Backup Hard Drive

I bought a new WD hard drive to backup my current system. WinXP Pro 3. Using a USP connection to run spare external HD's. Finally figured out how to get the system to see the drive, got it initialized and formated. Ran Acronis tools to clone my C drive. Disconnected my old drive and plugged in the new drive as the main drive. Computer booted and ran for about five minutes before I got the blue screen of death. Took the new drive out and reinstalled my old one. Hooked up the "new" drive to the USP and the computer won't see it. Ran the WD utility and it won't see it either. Old drive 80 GB. New drive 160 GB. Did I cook a brand new drive? Any idea how I can get this drive back online? Get it formatted and start over? Thanks

Hi Johnny4 We really need the details on the BSOD all the error codes will help us try and figure out what went wrong…. On the other hand you could just start over again and make a new image on your external hard drive Presumably Acronis sees the external hard drive OK? If it doesn't then yes format and start again, may be a wise move Post back and let us know how you get on… Incidentally I dont know what the WD utility you mention does… but with Acronis and an external (USB) hard drive you should have everything you need. Two further points always verify your disc image and make a bootable CD (Using Acronis)so that you can access th ext drive should Windows ever fail to load. Regards paws

Hi Paws. The computer and Acronis wouldn't see the drive. That's what scared me. I had a dead drive I couldn't access. Update. I made a bootable CD from Acronis. I plugged in the "new" drive as the main computer drive, put in the bootable CD and powered up the machine. After many strange screens, plugging and unplugging drives and power, the machine booted and ran fine on the new drive. All the files seemed to be there. Lasted about five minutes till I tried to launch Firefox. BSOD. Put in the old drive and booted the machine. Hooked up the new drive to the USP and the machine sees it. All the files are there. Ran the WD diagnostics and the drive checks out fine. So where am I now? I have a good backup. What I need is a new larger drive in the computer. I have an other drive on order. When it comes I'll try to clone to it. How do you verify a clone?

Hi Johnny4, There should be a setting when you take the disc image/clone that says "verify" I know folks like to do "clones" but sometimes it's a lot simpler, to just take a disc image when your machine is working fast and sweet (keep an extra copy of it on an external hard drive, and make the bootable CD (as you have done) Then in the event of trouble that cannot be fixed in a timely or cost effective way by the normal means, (or if you want to install a new hard drive) just image the new drive or re-image the old one and you are back up and running in next to no time… Regards paws