Bolshi

To flash the BIOS, you need to go to the manufacturers website, identify your motherboard, and follow the instructions EXACTLY.

I have never got into trouble doing this, but it does come with a massive PC health warning.

Another thing that occurrs to me, is that if you have a modern machine, then there may be an option in the BIOS to boot from a USB drive. If it exists, dissable it.

Optimist.
I will have a look at the manufactureers web site as you recommend.

BIOS option. One of my reasons for adding the external drive (plus Acronis True Image software) was to allow the machine to be booted up if my existing hard drive was totally screwed. If I disable this feature would that in turn not let me do what I originally planned?

I take it that the error message I get (Error Loading OS) refers to the operating system? Is my machine trying to load from G drive instead of C?

Thanks again for your trouble.

My daughter is interested in purchasing an external hard drive for backup purposes. It will be for storing all sorts of data, particularly doc, xls, jpg, gif, mp3, etc, types of files and importantly, also OE e-mail backup.

Can somone point me towards a well written site that deals with OE Backup in a fairly generic 'dbx files, etc' type of way, as I would like to point her towards it.

I've got a feeling, Doc, that you can't backup OE messages. You can backup your address book, etc., but not the messages.

I think you need Outlook 2k3 to be able to backup the messages (edit: which you do using a .pst file).

I'll now take a seat while everyone corrects me.

:o)

Bollshi

Yes it sounds as though it is trying to load from the USB drive.

It sounds as if it could be an Acronis setup problem. What have you transfered to the disk. I'm guessing that Acronis will store a compressed image of your disk which would not be bootable, and installs it's own bootable OS on the disk for use in recovery operations. Is that the way it should work, and have you set Acronis up correctly. It looks to be a well thought out piece of software so I would expect it to have some sort of verification routine.

You can back up OE messages. File, Export, messages.

There is also a directory with a very long name that holds the messages. You can backup the files in the diectory. I used to do it every day to rewritable CDs. There are a number of .dbx files in the directory.

C:\Documents and Settings\rg105064\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\\Microsoft\Outlook Express

or

http://www.iopus.com/guides/oe-backup.htm

hilary

I think in OE the messages are stored as .dbx files.

The sort of site I am looking for is sorta kinda like these two, sorta kinda:-

http://www.sitedeveloper.ws/tutorials/outlook.htm

http://www.insideoutlookexpress.com/backup/simple.htm

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