Seagate Hardrive Back Up Not Working?

[bluecountry]

Just did the long generic test, it passed

so...what now?
Is it fine?  What do I do?

[Salmon Trout]

Try another backup.

[bluecountry]

I just did, and it worked!

Weird, so I guess I am all good?
What do you think the prob was?

[bluecountry]

Had a few other questions to ask:


1) When I connect my seagate, do I need to have both USB cords connected, or just one?  My PC has only two working USB ports, and I like one of them to be for my mouse.  I have noticed that with the seagate drive, when I connect the 1st USB cord, it actually registers on my PC...so in that case wondering if I really need both connected?


2) Assume my EHD is working and I am able to "restore", so this means all I do is go to windows/backup and restore/restore and it will restore everything as it was, including settings like time zone, desktop wallpaper, and alike?
Would this mean as well all my documents and pictures would populate in the exact same places?
For instance, in documents, I organize it, so I have documents...then a subfolder with all "college" documents.  I also have a subfolder with all "budget" documents.  This means if the EHD works, I simply click on "John's PC", restore, and under documents not only would I have all documents, but they would be organized and arranged like they were before?

See, previously when I had this drive, I was not sure how it worked.  So I would simply have to drag "My documents" and "My Pictures" from the C drive to the EHD, then when bringing them back, manually again dragging them back to the PC....sounds like all I have to do is just click "backup" instead of dragging those folders?


3) If my EHD was working, does this mean I could restore everything to another PC?  Say I bought a new PC, or was out of town and using a different PC, so long as it had windows (or even Mac), I could either restore and transfer all my files?

Also...how from my EHD if everything is saved under the folder "John's PC" would I be able to locate and access individual documents and files if on another PC?

4) Now conversely, if my EHD fails, does this mean I would lose all of my data on there OR just that I could no longer "add" new data but could still access old data already saved?

[Salmon Trout]

1) When I connect my seagate, do I need to have both USB cords connected, or just one?  My PC has only two working USB ports, and I like one of them to be for my mouse.  I have noticed that with the seagate drive, when I connect the 1st USB cord, it actually registers on my PC...so in that case wondering if I really need both connected?

A drive that has two USB cables uses one for data and power (you always need this one) (it may be slightly thicker than the other) and one for extra power if one USB port on the computer cannot supply enough power for the drive. You should only use the second cable if the drive will not work correctly with the main cable only. Yours clearly does not need the second cable. So don't use it. This should avoid the error message you had before.

I don't use Vista so I am not really qualified to answe questions (2) and (3)

4) Now conversely, if my EHD fails, does this mean I would lose all of my data on there OR just that I could no longer "add" new data but could still access old data already saved?

If it fails you may as well assume you will lose ALL of the data that is on there. Sometimes, for hundreds or thousands of dollars, a data recovery company can recover some or all of it, but there is no guarantee.

[bluecountry]

Thanks, I had one last question.
I was really curious

1) Assume my EHD is working and I am able to "restore", so this means all I do is go to windows/backup and restore/restore and it will restore everything as it was, including settings like time zone, desktop wallpaper, and alike?
Would this mean as well all my documents and pictures would populate in the exact same places?


For instance, in documents, I organize it, so I have documents...then a subfolder with all "college" documents.  I also have a subfolder with all "budget" documents.  This means if the EHD works, I simply click on "John's PC", restore, and under documents not only would I have all documents, but they would be organized and arranged like they were before?

See, previously when I had this drive, I was not sure how it worked.  So I would simply have to drag "My documents" and "My Pictures" from the C drive to the EHD, then when bringing them back, manually again dragging them back to the PC....sounds like all I have to do is just click "backup" instead of dragging those folders?

[bluecountry]

OK...well I just tried to back up again and got this message after nearly completing a full 2 hour backup:

Data error (cyclic redundancy check).
0X80070017

What do I do?

[Salmon Trout]

Personally, if I had had 2 warnings, I would look around for a new backup device. A second internal hard drive, or a new external.

[bluecountry]

Understood, but I am on a tight budget...so what would you suggest I do to try and remedy this problem for the immediate time being?

Already I have done this:

1) http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Check-your-hard-disk-for-errors  for both the C and G drive

should I re-try and back-up or do something else?

[bluecountry]

Just did "chkdsk/r" for several hours, but if fixed some "music file" which I downloaded from bitlord and it is all fine.

So in wrapping up, was my C drive or Seaggate the problem; and why is this the 2nd time I've had this BOTH with a music file?

[bluecountry]

I got a new Western Digital and backed it up twice fine...until today when once again I got this message "Data error cyclic redundancy error 0x80070017"

I thought buying a new backup hardrive would eliminate this issue, any reason why it has not?