PCR wrote:
Bill in Co. wrote:
PCR wrote:
Bill in Co. wrote:
PCR wrote:
Bill in Co. wrote:
PCR wrote:
...snip
Those are my sentiments too. It's Colorado who first discovered
the mdgx site, & it's up to him to get bloody with Terhune-- not
us!

Well, I'm not waiting - I'm done with it already. I did it
months ago, and as far as I'm concerned, I'm through, and moving
on to more pressing things - like using this new "USB 2.0
External Hard Drive Enclosure" for a perfect partition copy
backup of the boot drive (including ALL the directory and file
dates!), and, what a joy it is, compared to the previous,
tedious, procedure, of having to manually swap in/out the backup
IDE hard drive each time!

I've been meaning to ask about that. Did you need to do a separate
download for the USB 2.0 drivers, or did they come with the device?

They came on the enclosed CD. No download needed. It was
recognized by windows as new hardware, and installed pretty easily.

Nice.

I should add, you can also go to their website and download Win98SE
drivers (as I just happened to look there recently), but as I said,
you don't need to do that, since they are on the Vantec CD.

Did it install flawlessly & well the first time? Is there any
confusion with drive letters when the thing is turned on/off-- does
D:\ change to E:\ for instance? What was the ultimate cost?

Pretty much installed almost flawlessly (I say "almost", because I
made the mistake of leaving my BIOS set to include any USB drives
(along with floppies) in the boot sequence. So it tried to boot
first on the enclosure drive (which I had NOT installed the drivers
on!), and since I had left my backup drive with its partition set as
Active in BING, that wasn't too nice. :-) My mistake. But
having recognized that and fixing that problem, it went fine.

Hmmm. My own BIOS in "Boot Order" only mentions...

(a) CD-ROM Drive: Second
(b) Floppy Drive A: First
(c) Hard Drive C: Third

So, I guess I needn't worry! Glad you survived it.

In my BIOS bootup options there were also options like ARMD-HDD, for
"ATAPI Removeable Media Drive", which presumably includes the USB
external drive enclosure with the IDE drive inside. Unfortunately,
I had forgotten about that, AND on top of that I had left the Active
Partition flag SET on the enclosure drive, so that wasn't nice!
Dumb on my part. Live and Learn. The way I have my BIOS setup now
is like yours.

I've actually seen "Hard Drive C" drop OFF my boot order screen, when I
removed the hard drive & plugged it into a Maxtor/Promise Ultra 100 ATA
Adapter Card. Could be, who knows, something will pop onto it, if/when I
plug in a USB Enclosure with an HDD on it-- BUT the one in the Adapter
sure did not! Anyhow, I wouldn't necessarily want to boot it, but would
only do what you have done-- instead/in addition to of my current always
connected backup HDD inside the box.

Cost was around $30 for the USB 2.0 HD enclosure (enclosing the IDE
drive).

Not bad.

Without shipping, that is. (Or maybe it was $35.00)

Getting worse, but still acceptable.

I leave the USB connector plugged in, but only switch the enclosure
drive on (small power switch, on back of enclosure) when I want to
make a backup. Nothing to connect or disconnect any more!! Oh
JOY!! And most of the time my backup drive is NOT being used, so it
has a pretty "unlimited" lifetime.

Yea. Sounds good.

The Vantec looks pretty elegant in its style, sitting here on my
desk, and has a nice blue light (in a sleek blue case) for showing
disk activity.

That proves you are overall happy with it, if you think it's
beautiful.

Not just me - if you go look at the reviews (like some on Amazon),
you'll see.
Here's a link that I think still works:


http://www.amazon.com/Vantec-NexStar.../dp/tech-data/
B0009HMT9Y/ref=de_a_smtd/103-9574051-1259041

That does look good all in blue, Colorado. But all my USB ports are on
the floor, & I hope I never step on the thing!

The only thing I don't like about it is it's a tight fit getting the
drive in the case, so if someone wanted to remove it and swap in/out
another IDE drive, that wouldn't be too easy. I don't, so it's no
biggie.

For others, it might be a deal breaker, though. Well, thanks for the
report.

Yes - if one were going to need to remove the enclosure drive fairly
often, there would probably be better choices out there.

I will look research the options when the time comes, BUT at least I
know the Vantec likely will work-- & with BING too!

I *do*, however, like the fact that the Vantec Nexstar 3 model uses a
large aluminum heat sink for the drive inside its case, and thus does
not need a fan for the enclosed hard drive (and that may be part of
the reason for the tight fit).

That's a good tradeoff, I guess. It doesn't scald your hands like
Blanton's do?

No way.

But maybe you're not runnong it long, too.

Maybe true, if you mean HOURS on end, but I don't think it matters. If it
ain't hot after 45 minutes, it ain't gonna get hot. And it takes 45
minutes to copy my boot (and all program's) main drive partition C:
About 10 GB worth at this point.
Perfect copy, including ALL folder and file dates. Which is the only way
to go (for me) - I depend on the date stamps of folders and files when I
install and modify (or update, or remove) programs and data. Plus I'm
always running SFC to keep tabs on things. And using registry backups as
needed, after testing out various programs (and sometimes their updates,
which I don't like sometimes)

Not all USB External HD enclosure models are like this, and
especially if it were an all plastic design (as some models
apparently are), one would probably want a fan to cool the enclosure
drive (and some other models have that). But as for the fan?
Thanks, but no thanks - I like mine noiseless, and it runs cool,
anyways.

That sounds reasonable to me, & I'll keep it in mind for sure. Thanks.

I've actually just ordered another one, so I can *effortlessly* backup the
other hard drive, which contains my audio and video files (I like to do some
audio restoration on various older music).