Optimist. I was waiting to get the disk working properly before installing Acronis.
I have installed it now and used a facilty to install a new hard disk. I've changed the original ext file format from Fat32 to Ntms to mimic my C drive. Same sort of problem but with a new twist. When booting up I don't get the error message but it just hangs there with a flashing "_" . Again when I switch off the drive and re-boot everything is hunky dory. I've sent Seagate a request for assistance to see what they have to say.

Edit. I think I must solve this problem before loading mirror images of my drives using Acronis or else I could be storing up trouble for myself.

I'm getting cable broadband from NTL for work, 14.99 a month. I need to decide how to implement it. I want it available in the Consulting rooms for our professional staff (and me) but not available to our reception based staff. I also need to make it secure as in not accessible to outside hackers. We're totally (like most businesses) dependent on our PC system now so I don't want any possibility of it falling over because of outside interference.

What software should I use for security, and how easy is it to implement the access across the network?

Or should I get a local guru in ;-)

Bolshi, not sure that you actually have a problem. I think you do need to load a copy of your disk onto the external disk and you will probably find that with the external drive plugged in it will boot from that. Be careful though since the drive it boots from will always be C: and the other listed as another letter.

Kayak. I'm coming to the same conclusion. It's more of a nuisance than a fault I suppose. Seagate have emailed me back (good service) confirming what Optimist said about the m/board and the bios setting ie I will need to disable function to boot from USB devices within the BIOS settings. But I think this will screw me up if I ever have to recover from the external disk which is why I got the darned thing in the first place. I think I'll leave well alone and simply switch on the external drive as and when I need it.

Bolshi, wot device order does your PC boot? If the USB device is before your C drive, but does not have a bootable OS loaded, it may be getting confused?
skg

skg. I don't know. How do you find that info?

A second message from Seagate :
"If your main internal Hard drive crashes then you should be able to go
back into the BIOS and enable boot to USB, as it should be a function that
can be turned on/off. The alternative is to keep the drive off or
disconnected while booting your system then, connect it after Windows has
booted."

Bolshi, As you have asked that question it is probable that you have not changed the BIOS settings, however the boot device order is one of the BIOS settings. Usually accessed by pressing the delete key during the initial stages of the bootup process.
skg

Seymour

You should buy a reasonable quality external firewall/router. You could get by with a standard WiFi base station/hub, but they are not very easy or flexible to setup and I have worries about their reliability for business use. Aim for something above 150.

Another way would be to use an old PC (P2 or above but a P1 would do, you don't need a screen), fit it out with some network cards and load Smoothwall Express 2 on it. This is a free firewall from http://www.smoothwall.org and will do what you need and more.

Bolshi

As Kayak says, if you clone your C drive to the USB then it should boot but as C drive which is not very useful. I have not looked at Acronis in depth but it appears to offer different backup and restore options so I believe that it would have to install itself on the USB drive before you could boot from it.

Thanks Optimist. Will take a look.

My Boot Device Priority:
1st Boot Device. VIA VT6420 1st HDD
2nd Boot Device. CD-RW

No mention anywhere in the Boot sector Bios for USBs.

Optimist. Acronis says that it can do it but I haven't waided through the 72 page manual yet to see how :-)

Bolshi

Happy reading ;-)

Bolshi, at least you have eliminated one possibility. skg

Bolshi
Try selecting hard drive boot and you may get a list of hard drives. Sometimes the BIOS treats a USB drive as a hard drive.

Haystack - you're right.
I've been a bit (or lot?) of a pillock here. Because of the problems booting up with the new ext. drive switched on I've been keeping it switched off until after boot up. It was switched off when I looked in the Bios so the Bios didn't see it and didn't list it anywhere. When I re-booted with it switched on and went into Bios there was a new listing for Hard Disk Drives. It had the external drive as 1st choice with my internal drive as 2nd choice. I've changed them and now everything is hunky dory. If the worst comes to the worst under hd failure (and Acronis can't get me going with existing set up) then I can alter Bios again to read external drive 1st. Phew! Very satisfying for a PC novice!
Thanks everyone. Really appreciate it.

Only another thousand snippets of knowledge like this, Bolshi, and you'll be an expert, eh?

Same here. :-)

Doc. What would we do without this thread eh? :-)))))

Over 5,000 posts and still going strong

Dear Technical Support,

18 months ago, I upgraded to Girlfriend 1.0 from DrinkingMates 4.2, which I had used for years without any trouble.

However, there are apparently conflicts between these two products and the only solution was to try and run Girlfriend 1.0 with the sound turned off.

To make matters worse, Girlfriend 1.0 is incompatible with several other applications, such as LadsNightOut 3.1, Football 4.5, and Playboy 6.9.

Successive versions of GirlFriend proved no better. I tried a shareware program, Slapper 2.1, but it had many bugs and left a virus in my system, forcing me to shut down completely for several weeks.

Eventually, I tried to run GirlFriend 1.2 and Girlfriend 1.0 at the same time, only to discover that when these two systems detected each other they caused severe damage to my hardware.

I eventually upgraded to Fiancee 1.0, only to discover that this product soon had to be upgraded further to Wife 1.0.

While Wife 1.0 tends to use up all my available resources, it does come bundled with FreeSexPlus and Cleanhouse 2005.

Shortly after this upgrade, however, I found that Wife 1.0 could be very unstable and costly to run. Any mistakes I made were automatically stored in Wife 1.0's memory and could not be deleted.

They then resurfaced months later when I had forgotten about them.

Wife 1.0 also has an automatic Diary, Explorer and E-mail filter, and can, without warning, launch TurboStrop and Whinge.

These latter products have no Help files, and I have to try to guess what the problem is.

Additional problems are that Wife 1.0 needs updating regularly, requiring Shoe Shop Browser for new attachments and Hairstyle Express which needs to be reinstalled every sixth week.

Also, when Wife1.0 attaches itself to my Porsche911 or MercedesEstate hard drive, it often crashes.

Wife1.0 also comes with an irritating pop-up called Mother In Law, which can't be turned off.

Recently I've been tempted to install Mistress 2005 , but there could be problems. A friend of mine has alerted me to the fact that if Wife 1.0 detects Mistress 2005 , it tends to delete all of Money before uninstalling itself.

Please advise ASAP


Many Thanks

I HAVE BEEN REMOVING PROGRAMMES WHICH I HAVE NOT BEEN USING, AFTER I HAD REMOVED TWISTER AND UTILITIES, MY COMPUTER STARTED TO GO FUNNY.THAT IS THE LETTERS GOT BIG AND THE STYLE CHANGED.I AM UNABLE TO GET TO WHAT I HAD BEFORE. HOW DO I GET THE ABOVE PROGRAMME BACK. THANKS CAN SOMEONE HELP ME