Unable to create a bootable rescue disk:

I can't get the same version of Dashboard in the video
or I'm doing something wrong. The version I have won't
allow me to open settings etc. and doesn't even look the
same as the one in the video.

I checked the 8200 and its running Windows XP, Version
2002 Service Pack 3

I think you're correct that when I get the new PCI card
installed it should resolve the issue and I should then
be able to create backups.

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
I can't get the same version of Dashboard in the video
or I'm doing something wrong. The version I have won't
allow me to open settings etc. and doesn't even look the
same as the one in the video.

I checked the 8200 and its running Windows XP, Version
2002 Service Pack 3

I think you're correct that when I get the new PCI card
installed it should resolve the issue and I should then
be able to create backups.

Thanks,
Robert

Are you using the version of Dashboard that came on
the hard drive itself ?

Or did you download a later one ?

I would try the version on the hard drive, as it
could be older, and more likely to match the video.

Paul

On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 5:56:43 PM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mark Twain wrote:
I can't get the same version of Dashboard in the video
or I'm doing something wrong. The version I have won't
allow me to open settings etc. and doesn't even look the
same as the one in the video.

I checked the 8200 and its running Windows XP, Version
2002 Service Pack 3

I think you're correct that when I get the new PCI card
installed it should resolve the issue and I should then
be able to create backups.

Thanks,
Robert

Are you using the version of Dashboard that came on
the hard drive itself ?

Or did you download a later one ?

I would try the version on the hard drive, as it
could be older, and more likely to match the video.

Paul

I'm using the downloaded version of Seagate Dashboard
for Windows:

http://www.seagate.com/support/exter...s/backup-plus/

I don't have a Dashboard on my HD only Sea Tools or did
then uninstalled and re-installed both from the link above.

Another thought while were waiting for the PCI card. Since
I plan to use the external HD for backups for both computers
unless you see a problem with that? Why not run a backup on
the 8500 to test it?

Thanks,
Robert

I uninstalled Dashboard on the 8200 and then
downloaded it to try installing it again but I
keep getting this error and it will not go away.


Drive NOT Ready

Exception processing message c00000a3 Parameters 75b6bf7c 4 75b6bf7c 75b6bf7c

cancel try again continue


I clicked continue before and got a Dashboard that
doesn't look the same or work so this error that is
preventing me getting a good download for Dashboard.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
On Friday, June 19, 2015 at 5:56:43 PM UTC-7, Paul wrote:
Mark Twain wrote:
I can't get the same version of Dashboard in the video
or I'm doing something wrong. The version I have won't
allow me to open settings etc. and doesn't even look the
same as the one in the video.

I checked the 8200 and its running Windows XP, Version
2002 Service Pack 3

I think you're correct that when I get the new PCI card
installed it should resolve the issue and I should then
be able to create backups.

Thanks,
Robert
Are you using the version of Dashboard that came on
the hard drive itself ?

Or did you download a later one ?

I would try the version on the hard drive, as it
could be older, and more likely to match the video.

Paul

I'm using the downloaded version of Seagate Dashboard
for Windows:

http://www.seagate.com/support/exter...s/backup-plus/

I don't have a Dashboard on my HD only Sea Tools or did
then uninstalled and re-installed both from the link above.

Another thought while were waiting for the PCI card. Since
I plan to use the external HD for backups for both computers
unless you see a problem with that? Why not run a backup on
the 8500 to test it?

Thanks,
Robert

Sure, using the 8500 for a backup test would work fine.

*******

The Dashboard program has a user manual (with no pictures).

http://www.seagate.com/files/www-con...r-guide-us.pdf

Page 17 makes brief mention of "Set the power-saving mode",
where you could set spindown to "Never", in an attempt to
solve the problem on the 8200. If the PCI USB2 card doesn't
help, you could try that.

Paul

I did a upgrade to Macrium then did a backup:

http://i58.tinypic.com/2r42x6s.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/mwtxf4.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/rk62h1.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2ngabrb.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/33zckyr.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/1zwnlkw.jpg

Two questions:

1. Will this backup have all my folders/files in
addition to all the software or do I need to store
my folders/files on CD?

2. What kind of backup is best? I prefer to have
something like system restore rather than depending
on just one backup.

Thanks
Robert

The only thing I'm not doing when installing dashboard is registering it
because I didn't buy it. Would that prevent it from giving me a full download?

This last install it came up with a message that there was a new version
of Dashboard available, so I clicked it but nothing happened.

So restarted the computer to see if I could get it to kick in again.
it came back up with an update to version 4.0.21.0 which I did.

I downloaded it but it gave me the same version I have been dealing with
and I don't have access to storage devices where the settings are to spin down.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
I did a upgrade to Macrium then did a backup:

http://i58.tinypic.com/2r42x6s.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/mwtxf4.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/rk62h1.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/2ngabrb.jpg

http://i58.tinypic.com/33zckyr.jpg

http://i60.tinypic.com/1zwnlkw.jpg

Two questions:

1. Will this backup have all my folders/files in
addition to all the software or do I need to store
my folders/files on CD?

2. What kind of backup is best? I prefer to have
something like system restore rather than depending
on just one backup.

Thanks
Robert


OK, you're using a version more modern than I use here.
That looks like it might be version 6.

First of all, it's "disk imaging". It deals with whole
partitions. If you tell it to back up C:, it backs
up the entire C:. It backs up C:\Windows. It backs
up C:\Program Files. It backs up C:\users\Robert
and all the files underneath.

You can use Wikipedia for a definition of Differential
and Incremental backups.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_backup

There is an Illustration exactly half way down
the page, which explains how each type works.

Disk imaging does *complete* backups, but the .mrimg
files can also be used to recover single files. There
is a service running on the machine, where if you
right-click the .mrimg file, you can mount it
like it was a "fake disk drive". And by using
file explorer on it, you can drill down and find a
file you lost.

So you do a complete image, and then, you have
two restoration options.

1) Mount the .mrimg using the Macrium software (won't work
on a PC without a Macrium installation in Program Files
folder). Once the partition is mounted, you find, copy and
paste the file you want. Or a whole directory if you want.
This makes the tool almost as useful as a file-by-file
backup utility. It's wasteful to back up the whole partition,
but it also saves time on trying to define a precise set
of files to back up.

2) You can restore a whole partition. That's how I manage my stuff
here. Typically, I make a big mistake, ruin my C:, then restore
the entire C: from the .mrimg. That happened to my laptop - an
experiment ruined C: and the computer would not boot - but I had
made a Macrium image only two hours before this. And in no time
at all, the laptop was fully restored.

When you use differential or incremental backups, you need
as many .mrimg files on hand, as it takes to "get you to the
day in question". The sizes might be

100GB Sunday - First backup
2GB Monday - Changed files since Sunday
2GB Tuesday - Changed files since Monday

To restore to Tuesday, you need 100+2+2GB worth of files,
to get you all the way up to Tuesday. In my example, this
is incremental. If the Monday backup is damaged (corrupted),
then the Tuesday backup is useless. Tuesday only works, if
Monday is good.

With differential, it would look like this

100GB Sunday - First backup
2GB Monday - Changed files since Sunday
4GB Tuesday - Changed files since Sunday

It took a total of 106GB to store the backups this way. It
takes more space than with the incremental method. But not
a lot more. If I want to restore to the state things were
in on Tuesday, I need 100+4GB worth of files. The Monday
file is not needed. Only the first backup, plus the 4GB
differential from Tuesday, gets me to Tuesday state.

If all the files are kept in a common folder, you
can rely on the tool selecting the files for itself.
I only tried my hand at an illustration, so you can
see the slight difference. The conditional probability
of failure to restore, is higher with Incremental, and
gets worse, the more days you "stack on top of one
another". Now, file writing is very reliable, so normally
there is little practical difference (this difference is
more important with tape drives as backup devices). I'm
trying to explain the differences here a bit. The Incremental
saves space, but has poorer conditional probability of
success. The Differential uses more space, but is
more reliable. You need only two Differential files,
to restore to any day in the backup set.

So if you use the "Mount" feature on a Differential,
it should ask you "what day do you want", it then
locates the two necessary files, and shows you
the partition as it was on Tuesday. Then you can reach
in there, copy and paste the file you lost, dismount
the image and you're done.

You do a new "first backup", when you get tired of
stretching the old backup set. The "first backup",
you can keep an old one of those around for later,
so perhaps you have a first backup from one year ago,
a first backup from two years ago, and so on.

The version 5 Macrium, the free version doesn't have
any of that. All it makes is "first backups". No
incremental or differential. And that's good enough
for me. I'm in no rush to adopt version 6 (I have more
than a terabyte of version 5 backups). Many of my backups
are short term - and I put "erase me" in the file name,
so later I can figure out which ones are of no
future value. I take long term backups less
frequently.

HTH,
Paul

Mark Twain wrote:
The only thing I'm not doing when installing dashboard is registering it
because I didn't buy it. Would that prevent it from giving me a full download?

This last install it came up with a message that there was a new version
of Dashboard available, so I clicked it but nothing happened.

So restarted the computer to see if I could get it to kick in again.
it came back up with an update to version 4.0.21.0 which I did.

I downloaded it but it gave me the same version I have been dealing with
and I don't have access to storage devices where the settings are to spin down.

Robert


Doesn't the Dashboard product, use the existence of your Seagate
drive as "proof of purchase" ?

I can't expect to get the Dashboard to run here, because
I have no Seagate external drive. You have a drive that
qualifies you for that software.

The "payment" part, may be for "Cloud storage". There is
some option to include moving your files to a server
on the Internet. You don't need that, and consequently
there is nothing to pay for. The software should have
been written, to be part of your hard drive purchase,
and without the Cloud option, I would not be
expecting to be charged any more for the software.

I would try installing the software here, if I had
some idea whether it checked for a Seagate branded
external drive. Anything that checks for hardware,
if I don't have the hardware, I can't really help you.

Perhaps the fact that it is "not able to detect the
drive", is why the software is refusing to finish
installation ? If there is more than one version of
Dashboard, you want to make sure you are downloading
it from the correct product page on the Seagate site.
You would think the Dashboard software product would
recognize *all* the qualifying Seagate drives
(doing "jumbo" software is quite popular with
developers). But in case they make specific versions,
you might try downloading from the precise product
page for your external hard drive.

Paul

So was my backup OK other than not
selecting what type of backup?

Robert

I tried uninstalling and reinstalling Dashboard
again with the same but this time I tried registering
it.

Its strange that this doesn't download and work.
Everything else does.

Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
So was my backup OK other than not
selecting what type of backup?

Robert


The backup operation itself looks OK.

I would expect any rules you set in that
backup, would only apply if you "saved" the
backup operation when asked to do so, as well
as running it.

I just "run" my setups, and don't "save" them.
You need to "save" the XML definition file, so
you can re-run them later and have the defined
policy take effect.

One rule stated the maximum number of full backups.
Yours was set to 12 by default. You have a 1TB drive
and the source disk is 300GB, so there is only room
for three full backups. The rule in this case would
not apply, as the "I've run out of space" rule would
apply. The rule says, it will store at maximum,
12 sets, but since your source drive is so big,
it can never get to count to 12, because it
runs out of storage space. Around the third backup,
it's going to need to purge an older set, to make
room for a new set.

The differential field was set to 4. That means
you could be making backup sets like this. This is
similar to the other example I showed you, were I'm
changing 2GB worth of files between backup intervals
and the differential backup method grows in size to
record the changes. So a total backup set (before
it starts over), is 100+2+4+6+8= 120GB. The differential
backups are small, because not a lot of files have
changed on the disk (a normal pattern for a lot of
users).

Full Diff#1 Diff#2 Diff#3 Diff#4 Full Diff#1...
100GB 2GB 4GB 6GB 8GB 100GB 2GB

When the backup disk runs out of space, the oldest
complete set is thrown away. So in my example, the
first set of 120GB of backups, would be deleted, to make
room for todays backup operation.

Your backup is intact. You can check the size of the
..mrimg file on your I: drive (the external), and
verify it is present. The source disk was 300GB of
stuff. You had Macrium compression setting set to
Medium compression. The resulting .mrimg file
will be a little less than 300GB. Perhaps 250GB or
so.

If you run future backups, and you notice the new .mrimg
files are only 2GB in size, then it is likely the program
is making a differential backup. As the later ones refer
to the first backup as their "base" backup. Whether
differential or incremental, they would do that. Checking
the size, is a quick way to confirm the latest backup
you make, isn't a "base" backup.

So when you ask me whether it worked, check the size
as a "confidence builder". The size of the file, hints
at its type.

You can also right-click the file and see if any of
the Macrium property fields say anything about
what kind of set it is making. Whether it's "none",
"differential" or "incremental". I don't know what
it is going to say, because I don't run version 6.

So Macrium is maturing into a "full feature" backup
tool. Which makes it a bit more complicated to use.
It's very important when designing the GUI for such
programs, to help the customer understand what it's
doing. And the pictures you showed me, leave a lot
to the imagination. It doesn't look like they
spent a lot of time on the GUI design. A lot of people
don't know there is a Wikipedia article that explains
the (industry standard) backup types. And if they don't
educate you, then you might make a less-than-ideal
choice in the matter.

It probably isn't possible to really foul up the
backups, if that's what you're thinking. There is
always going to be at least one "base" backup on
there. When the disk gets full, it purges the
old ones, before making a new one. And right
after the new one, you'll have at least one
good backup. So in that respect, you're covered.
But you need to review and understand those settings
in detail, do the math and figure out how the disk
space is being used, to really be satisfied with
what it is doing.

You should also review the naming scheme of the
files, do Properties on the .mrimg file, to
see if it is identified with respect to the
backup scheme it is using. As confirmation of
the backup type, if you use the same backup
template a second time. Or schedule regular
backups say. I don't know if the free version
supports that or not. Or whether that's even a
good idea (I don't recommend leaving the
backup drive powered and running all the time,
because of the possibility of malware like Sality,
which attacks all disk drives). I like to
make my backup image, then disconnect the
backup hard drive until next time.

With a 1TB drive, storing a 300GB backup,
there isn't really a lot of space for doing
"sets". Yes, you can fit at least two full sets,
and when the third starts, the first set will
likely be purged. Just to give you some idea
of the granularity. On my backup drive, there
is only room for one set! So I have no elbow
room, compared to you. And that's why the
differential and incremental holds almost
no interest for me. I don't have the space
for that. And I compress the hell out of my
backups, to make them take less space on the
disk. And I can still only fit one set.

Paul

That's allot of good information
which I need a little time to digest.

I didn't really set anything because
I didn't know what to set so I just
went with the defaults.

Hmmmm, I thought 1TB would be enough
but from what you say no matter what
kind of backup I choose it will always
delete the oldest to make room.

Should I consider buying a new external
HD with like 3-15 TB? How much are they?

I always unplug the external HD after
backups.


I've given up on trying to get the correct
version of Dashboard as I really won't need
to spindown once I get the PCI card installed.

I'll have to check out the backup and all
the information you've given about the .mrimg
f file.

Thanks,
Robert

Mark Twain wrote:
That's allot of good information
which I need a little time to digest.

I didn't really set anything because
I didn't know what to set so I just
went with the defaults.

Hmmmm, I thought 1TB would be enough
but from what you say no matter what
kind of backup I choose it will always
delete the oldest to make room.

Should I consider buying a new external
HD with like 3-15 TB? How much are they?

I always unplug the external HD after
backups.


I've given up on trying to get the correct
version of Dashboard as I really won't need
to spindown once I get the PCI card installed.

I'll have to check out the backup and all
the information you've given about the .mrimg
f file.

Thanks,
Robert

The largest practical drive worth buying,
is a certain Seagate 6TB drive. The one which
does not use "shingled writes". It transfers
data at around 220MB/sec. It's just too expensive
to consider, and is at least $500.

Seagate ST6000NM0024 6TB 7200RPM $424.99
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...9SIA5EM1PU0755

http://www.seagate.com/www-content/p...1-3-1403us.pdf

"Max. Sustained Transfer Rate at Outer Diameter 216 MB/sec"

That's a raw drive, so you'd need to buy an enclosure
for it.

This is an example of a "dock". You could plug in the
Seagate drive, like a slice of toast. The fan on the
end of this unit, cools the drive.

StarTech SDOCK2U33HFW 2.5" & 3.5" White SATA USB 3.0
Hard Drive Docking Station w/Fan $88 (there are
a few cheaper ones)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Produc...82E16817707338

It's a 1 inch drive, so a bit taller than your average
"boot drive" in an OEM PC. It still fits, it's just a
bit taller and heavier than you might be used to. It's
really rather amazing that all those platters fit in there,
without changing the operating envelope. (Hitachi built
a helium-filled drive, to achieve the same result.)

One other thing that's weird about the drive, is it
has a humidity sensor. So it's a miniature weather
station too :-) It can measure both temperature
and humidity. It's suspected that humidity affects
the lifetime of high tech hard drives. And they wouldn't
provide that sensor, unless they wanted to encourage people
to measure it.

*******

You'll just have to be content with around two or
three full backups. If you backup both the 8200 and the
8500, then you would not expect the backup drive
to hold too many sets in that case.

All you really need is at least one full image
of each machine. That prevents total loss in the
event of some bad malware. As to how frequently you
do the backups, that depends on how slow it is and how
long it takes. If you were to transfer 300GB at 30MB/sec
(USB2 speeds), then that is about 3 hours (depending on
how fast the compression step will go). The 8500 could
probably do the same sized backup in an hour or so.

My C: drive is small enough, I can back up C: alone in
about ten minutes. I've moved a fair amount of stuff
to other partitions. But if I back up everything, do
compression to save space, the total time is a couple
days. So there's a big difference for me, between
backing up everything, and backing up my boot partition.

Paul

I had no idea I had accumulated so much
usage on the drive!


I suppose when it gets full I'll have to
buy another HD for the computer just for
storage.

With the size of drives now and by the time
I need one, they should be fairly cheap. Is
one brand better than another or size or drive
construction?


Robert