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WD Back up issue

  • 13-09-2010 7:40pm
    #1
    Ballyman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭


    Hi

    I have a problem with a WD My Passport External drive.

    I use a lot of diskspace and my laptop has a small HD (C: Drive) so I use an external 500GB HD as my main drive. I have it renamed as B: through Disk Management and it works perfectly on my system.

    I want to back up the B: drive to another external drive so I bought a 500GB WD My Passport External drive. I have installed it pnto my conputer (Vista) and tried to backup my B: drive. However when you open the WD Backup software that came with the WD My Passport it doens't recognise the B only the C drive. There doesn't seem to be anywhere in the WD software where I can select the files/drives that I want to back up. It's either the C: drive or nothing by the looks of things. Surely there must be a way of selecting what fiels you want to back up?

    Would anyone have any idea why this is? I did a similar backup with another drive before but it was with a different WD HD and software.

    ANy help appreciated.


Comments

  • #2
    stuff.hunter
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 915 ✭✭✭stuff.hunter


    well, letter a and b are mostly used by operating systems as a floppy drive names so backup software will look for hdd drive above 'b'


  • #3
    Ballyman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Ballyman


    Thats possible but the previous WD external and software backed my last external drive (Which I had renamed as A:) no problems.
    If I have to rename it to something other than B: then I'm in a spot of bother as a load of programs use files on B to run and find so I will have to relocat all of them again. Surely there has to be some other solution for this?


  • #4
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    You say you are using an external drive as your 'main' drive? With your OS and/or apps on it?

    Unless it is connected via eSata, that would result in very poor performance.


  • #5
    Ballyman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Ballyman


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    You say you are using an external drive as your 'main' drive? With your OS and/or apps on it?

    Unless it is connected via eSata, that would result in very poor performance.

    It's not technically my main drive.

    I use the OS on my C: drive and all software et al is on the C: drive. I am a photographer so I have a large collection of images and they are stored on an external drive which I have renamed B:. This is attached to the PC all the time. I now need to back up this drive.

    I had the exact same configuration previously where I had renamed the external A: and I used a WD (can't remember the exact model) to back it up without any issues. They are both now full so I am trying to do the same thing again but have renamed the new external as B (as all the photo editing programs need to have a location to find pics so I can't call it A again)
    However on this occasion the WD that I bought to use as a backup (WD My Passport) won't recognise the B drive, only the C and D (Recovery)

    Any idea why this is or how I can get it to work?


  • #6
    Voodu Child
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,706 ✭✭✭Voodu Child


    Ballyman wrote: »
    It's not technically my main drive.

    ...

    Any idea why this is or how I can get it to work?
    Okay, so if it is not an OS drive and you just have data on it (photos etc) then it should be easy to back it up.

    Forget about the Western Digital software, it is usually useless. Download Microsoft Synctoy. Link

    Then just create a new folder pair. So the folder on the left is wherever the photos are on your B drive, and the folder on the right is where you want them backed up to. Of course it can be the entire drive instead of a folder if you want. Pay attention to the kind of sync you want (ie one-way, two-way etc) - it should be explained in the options in Synctoy anyway.


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  • #7
    Ballyman
    Banned (with Prison Access) Posts: 1,822 ✭✭✭Ballyman


    Voodu Child wrote: »
    Okay, so if it is not an OS drive and you just have data on it (photos etc) then it should be easy to back it up.

    Forget about the Western Digital software, it is usually useless. Download Microsoft Synctoy. Link

    Then just create a new folder pair. So the folder on the left is wherever the photos are on your B drive, and the folder on the right is where you want them backed up to. Of course it can be the entire drive instead of a folder if you want. Pay attention to the kind of sync you want (ie one-way, two-way etc) - it should be explained in the options in Synctoy anyway.

    Thanks for your help. I downloaded Synctoy and it works fine. Cheers.

    I just got reply from WD support today as well. Turns out that the WD software doesn't recognise external drives so I have to use third party software to back up my drive!!


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