First let me start with; I don’t have a clue about any of this. I bought a My Book Essential external HD for backup purposes. The problem is the Smartware doesn’t backup the system files or programs.
I have Macrium Reflect and I want to be able to use it to burn ISO images onto the My Book. I have the feeling that Smartware is preventing me from doing that. I’ve had issues with my windows program and have had to do a repair install a couple of times. This got to be a really hassle because of the time it took to download all of the currant updates. With an ISO image I can just bring back an image that for a time when things ran fine.
I don’t want to do something spud so I thought I’d better ask for help before I uninstall Smartware to see if it is what is causing Macrium to not verify an image. Also the little blue Icon that used to be in my notification bar is gone. I have to open it going through the start menu.
If all I want the My Book for is backing up my “system” (and this also includes pictures and documents) do I really need Smartware running? I keep my pictures and documents backed up to CD on a regular basis. What are the ramification of uninstalling the Smartware if any??? If I uninstall the Smartware does it uninstall the whole My Book?
I don’t use the smart ware at all, I uninstalled it. I use Acronis True Imagge for backups. The HD is partitioned windows and programs on one data on the other. I backup each partition separately. Just make sure you don’t have a password when you uninstall Smartware.
So to unistall the Smartware I just go through the control panel and uninstall? Is there anything else I have to do? Do I turn the HD (My Book) off to do this or leave it on?
I was beginning to think I wasted the money on Macrium. I tried Acronis too but I had already bought the Macrium. I like it if I can get it to work like it should.
Go through Add Remove Programs in Control Panel to remove SmartWare. Once you remove it, you can use the drive like any other. No, you don’t have to turn the drive off.
I uninstalled using Control Panel, then disabled the Smartware drive. I still can’t get an ISO image to verify. After the last update on both firmware and Smartware my Windows AutoPlay stopped working. Any thoughts on that??? I read where once you upgrade you can’t undo it, is that true??
I uninstalled using Control Panel, then disabled the Smartware drive. I still can’t get an ISO image to verify. After the last update on both firmware and Smartware my Windows AutoPlay stopped working. Any thoughts on that??? I read where once you upgrade you can’t undo it, is that true??
What do you mean by, you can’t get the ISO image to verify? You should be able to re-enable AutoPlay in Windows. If you’re talking about a firmware upgrade, then no. If you’re talking about SmartWare, then yes you can undo the upgrade because it’s just software. You can uninstall it and re-install the older version.
Joe and I were talking about the programs we use. He uses Acronis True Image and I use Macrium Reflect. Both are for burning ISO images of your entire hard drive. I have been working with their technicians because I’ve not been able to burn an image since I installed the My Book HD. Today they had me run Macrium in safe mode and it still would not verify the image. By that I mean it refuses to copy it due to an error. Since the only things running were basic systems, Macrium and My Book, it should have verified the image as transferable, it did not it failed.
I know it’s not the Macrium program itself because I can back the ISO image up on CD’s but it takes about 12 of them to get it all. That is why I bought the external HD My Book.
As to the AutoPlay issue, I’ve been working with a Tech from Microsoft, they too said there had to be a hardware issue. They took control of my computer and were not able to make it work. They even sent me a copy of Windows Vista w/SP2 to try to see if it was possible something in the system was corrupt. I ran the repair, not just once but twice. Then I remember it was working right before I upgraded the firmware and Smartware.
So if I understand you correctly then even if I were to totally uninstall the My Book (the drivers) I would still have the upgraded version on it. There is no way to erase it? I bought it this spring and I don’t have much on it, nothing that I don’t have backed up to CD’s. As to the Smartware, I have it uninstalled and the driver disabled. It has to be the My Book itsself. If I were able to use it just like any other drive then there isn’t any reason I shouldn’t be able to get an ISO image to verify. It’s just a matter of copying a snapshot of the internal HD to the external HD.
I don’t have a spare computer to use to check 1 by 1 where the problem lies. I wish I did.
I haven’t tried burning to disk. I have not had any problems with Acronis in verifing/validating the image. I have used recovery from MY Book twice to correct other software messes. I booted from the ISO image of Acronis. I also boot from Acronis disk when I do the system backup. MY drive is partitioned with system and software on one and data on the other. Is it possible the AV or security software may be causing the problem?
When I first got the My Book I tried backing to an ISO using Macrium Reflect. When that kept failing I downloaded the trial version of Acronis 2010. That failed as well. I may give it another try. Right now I’m knocking my head against a brick wall.
My system is set up like yours, data on a different partition. I ran a backup from safe mode yesterday, nothing running except system, Macrium and My Book. It failed. Given that my system restore doesn’t work (actually haven’t tried it since I disabled Smartware.
I think I’ll try both tonight and see if it makes any difference.
Does Macrium have the option from booting from a disk to run program? It’ more like a rescue disk where only parts of windows get used. I think the free version of Acronis here is bootable. This Smartware was sure a disaster. I’ve seen a bunch of people that updated firmware and now have problems.
Yes, Macrium has that feature, in fact I have the option (without using rescue CD) of which I want to open with. I can open Vista directly or I can open Macrium and retrieve an image. Unfortunately I have no images to retrieve because none of them will pass verification. It will create it and I can put it on the My Book, but the image itself doesn’t verify.
It’s a really neat program and I highly recommend it. It’s only flaw is if you are running Vista you have to purchase the paid version because Microsoft didn’t put a PE (I think that stands for physical environment) installer in Vista. They have it in XP but figured they could squeeze a little more out of the public by not putting it in there, then charging companies like Macrium a licensing fee. There is a free version that does everything the full version does except for the PE thing.
As to My Book, I’m wishing now that I had bought a Seagate instead. If I can pick up a cheap on I think I’m going to. I went for the 1TB My Book. I’m sure I can pick up something cheap at Amazon or elsewhere on the net.
I ran Acronis and got the same result. Didn’t check out the system restore yet. I can’t rule out a possible problem with the motherboard.
George did you try sfc scan now? right click command prompt run as administrator and type (sfc /scannow ) without parenthesis That may fix a corrupt system file.
I just ran the sfc tool and it says I have corrupt files that could not be fixed. How can that be possible? I used the windows repair disk twice now, how can there be corrupt files left?
What happens with my external HD if I unisnstall it drivers and all then reinstall it? Do you know if I would stlll be stuck with that last upgrade on the firmware?
I don’t know what would happen if you reinstall you probably can’t make it worse. Did you try deleting the drivers? As a heads up I was in Walmart yesterday and looked at their external drives were mostly WD. The had one Seagate and that mentioned preinstalled software. It maybe the same type mess. I think I’ll look into building my own after this disaster. WD sure doesn’t show much interest in fixing things. When they first implemented this there were probllems and they just kept expanding the virtual CD Smartware mess. So much for prior good experience with their products and Reputation. Go to Newegg, Amazon, etc and look at customer reviews of the product and there is almost no posative reviews. A mirror of this site.
I actually did look seriously at Seagate on Newegg. I should have looked at all of the reviews on BOTH.
If WD knows this is a disaster then why don’t they put out an upgrade to do something about it?? I’m not sure the 500GB internal HD is all that great either. 2 guess who made that, did you guess WD???:smileyvery-happy:
How do you get your Acronis to back up a verified ISO to this thing???
I just boot the Acronis from the CD and save backup to the external HD. Then verify it. I think running from the CD disk is like running from a rescue disk. It problably creates a ramfile and uses a bare minimum of system files possibly even some type of slim Lynix app. When you boot off the Acronis disk all that comes up is the Acronis interface. Did you try running checkdisk on the WD to see if there are any bad sectors? I made a post a while ago about corrupt data and defragging did you look at that?
I think the drfrag problem may have to do with the optomize portion and moving important files around. I believe all you have to do to format is click on Computer then right click on the drive you want and select format and follow prompts. Make sure you use NTFS. I haven’t done it that much either. I’m just a tinkerer. I officially retired FRi. I graduated in 1966 and we got a presentation from IBM that computers were the future and would be part of everyday life soon. LOL they were only off by about 30-35 years.
