External HD - Can I Copy EVERYTHING?

[WeatherGeek]

Hi everyone, I got a 320GB Seagate Freeagent Pro External HD on clearence at best buy and have it connected via USB now. I opened their backup software and clicked on the C drive logo and it is backing up all the C drive stuff to it now. Question: Will this work? Will it copy everything, Vista (OS), everything? If my internal HD crashed and I put the external drive USB into the USB port or an eSATA into the eSATA port, will I be able to boot from this succesfully and have everything still on there? My rig is a custom rig in my sig, and I would be able to go into bios probably and set it to boot from USB or w/e. Just wondering if this will work.

 

[PC eye]

The only usb device you can boot from is a flash drive. Simply copying all files from one drive even to an internal model won't make a drive bootable. Vista also has a more stringent product activation process where if the host drive fails you would have to reinstall Windows on the new replacement all over again.

 

[WeatherGeek]

The only usb device you can boot from is a flash drive. Simply copying all files from one drive even to an internal model won't make a drive bootable. Vista also has a more stringent product activation process where if the host drive fails you would have to reinstall Windows on the new replacement all over again.

If I were to connect it via eSATA, would it be able to boot?

 

[PC eye]

You would still need to see Windows reinstalled in order to create the new mbr. eSATA is an extension of the sata bus. If the drive is seen in the list of hard drives to assign the default boot device then you could set that as first in the order. You would still need to see Windows installed there to see it work however.

The thing to try there is to use an eSATA port and see if the Vista installer will detect it properly after seeing if that is shown in the list of hard drives in the bios for seting that as default. Being the only drive that should be seen as default already where you then proceed with a new copy of Vista.

Even while I run sata drives here those are internal models. But first look in the bios to see if that is seen list there. Then boot from the Vista disk to see if the installer can copy the setup files to it once a primary partition is created on it.

 

[LukeAge]

Just reformat your HD and copy all of the information you can and put it into your external HD.

 

[PC eye]

Just reformat your HD and copy all of the information you can and put it into your external HD.

WeatherGekk also wants to be able to run Vista on the external drive as well as simply copying files to it. That requires a fresh installation of Windows in order to make the drive bootable.

 

[nyhk]

whenever you take a new harddrive into use, windows will write a standard mbr to it, no exception.

When you create a new primary partition, and format it, a stardard bootstrap loader is written to the boot sector, no exception. Make the partition active, and you can boot from it, if the boot files have been copied to the partition. No need to reinstall because of this.

 

[PC eye]

whenever you take a new harddrive into use, windows will write a standard mbr to it, no exception.

When you create a new primary partition, and format it, a stardard bootstrap loader is written to the boot sector, no exception. Make the partition active, and you can boot from it, if the boot files have been copied to the partition. No need to reinstall because of this.

When you first partition a drive in any format you won't see any mbr written to it. The boot loader is added once an OS is installed directly to it and made active. Simply copying Vista files along with the rest to a new drive won't see Windows run there. Vista isn't like an old Fat based version sorry to say.

 

[nyhk]

Find a disk editor, and see what gets written to the disk when you do stuff.

You can prove this stuff to yourself. Make such a partition, and leave it empty. Now let bios boot from this harddrive. What you will see:

formatted in 2k/xp: missing ntldr
formatted in vista: missing bootmgr

the file system has no influence. The partition boot sector exists no matter what the file system is

 

[PC eye]

All you would see there would be an error message while no boot information is availble since none was added to the empty partition. Once you OS a drive then the new master boot record and other information is created by the installer.

 

[nyhk]

I think we have had this discussion before. You don't listen to what other people say, and you don't research it. So I'll quit here

 

[PC eye]

I think we have had this discussion before. You don't listen to what other people say, and you don't research it. So I'll quit here

I don't know when that was since you've only been one other thread I posted on since you've been here. hhmmm...

 

[nyhk]

it might not have been you in this case, but you're still stubborn

what about this scenario: format at floppy (fat12) in xp, and copy the boot files (ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini) on it. What will happen when you boot from the floppy?

 

[PC eye]

Fat12? For MS there were Dos 8bit, 16bit, and 32bit dos floppies. For XP you are then working with NTFS where you can create an XP boot floppy from a download and instructions found at http://www.bootdisk.com

You can even create boot cds from existing boot floppies by following the instructions seen at http://www.bootdisk.com/nero.htm

The ntldr, ntdetect,com, and brand new boot.ini files are not seen until Windows XP is installed onto a drive. The installer first reads the partition information in order to copy the setup files and writes the boot information and mbr at the beginning of the drive itself.

When using the Disk Management tool the system volume information is stored then created on a separate partition or drive. The screen shot here will show you what files could be seen on a drive partitioned by GParted and then formatted with the Disk Management tool. http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/7331/storagedrivepa9.jpg

 

[nyhk]

yes, fat12 is used on floppies.

the boot files are present in the root of the drive, and yes, they are put there when you install xp.

the question was: format a floppy, and copy the files. What happens when you boot from the floppy?

 

[PC eye]

The original question surrounds a hard drive not a floppy however. On the older Fat based drives you would either use the "format /s" command with the switch there or later following the format use the sys C: command at the dos prompt of the floppy drive A or B to see the basic dos system files transferred to the hard drive off of the floppy.

In the screenshot above you won't find any XP or other basis root directory files for making the storage drive seen in the explorer window bootable. Besides the HL1 bitmap and a bin file stuck there by a program the only other information is for Windows in order to access the drive. If I go to boot with it the "missing operating system" message will come up.

 

[nyhk]

I'm not talking about old format, i'm talking about a plain format in xp. What will happen?

the designated system drive (the one that boots windows) contains those files, that you can then copy to the floppy.

I am asking this question, because the exact same thing applies to the harddrive partition when you format it.

 

[PC eye]

Without any entries into the mbr nothing will boot since there is no information in it pointing to the boot loader for the intended OS. A boot floppy on the other is self contained and already made bootable by the process used to create it. For information on creating a boot floppy while XP is running refer to the MS article seen at http://support.microsoft.com/kb/305595

 

[nyhk]

now we are getting somewhere. The format process writes the necessary program code to the boot sector. The only difference between the floppy and the harddrive is the floppy has no mbr, only a boot sector

The primary harddrive partition will be just as bootable as soon as it is marked as active

 

[PC eye]

Even when you make a partition active you still need two things; 1) the entry in the mbr. 2) the boot loader for the intended OS. If I were to hit the F8 when restarting the system in order to choose the second 500gb sata drive installed I wouldn't get very far since there is no OS present not even a boot loader.

The backup utility provided by Seagate will simply copy everything from the internal host drive will not seeing Windows run. Most likely the backup program will see all files archived according to that program's desgin for later retrieval. A clean install of Windows would still be needed to set up that drive as the new host.