Brcobrem

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Aug 6, 2010
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Hi,

This is my first post to a Tom's Hardware forum. Thank you !

I have a backup situation that I can't quite debug. Here's the scenario:

1) Connect an external PATA HD to a USB port on a laptop. I have one USB "adapter" called "EasyIDE" and another one called "USB2.0 to SATA/IDE Cable". Both "adapters" have their own power supply for the PATA drive. I have tried both "adapters" in the following scenario. The PATA drive is set to Master, partitioned as a singler Primary partition, and is formatted as as NTFS
2) Boot any laptop with a bootable CD that has an imaging program. I tried both an Acronis boot CD and also a PE CD with Ghost32 and Acronis. I have also tried a bootable PE thumb drive with Ghost32 and Acronis.
3) Successfully make an image of the laptop's HD.
4) If I immediately run a validate on the image, it takes perhaps 5 minutes just to start running, then after a couple minutes of running, I get a "corrupt image" dialog and the validate stops as normal without hanging.
5) I have tried rebooting again and only doing a validate on the image, and still get the "corrupt image" dialog.
6) If I plug the same PATA drive into a desktop using either "adapter", and do a validate from either bootable media or an installed imaging program, the validate runs to completion and indicates the that the image was validated 100% good.
7) I have tried the preceding with different PATA drives and laptops (Dell, Sony, HP) as well. The last PATA drive I tried this scenario on was a WD800JB (80GB).

With PATA drives at the end of their life cycle, I am hesitant to buy another PATA to USB adapter. Anyone ever seen this scenario? Is there something flaky abut USB ports on laptops that might cause problems when reading large files?

Your comments or suggestions will be appreciated.

Regards,
Brcobrem
 

Brcobrem

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Aug 6, 2010
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Hi gtvr,

The bootable OSs have USB drivers, and I get a good image backup of the laptops to the externally connected PATA drive. The problem is that when I tell the image program to "validate" the image that was just made (either as the final task of the imaging, or as a separate task), the validation fails in a matter of minutes.

Yet, I can unplug the PATA to USB "adapter", and immediately connect the USB end to a desktop computer, and use the dektop's installed version of the same imaging program, and the validate completes 100% with no errors.

It's just weird and doesn't make a whole lot of sense imho.

Thanks for the reply !

Regards,
Brcobrem

 

Brcobrem

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Aug 6, 2010
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Hi Forum,

I thought this may have something to do with it, but my USB drivers are already a higher version than the hotfixes.

"Problems may occur when you try to transfer files to or from a device that is connected to a USB 2.0 hub in Windows XP or Windows Vista" :

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/908673

So I continue to look for a solution . . .

Regards,
Brcobrem