DiscWizard and MaxBlast

[bmaytum]

I created a DiscWizard boot CD which works fine on my old (circa 2001) Asus P4PE system (i.e., DW boot CD DOES detect my 1TB Seagate FreeAgent Desk USB drive upon bootup).

However, the same DW boot CD does NOT detect the FreeAgent Desk USB drive when booting my circa 2006 Asus P5N32-E SLI motherboard system. I see the (linux kernel) report <something> not found, but contines anyway to the Seagate Bootloader Starting message, then the graphical DW screen that allows me to choose between booting Windows (7 Pro 64-bit) or starting DW Full Version from the CD.  When I choose to load DW Full Version, DW returns an Error stating that no Seagate drives were detected.

P5N32-E SLI System details:

Motherboard uses nVidia NForce 680i SLI Intel Edition chipset incld SATA II and USB 2.0 controllers;

Asus EN580GTX/1536MB videocard;

Intel Core2Duo E8400 CPU @ stock 3.0GHz;

more chipset details available if needed.

Seagate FreeAgent Desk 1TB external USB2.0 drive M/N= ST310005FDA2E1-RK, PN: 9ZB2AG-572 (S/N available if needed)

I I boot this PC from internal hard drive into Win7 Pro x64, I can start & run DiscWizard with no problems (eg, to backup internal HDD partitions to the FA Desk USB drive).  My main concern is that inablity to boot from DiscWizard means I would NOT be able to Restore my internal HDD if the internal disk (and specifically, the Win7 C:\ boot partition) were corrupted.

This P5N32-E SLI system has NO problem booting from a (PCLinuxOS) "Live CD" which detects and allows me to thereafter mount the FreeAgent Desk USB drive.

My Seagate DiscWizard software is version 11 (Build 8,326).

Any help / ideas how to successfully boot & use DW from "bootable" DW CD ??

[bmaytum]

BUMP.

Well Seagate, I'm quite disappointed your Techs haven't posted anything in reply to my posted problem, not even an acknowledgement with a "we'll get back to you".  I truly expected SOMETHING now a month later, not NADA.

Is there any plan to come out with a newer / better Seagate-branded DiscWizard download any time soon?  One that might boot my Asus P5N32-E SLI system from CDand then properly detect my Seagate USB external FreeAgent drive? Current DW (which actually came out in 2099 = Last Decade) will NOT detect that drive when booting this PC from DW "boot" CD.

I briefly considered buying Acronis True Image - altho they've gotten great reviews in prior years, there are TONS of people reporting BIG problems with current offerings, so I'll pass.

For this PC, I guess I'll have to install my licensed Image For Windows program (from Terabyte Unlimited) since I can't risk being unable to restore this PC from DW "boot CD".

[-_bill]

1. Seagate technical support does not seem to be what it once was - though since DiscWizard is actually made by Acronis the level of support one can expect here is limited in any event.

2.  You are not running the latest version (13, I think, rather than 11).  Version 11 is, as you noted, getting old, so trying the newer version might help.

3.  I'll assume that you don't have another Seagate drive on your older system (i.e., that the bootable CD must be recognizing your USB drive as a Seagate drive there because it's the only one present).

4.  It is conceivable that (if the assumption in 3 above is correct) the difference in recognizing the USB Seagate drive is a difference in the BIOSes on the two motherboards.

5.  I have seen version 11's bootable CD unable to detect ANY SATA drive on some motherboards (again, presumably due to differences in their BIOSes) - even when the SATA controller was set to emulate IDE drives.  Ditto version 10's, ditto Acronis True Image Personal version 8's.  So even the presence of a Seagate SATA drive on your newer motherboard might not help.  Verision 11 (don't know about version 13) still supported a 'technical override' to get around failure to recognize a Seagate drive which would certainly be appropriate to apply in your situation but might not be acceptable to describe here (Google a bit and you should be able to find it).

6.  If all else fails there are other free drive/partition imaging programs available - see http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-drive-imaging-program.htm for suggestions.

[-_bill]

Whoops - one more thing. If the optical drive you're using on the newer motherboard is SATA that (along with BIOS variations) also could be part of the problem.  There appears to be something about SATA on some motherboards that DiscWizard (at least through version 11) just doesn't get along with.

[-_bill]

Mea culpa (and apologies for responding to correct an oldish thread). The comments I wrote above about SATA and DW v11 were based upon experience with an 11.0.0.8142 bootable CD ( I never noticed that I hadn't updated the CD when I moved the installed version to 11.0.0.8326). The 11.0.0.8326 CD handles SATA much better - it eliminated the specific problems that I noted above. There are quite a few good, free disk imaging programs out there, but I've come to rely upon DW over the years for most tasks in that area and it's good to know that I still can. My experience with the bootable CD has been limited since I multi-boot on my main PC and usually just use an installed version of DW on a system that isn't involved in what I'm using DW to do. But when I need the CD, it's good to know I can rely upon it.