No thanks to the support group at Seagate/Maxtor, who gave me only the stock error check, defrag, re-install, etc suggestions, I have managed to get SafetyDrill working on my Windows XP machine. Just thought I would record what I found for anyone else who has the same issues when trying to get it working under XP.
Turns out that SafetyDrill depends upon a Windows feature called Volume Shadow Copy, which is apparently mainly used for production level backup processes. It would appear that this feature is much better supported under Windows 2003 Server than it is under Windows XP (don't know about Vista). Using my trusty Google, I found many many references to issues with Volume Shadow Copy, and many many suggestions of various fixes. However, most of these were only applicable to Windows 2003.
However, pressing on, I eventually found and successfully tried, the following approaches to fix my SafetyDrill issues:
1. I did find one Microsoft patch related to Volume Shadow Copy which was applicable to Windows XP (there are many Windows 2003 patches available in this area). I did download and apply the one XP patch, but it is unclear to me whether this did any good. You can find info on this patch at
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/903234
2. It would appear, for whatever reason, that Windows XP as installed (at least by Dell and our IT group) does not have Volume Shadow Copy fully configured. Based on my Google results, it would appear that this is a common issue with XP. In order to configure Volume Shadow Copy, there are a series of dll's which need to be registered (including the one for the MS Software Shadow Copy Provider service). I found numerous versions of the list of what needs to be registered, but I believe that the copy of a .bat file provided below is pretty complete (thanks to the folks at 2BrightSparks).
3. You must have two services running to support Volume Shadow Copy. The first one is called Volume Shadow Copy Service. This was set up on my machine as it came. The second one is called MS Software Shadow Copy Provider. This was NOT set up on my machine as it came. Both services, once you have them set up, need to be configured for either manual or automatic startup using the Services Manager under Administrative Tools (in XP).
After I did these things, I tried running SafetyDrill again, and it finished successfully (copied 50GB in just under an hour....pretty impressive!). I also did try the suggestion to boot my machine using the SafetyDrill recovery CD to make sure that that worked, and it seemed to behave fine. You must have the OneTouch drive connected to the system for the CD boot to work properly though. However, I wasn't brave enough to actually try the recovery process (you can cancel out after booting from the recovery CD, leaving your real hard drive undisturbed).
Good luck!
@echo off
REM
REM Batch file for Windows XP, 2003, and Vista that attempts to reset the
REM Volume Shadow Copy (VSS) installation.
REM
REM 2BrightSparks Pte Ltd
REM
http://www.2BrightSparks.com/REM
echo --- This batch file must be run as an Administrator. If you are using Windows
echo --- Vista then run it by right-clicking on the batch file and selecting
echo --- Run as administrator
%SYSTEMDRIVE%
cd %SystemRoot%\System32
echo.
echo --- Ignore any messages saying a service is not started.
echo.
Net stop vss
Net stop swprv
echo.
regsvr32 ole32.dll
regsvr32 oleaut32.dll
regsvr32 vss_ps.dll
Vssvc /Register
regsvr32 /i swprv.dll
echo --- eventcls.dll will fail to register on Windows Vista.
regsvr32 /i eventcls.dll
echo --- es.dll will fail to register on Windows Vista.
regsvr32 es.dll
regsvr32 stdprov.dll
echo.
echo --- vssui.dll only exists on Windows 2003. Ignore the error if not using Windows 2003.
regsvr32 vssui.dll
regsvr32 msxml.dll
regsvr32 msxml3.dll
echo.
echo --- msxml4.dll may not be installed and is optional. Ignore the error.
regsvr32 msxml4.dll
echo.
echo --- If SQL is installed, then also may need to re-register this DLL, otherwise ignore the error.
regsvr32 Sqlvdi.dll
echo.
echo ------------------------------------------------------------------------
echo.
echo IMPORTANT: Reboot your computer. After the reboot, open a command prompt
echo and run the following:
echo.
echo vssadmin list writers
echo.
echo Ensure that all your writers are displayed without errors.
echo.
pause
