Maxtor External USB Drive becomes unallocated
Recently began using a Maxtor One Touch II as a backup device. Intent is to do daily backups of data files to different folders... and periodically do full Ghost images... for a laptop that travels alot.
Installed the drivers for the drive without problems.
Reformatted it as NTFS.
Successfully did a Ghost image and the first daily backup.
We could browse for files and folders - you know, that stuff drives normally let you do.
Everything got powered down... and when we powered up the next day... we could not see the drive (E:) in Windows Explorer. Going to Disk Manager, it shows the external drive as unallocated with no drive letter.
Called Maxtor, they advised that with XP that happens sometimes when you move it from machine to machine... but suggested we just try reformatting again.
In this case, we did not move it from machine to machine... and since the whole purpose of the external drive is to be the primary backup... this causes me a significant amount of concern (polite understatement).
Has anyone else seen this happen?
Has anyone else seen this as "common" when you move from machine to machine?
Has anyone out there had better experience with other external USB drives for this application.
BTW... I have used earlier models of the maxtor external USB - on multiple machines - without problems before.
Installed the drivers for the drive without problems.
Reformatted it as NTFS.
Successfully did a Ghost image and the first daily backup.
We could browse for files and folders - you know, that stuff drives normally let you do.
Everything got powered down... and when we powered up the next day... we could not see the drive (E:) in Windows Explorer. Going to Disk Manager, it shows the external drive as unallocated with no drive letter.
Called Maxtor, they advised that with XP that happens sometimes when you move it from machine to machine... but suggested we just try reformatting again.
In this case, we did not move it from machine to machine... and since the whole purpose of the external drive is to be the primary backup... this causes me a significant amount of concern (polite understatement).
Has anyone else seen this happen?
Has anyone else seen this as "common" when you move from machine to machine?
Has anyone out there had better experience with other external USB drives for this application.
BTW... I have used earlier models of the maxtor external USB - on multiple machines - without problems before.
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There are other disadvantages when you use fat32, one of them being filesize limits of max 4GB.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp
M$ also doesn't advise the use of fat32 volumes larger than 32 GB.
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/Default.asp?url=/resources/documentation/Windows/XP/all/reskit/en-us/prkc_fil_tdrn.asp
M$ also doesn't advise the use of fat32 volumes larger than 32 GB.
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Regarding FAT32... the other external drives I have used for backups were left as FAT32 (they come this way from the factory for Maxtor Drives.) This one I formatted as NTFS... so there may be something to that argument. I undersize the file size restrictions but for a Ghost image I always split it up anyway so it can be transferred to other media if necessary (Older Ghost versions: -split=650 -auto; Ghost 9.0/DriveImage has a separate options window to specify this).
What brand drives have the experts here had good experiences with? I know IOmega makes an external usb drive.
I know you can make your own USB drive by buying a drive and a housing, but my understanding is that the ones that are sold in a housing are supposed to be more shock resistant as they are going to be moved around a bit more than a tower would. Not sure if that is true - but I heard that some where.
I am curious about these additional issues and I think the comments would add to the value of this thread.
What brand drives have the experts here had good experiences with? I know IOmega makes an external usb drive.
I know you can make your own USB drive by buying a drive and a housing, but my understanding is that the ones that are sold in a housing are supposed to be more shock resistant as they are going to be moved around a bit more than a tower would. Not sure if that is true - but I heard that some where.
I am curious about these additional issues and I think the comments would add to the value of this thread.
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Thank you all for the comments.
I also found out that the user had switched from a USB port on the server to a USB port on a hub. I would think that this SHOULD not matter as these drives are supposed to be portable... but....
Anyway splitting up the points as several comments were helpful in understanding/avoiding future problems.
Thanks!!!!
I also found out that the user had switched from a USB port on the server to a USB port on a hub. I would think that this SHOULD not matter as these drives are supposed to be portable... but....
Anyway splitting up the points as several comments were helpful in understanding/avoiding future problems.
Thanks!!!!
thanx.
T