started the clone.  It's running as I type.  It looks exactly like the MaxBlast program, also supplied by Acronis.  I'd expect the results to be the same too.  Acronis, by any other name is still Acronis.

Even later:
The cloning process completed as expected and the clone booted the PC with no problem.  I did note that Vista installed some kind of Generic driver on boot and wanted to be restarted.  No problem....after a restart everything was normal.  I'm using two, identical Maxtor 160 gig SATA2 drives.

To have a crash proof backup for your Vista PC, all you need is Seagates Seatools or Maxtor's MaxBlast and a spare hard drive of sufficient size.
That would preferably be a HD the same size as your main drive.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by ben_mott on Jul 7th, 2008 at 3:14pm
Hello again
it also got a Bart PE plug in when set up choose custom then tick Bart PE

http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=20220

if you know a bit more about computers try this Acronis 11 for Bart PE !!
http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10471

Regards Ben
:)

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by K Singh on Jul 19th, 2008 at 2:28am
Well maxtor is part of seagate. So the software you talking is the same in my view.
I have tried Acronis and it works like a charm. Very quick in recovery.
Beside its all wizard driven so not much confusion.

One more thing i like about Acronis.. The Tech support. You wont get any better than this.
Symantec support sucks big time. I had initially trial version and use to contact support of Acronis. They would help me in each and every possible manner.

Thumbs up to acronis. And since i have maxtor so creating restoring backup using this program rocks..

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TheShadow on Aug 31st, 2008 at 7:41am
The CD made by SeaTools and the one made by MaxBlast are for all practical purposes "Identical".

Once the Boot CD's are made, the Software package that was installed on the HD can be removed.  It no longer serves any real purpose, except to add to the file load (bloat) on the HD.  Everything you need to backup or clone a HD is on the CD.

As long as one of your HD's is a Seagate or Maxtor, the other HD in the backup or cloning process can be a WD, Samsung, Toshiba or whatever.

The Boot CD's are NOT copy protected and can be copied as many times as required.  Make some spares and put them away in a safe place.

Cheers mates!
The Shadow  8-)


Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by spuddo on Sep 5th, 2008 at 11:09pm
I installed this and have used it on my system and it works fine for me with the exception that the bootable disk only works in safe mode not full mode with USB support.

It seems you can only image whole partitions or disks not individual folders.  Not really a problem for me.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by spuddo on Sep 6th, 2008 at 2:54am
I have now included Seagate Disk Wizard as a plugin in UBCD4WIN.  The Disk Wizard software comes comes with a Bart PE plugin which was easily included.  (You have to select Bart PE when you install Disk Wizard).  I simply added the Seagate Bart PE plugin in the UBCD4WIn build.  I now have a boot disk including Disk Wizard (Acronis) with full Windows USB, Mouse, Network etc as is normal with UBCD4WIN.  For some reason it doesn't apear in the Program list but can be launched from Explorer.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Mar 18th, 2009 at 12:34pm
I selected BartPE when installing Disk Wizard, but pebuilder doesn't seem to find the BartPE plugin.  It seems to be looking for a CAB file, but there are none in the Seagate BartPE folder.  I tried selecting all the files in the Seagate BartPE folder, one at a time, but error message is given on all of them.  Am I doing something wrong, or could Disk Wizard have changed since spuddo did it?

Edit: Inspite of the error messages it seems the plugin was included in the BartPE build. I was expecting to see a plugin named Acronis since instructions were to rename the folder to Acronis, but plugin was named Seagate Disk Wizard. Most importantly it works! Boot to CD and run Disk Wizard from it.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Mar 18th, 2009 at 10:16pm
spuddo, I figured out how to get Seagate Disk Wizard to show in menu after boot to BartPE CD.  While browsing some other sites, I noticed in post #2 at http://ubcd4win.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=10471 it has MENU ID="Programs" in the Nu2Menu file in BartPE folder for Acronis True Image while Seagate Disk Wizard has MENU ID="Storage" in its Nu2Menu file.  I used Wordpad to edit the Nu2Menu file to change "Storage" to "Programs" for MENU ID= in the Seagate Disk Wizard Nu2Menu file, and Seagate Disk Wizard appears in programs after boot to BartPE with this change to the Nu2Menu file.  Other changes may be made to the file to get it to show under Backup as well according to the link.

BTW Maxtor's Maxblast 5 appears identical to the Seagate Disk Wizard which should be useful to those who have Maxtor drives and not Seagate drives.  It is also a free download and should also be able to be run from a BartPE boot CD via the BartPE plugin.  

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Apr 4th, 2009 at 10:51am
Some have reported getting error message that a Seagate drive is required because Disk Wizard doesn't recognize the external USB Seagate drive.  There's a possible fix for for this problem at http://forums.seagate.com/stx/board/message?board.id=Discwizard&thread.id=264, but I've not had the need to try it yet.  I'd like to know if it works if someone does try it.

Recently I used Disk Wizard from BratPE CD to successfully create image and restore to partition on a Win2k SP4 system.  It took just 4 minutes to create image of 7GB of data, 2 minutes to validate image and 6 minutes to restore image compared to about an hour for each step using Ghost 2003.  

I'm much impressed with th difference in time, but the Disk Wizard image file is invisible to Windows.  The folder shows 0 bytes when properties for folder are checked, and no files are seen when the folder is opened in Windows.  Is this normal, and how can such files be deleted either from Windows or from Disk Wizard?  Previously using Ghost 2003 I create system image every 4 months and delete images over 8 months old and would like to do the same for Disk Wizard images.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TheShadow on Apr 6th, 2009 at 7:27am
Every four months?
Ya gotta be kidding!

The world goes a third of the way around the sun in four months.
Just too many things happen in that length of time to make a four month old Image File worth anything.

I encourage anyone doing backups, to do them at least once a week.

Just a thought!

Shadow  8-)

PS:  To use the Seagate program you must have at least one Seagate drive, internally mounted in your system.  Likewise Maxblast wants to see at least one Maxtor drive.
If you run Acronis True Image itself, from a boot CD, you can backup any brand of HD.  I find that more useful.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Apr 6th, 2009 at 8:49am
I backup data every time files are added or modified, and I backup the OS drive every 4 months.  The only thing I lose in the event of catastrophe is 4 months of updates which are very easily downloaded and reinstalled if necessary.

BTW according to the link in my reply #9 there's a work around to backup non Seagate drives with the program, but I've not had the need to try it as all of my computers have internal Seagate or Maxtor drives.  I'd be interested to hear results if anybody has a computer with non Seagate drive could try it.    

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Lurker on Apr 13th, 2009 at 8:20pm
There are so many links and sidebars in this forum, it's easy to miss something.  Looks like Shadow missed that one.  I wonder how many others did too?
I almost missed it myself. ::)
Well it's not worth busting someone's chops over anyway.

That Tip read:

Solution

At the Error screen, hold down the Alt key while you type t then o (for tech override), and then click OK.

Credit

Mike D., Seagate Tech Support

Symptom
When booting the DiscWizard / MaxBlast boot CD to image a non-Seagate/Maxtor hard drive to the FreeAgent Go, the following screen is displayed:

Error

To use the products at least one Seagate or Maxtor device should be installed in your system.
...
and there is only an OK button; clicking that powers off the machine.


That sounds like a worthy tip for those poor souls with only a WD drive. ;D

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Apr 17th, 2009 at 8:48am
On 4/16/09 I discovered there are some limitations for restoring image to partition using Seagate Disc Wizard.  I had 2 Western Digital 250GB SATA drives that I wanted to restore to 2 different 450GB partitions on a 1TB Seagate drive after the WinXP active partition was successfully restored.  During the restore process there's a step where the only options are "Free space before" and "Free space after."  Selecting either of these choices creates within the target partition another partition the size of the image being restored leaving the remainder of the target partition as unformatted free space.  Also the time to create the image plus restore it was about 10 hours.  Previously I'd used Disc Wizard to restore image of a larger drive to a smaller partition on a Dell alptop which worked perfectly without problems.    

Using Ghost 2003 I was able to just do a partition to partition clone which worked perfectly and took only about 3.5 hours.  Ghost transferred the contents of the 250GB old drive to the 450GB new drive leaving 200GB free space in that partition/drive letter which is exactly what I wanted.

This seems to indicate Seagate Disc Wizard is a good free non Ghost alternative when replacing or transferring an entire drive or transferring contents of one drive/partition to one of equal or smaller size but not to a larger one.  

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 6th, 2009 at 2:51pm
Hello everyone,

I'm all new and fresh here, so first of all it's nice to be here!

I have a couple of questions and need a bit of help and guidance.

I 'm planning in downloding the DiscWizard for my 2 Seagate Barracuda drives. I also want to make the bootable media cd.

During installation should I also install the BartPE plug-in or not?

If I do when and how can I use it?

Will the boot cd work without the BartPE plug-in?..or in other words will the Linux cd created by DiscWizard boot my windows Vista or do I really need the WinPE enviroment that the BartPE creates?

I'm not a comp geek and I would appreciate a  non-technical explanation-like explaining something to a  15y old-

I have been reading about the BArtPE , but I cannot make sence of it in real terms.

Finally, I have a boot cd provided to me by the OEM provider of my WinVista..I 've used it, and it works.  Do I really need to create the bootable media cd from DiscWizard?

Thank you vv much guys..and please do not reject my request as being naive..I'm trying to learn.
Thanks a million again.:)

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 9th, 2009 at 3:36pm
Hey guys,

I thought this was a helping forum...

Not much help though, is there?

It's a pitty for people to wait and NO-ONE seems to care..

Not nice at all..

:(


Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Brian on May 9th, 2009 at 3:43pm
TrDo,

I haven't used DiscWizard. What are you planning to do?

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on May 9th, 2009 at 4:26pm
You don't have to include BartPE plugin during Disc Wizard install, but I'd recommend it in case it's needed.  You only need to make boot media CD if you want to run the program without boot to Windows which is absolutely necessary in the even of failure to boot Windows.  I don't even consider imaging programs without bootability to CD or other media.

For my Win2k SP4 system the Disc Wizard boot CD failed to completely boot, and I had to create a BartPE CD which I actually like better because other programs can be included in the BartPE CD.  Creating the BartPE CD isn't that difficult, but it may be simpler for you to use the boot media CD if it works for you.

Using Disc Wizard I've now successfully made image and restored image to 2 different Win2k SP4 systems plus 2 different WinXP SP2 systems without problem.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 10th, 2009 at 2:25am
Hi Brian and Tator,

@Brian:  I was delighted to find out that DiscWizard is a free app for people using Seagate drives, and as such my research efforts in deciding which Disc Imaging I should use, now come to an end. I have decided to use the DiscWizard app to back up my drive, and I wanted to clarify these details-at my earlier post-, before I do.  To be honest I'm a bit afraid to use it; not that I've heard bad reviews about it, it's just that I haven't done it before and I'm afraid of doing something wrong.

@Tator: I've seen that you have used it, quite extensively.  I'll follow your advice in creating the BartPE plug-in, and I would appreciate if you could tell me whether if I was to successfully create the bootable media cd (from DiscWizard), I could then test it to boot my pc without creating any serious problems to my pc, which currently runs fine.  It would be a test, on a fine working pc! (note:I run Vista Home Premium 32).

Thank you both very much for your time and efforts.  I hope we keep this thread running for two reasons:

1. Not all people can afford the expensive alternative apps to DiscWizard.  I know there are some free apps, but that requires a different discussion basis.

2. It's one of the very few decent threads I found on the web, about this issue.

Thanks again.

TrDo. :)

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on May 10th, 2009 at 10:03am
There should be no adverse effects if it fails to boot to boot media CD.  It'll either boot successfully, or it'll hang during boot as it did in my instance.  In that event all you have to do is remove the CD and press Ctrl-Alt-Del to boot to Windows normally.  However, I just realized you're running Vista, and WinXP is needed to make a BartPE CD.  You may have to use the boot media CD instead of BartPE unless you have access to a WinXP system.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 10th, 2009 at 12:40pm
Hi Tator,

I do not have access to a WinXP system.  What should I do then?...I'll try to use the boot media cd, to boot.

Let me see if I got that right; In case it fails to boot through the boot media cd, I can't use the BartPE CD, because I won't be able to create it in the frst place, right?

But why the BartPE CD is so important? I cannot understand that.  I mean, if the boot media cd works, should I also have the BartPE as well?

Thanks a lot mate.

TrDo.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on May 11th, 2009 at 9:28am
The BartPE simply allows other programs to be included on a single boot CD and was needed in my case because the boot media CD wouldn't boot on my system.  However, you should have no problem using the boot media CD to run DiscWizard if it boots on your system, and the BartPE CD won't be necessary in that event.  I hope the boot media CD works for you, and just use it and forget the BartPE CD if it works.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Pleonasm on May 11th, 2009 at 10:45am
Just curious:  Will the Seagate DiscWizard tool restore a backup image or perform a clone operation to a non-Seagate brand hard disk drive?

Thanks.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 11th, 2009 at 10:51am
Hi Tator,

Thanks a lot mate.  I'll keep you informed.  You're great!


Hi Pleonasm (that's a Greek word, by the way),

The specs at the Seagate site and the manual, which I've read till the last page, say that you have to have at least one Seagate Drive.

But if you take a look at the post with Blue Letters, at the previous page of this thread, you'll see that there is a workaround.  From what I understand, following the nfo as stated there, it should work on any drive.

Hope this helps.

TrDo.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on May 11th, 2009 at 1:14pm
The options in Seagate Disc Wizard are "Clone," "Add New Drive," "Create Image," "Restore Image" and "Verify Image."  I've used it to create and verify images from from non Seagate drives and restore images to Seagate drives as well as 1 instance of create and verify image from non Seagate drive and restore image to non Seagate drive.  I suspect clone from 1 drive to another should work equally well whether drives are Seagate or not if the solution in reply #12 of this thread works, but I've not yet had the need or the opportunity to try it. 

BTW I always verify images created with Seagate Disc Wizard and always run the "Check Image Integrity" for Ghost images to be sure the images are good and are restorable.  There have been 1 or 2 times the Ghost image failed to pass integrity check, and I had to recreate the image which passed integrity check after its recreation.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by TrDo on May 16th, 2009 at 2:22pm
Well, iot works like a charm.  Installation fine.  Bootable Cd fine. Tested it and works.

Disc Image fine. Verified as well.  It's a super app.  And it's free! :)

Thanks a lot guys..
TrDo.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Jun 7th, 2009 at 5:01pm
Today I had the opportunity to try the solution in reply #12 on 2 non Seagate drives.  I got the message "No Seagate drives were found on your system..."  After pressing "Alt" and then typing "to" as instructed in the solution, DiscWizard continued to completion.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by NightOwl on Jun 9th, 2009 at 9:54am
@ Tator


Quote:
Today I had the opportunity to try the solution in reply #12 on 2 non Seagate drives.  I got the message "No Seagate drives were found on your system..."  After pressing "Alt" and then typing "to" as instructed in the solution, DiscWizard continued to completion.

That's good information to know--thanks for that report!

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Oct 3rd, 2012 at 11:22am
Just recently I encountered an older Athlon 1900+ system running WinXP that failed to boot to my BartPE CD even though it boots Ghost 2003 CD just fine.  Also I recently got my first laptop running Win7 Home Premium 64 bit that also failed to boot to the BartPE CD. 

Some Google searching found there's a newer version of Seagate Discwizard which is version 13 that is required for Win7 versus the version 11 used in the BartPE CD.  Download and install of Discwizard version 13 resulted in ability to create a Discwizard boot CD that does boot on the system which failed to boot with the boot CD created using Discwizard version 11.

I'm disappointed the BartPE concept has obviously become outdated, but I'm glad Seagate fixed boot issues with the previous Discwizard version 11.  Also the latest Discwizard version 13 may also be used to partition a 3TB drive into 2 or more partition to use full capacity of larger drives on WinXP systems if any are interested in that.  There's a link under the Knowledge Base link on the Seagate site that tells how to use the latest Discwizard version for that purpose plus other helpful links there. 

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Brian on Oct 3rd, 2012 at 5:16pm
@ Tator

Did you get a transient BSOD when you tried to boot the BartPE CD? I saw that recently on a friend's new laptop.


Tator wrote on Oct 3rd, 2012 at 11:22am:
Also the latest Discwizard version 13 may also be used to partition a 3TB drive into 2 or more partition to use full capacity of larger drives on WinXP systems if any are interested in that.There's a link under the Knowledge Base link on the Seagate site that tells how to use the latest Discwizard version for that purpose plus other helpful links there. 


Do you have a link to that page as I can't find it?

Edit... Found it. Interesting.

Title: Re: New Seagate DiscWizard (Partitioning + Cloning tool)
Post by Tator on Oct 5th, 2012 at 11:54am
On failure to boot BartPE I got a blank screen except there was a "Sync. Out of Range" message floating on the screen.  Some Google searches seem to indicate that could be a monitor issue, and I tried it with another monitor and got a blank screen with a "Invalid Input" message floating around the screen.  I suspect your friend's PC has the same or very similar problem without a message.

There seems to be a problem currently with the knowledge base link on the page at http://drive.seagate.com/content/samsung-en-us, and I got a message that Seagate support is currently closed when I tried to call them.  Contact for support is 1-800-Seagate and select option 2 for support if you need to call them.

However, the download link appears to work at http://www.seagate.com/support/downloads/discwizard/, and hopefully they'll fix problems with the knowledge base link.  To download the latest version from that link select "Windows 7 32 bit and 64 bit" and check after download to be sure it is version 13.   In case you're wondering that version will work on WinXP too according to Seagate support.  I was on the phone yesterday with Seagate support for over half an hour while downloading a fix to get this download of Seagate Discwizard installed on the Samsung drive in a laptop.  Support was very thorough and patient, and I was quite pleased with support received. 

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