Is it just laptops you CANNOT boot from. I mean, can you boot from a USB ext. HD into a regular PC.

I ask because I have a PC cloned to an ext. HD.

:) I have never tried it but from what I have read you can do so if your motherboard supports USB booting. You would need to check for usb in your boot sequence in setup I believe. I would think that installing a new internal and restoring to it would be smarter though. Even if you can boot from it, and I wouldn't bank on that, A USB Drive will be extremely slow in comparison to your internal hard drive.

Would this work?

Simply put in a new HD, then copy the cloned onto it, then you have what you had before the crash.

Bryant, you need to clone it before you have a crash. If you clone it afterwards then you will have the same bad file that caused the crash.:e

Dale, I have a cloned USB HD now, update it bimonthly, there abouts. Just want to make sure it can be used later on as a clone usb HD.

Am I all set then?:)

I guess what I meant here was to "After a crash, install a new HD, then copy the external HD (that the "now crashed" drive was previously coned onto) into the newly installed HD.

I was asking because someone was saying that an ext. usb HD couldn't be used to start up a machine. :w

:) Boy I don't want to get back into this much. I know what opinions are like. Here is my take on this. You have to be able to boot from something. Therefore creating a hard drive image on an external hard drive and creating a boot cd seem to be the way to go. You cannot boot to a new hard drive with no operating system.

If you wish to clone..then by all means clone. I will tell you that updating an image is about the easiest thing in the world to do. Restoring a new hard drive from that image is also easy. I do not get all the debate. In my mind imaging is the only way to go for a laptop and Cloning will work well for a desktop with a second internal hard drive installed. Have fun you all.

I can't help but agree with you. I just wanted to know if I am in fact protected now in light of all this new info.

I have an ext. HD. I have cloned my PC (with only one internal HD) to this ext. USB HD.

The 66,000 dollar question? Anyone jump in, please.

AM I PROTECTED IN CASE OF A HD FAILURE IN MY PC?
YES or
NO

ALL MY SPECS INCLUDING THE HARD DRIVES ARE LISTED BELOW IN MY SIGNATURE!

:) I would say no. Again, my opinion. What I would do is make an image to your external. Make a bootable CD. You will then have lots of free space on your external for other things and you can update the image as often as you need to. Weekly, Monthly or even daily. I would then copy my entire songs folder to the Ext Hard Drive as well. If your internal should die you can hook up the external and boot from the bootable cd to restore the image to a new internal. The backup of the songs folder is just an extra thing in case you just need to restore it for some reason or want to copy it to your backup machine. When you create an image of the 40gb hard drive it will include everything on the drive to include operating system and all your settings. I have even imaged to cd's before. It took about 15 to 20 of them and I wouldn't recommend that. However, I did a test restore from them and all worked well.

My other questions: If a bootable disc and an image work, why wouldn't a cloned disc work (isn't a clone an image PLUS a bootable disc)?

If I have a bootable disc already made (which I have), will the cloned disc work with the bootable disc (as you say the image does).

I ask this because these things are already in place.

:) A clone is like it sounds. An exact duplicate of your hard drive. Cloning is for making a duplicate hard drive to simply drop in when your old one expires. You could not restore it from a bootable cd.

I just got done cloning my laptop, what i did was i bought the acronis true image 11 and i also bought an internal 160 gb hard drive and an enclosure, installed the software and , installed the hdd to the enclosure and plugged it in to my usb and i just clicked on clone ( i chose automatic ) and in 10 minutes , i got a brand new hard drive, took the old one out and put the new one in ..if you buy the box version it comes with the boot cd, dont need to create one..

:) And that of course works too as long as you have the right type drive in the enclosure and can simply swap it out. lol

I use Acronis True Image Workstation with Acronis Universal Restore. It's amazing what you can do with this software - I think you can download and try it for a while. From memory that's what I did & I was so impressed I bought it.

Yes, I know. But this other guy says it may not work with a usb ext. HD.

I am still asking the question?

Will my cloned HD to a usb 1.0 ext. HD be sufficient protection?

yes or NO

Just got through digging into my Norton Ghost manual, and Norton Ghost does support USB imaging and cloning. It will create a disaster boot disk which can be used for either mode. Never bothered before as I don't use a USB drive. To top it off, I'm using a five year old version(2003)

Guess "this other guy" wasn't familiar with Norton Ghost.(no insult intended, heck I've been using Norton for five years and never knew it was USB compatable:e )

So, Bryant, I'd say Yes to your question if you used Norton Ghost and created a disaster recovery disc. For any other program, read your manual.

Only way your going to find out is try it. Obviously no one has actually used one like that, but theoretically it should work.

Agree all the way.

I might add since this all started, other than here on this forum, I have seen no disctincion made between desktops or laptops when it comes to cloning or imaging other than the obvious physical limitations of the laptops which make outboard drive a necessity for the application to be used.

When you really think about it, unless dual boot is employed, laptops and desktops are both faced with the same problem. Without a boot recovery disc(which I have), my D: inboard backup drive is for all practical purposes as useless as a USB drive in the event of a drive crash.

Dale, correct me if I'm wrong, but with imaging I've come to the conclusion from all that's been said on the forums that one has to use the boot disc every time one wants to open the image file. If that's so, that seems like a big disadvantage where imaging is concerned.

Since a cloned drive is fully operational, I can clone between drives without using my boot disc. That's for disasters only, not day to day backing up. Only disadvantage I see with cloning is space, but as big as drives are getting, I don't think that's the problem it was back in the days of 40mg.drives.

You may have answered a question you had a while back. If you didn't make a typo and are still using USB 1.0, that probably accounts for your exceptionally slow transfer speed you experienced when cloning. You should consider an upgrade to USB 2.

My latest Laptop has a USB2/eSATA dual input. Have a look at the specs for eSATA - very impressive:w