Regular disk migrations but a little concerned about a few things

Hi all.

I purchased Paragon Hard Disk Manager Advanced in May of this year and I've been religiously migrating my notebook's hard disk drive to two external USB3 hard disk drives every second week or so. The reason I'm migrating instead of backing up is that I have some very expensive software on my notebook and I figured that if the notebook's hard disk drive crashed then I'd simply be able to use one of the the two external drives, boot up, and continue working (I know the external drives are slower so it wouldn't be a permanent thing i.e. just until I'd been able to go out and get a new internal hard disk drive). In addition: this (theoretically) would ensure that I don't need re-license and re-register all of this software (would be fine in some cases but in others the develops of "full it it" and don't consider a hard disk drive crash their problem). But here are my concerns (detailed below). I have indeed looked around on the Internet for answers but there does seem to be a whole lot of conflicting information re: some of these issues. The notebook in question is a HP 450 G3. The operating system is Windows 7 Pro SP1 (with all updates installed).

As I say: I've been religiously migrating to external hard disk drives on a regular basis. Once the migrations are complete it APPEARS as though everything is on the external hard disk drives and no errors are reported (I always get a "successful" message from Paragon). But up until last night: I've never actually tried to use one of these drives to boot from so I've never been 100% sure if all is in order with the migrations. When I did try this last night (after changing the requisite options in the notebook's BIOS): Windows tried to boot from one of the external drives but then I was presented with a BSOD. So I was unable to boot from either of my migrations. Now I do understand that the software specifically says "If the destination disk is connected via USB, it won't be bootable after the migration is over. To start up OS from this disk, please connect it via SATA interface". BUT: on the very next screen this option is presented: "Modify Windows Boot Manager to start up from this disk". I don't understand i.e. these two messages appear to be in direct conflict with each other (and for the record on NONE of my migrations have I ENABLED the "Modify Windows Boot Manager..." option i.e. I've always DISABLED it when doing the migrations). So please help me understand these two messages.

Notwithstanding the above: I figured that if I couldn't boot from either of the migrated disks when connected as USB devices I could simply open them up and install them in the notebook. But from what I've read this isn't necessarily going to work as I've read that some manufacturers (Western Digital in particular) either have different connectors or a chip or something that encrypts the data so that the drive cannot simply be removed from its external housing and installed in a notebook. Does anybody have any experience with this issue??? As luck would have it (of course): one of my external drives is a Western Digital Elements (1TB) and the other is a Seagate Expansion (1TB). So: in an emergency am I going to be able to remove the drives from either of these housings and install them in my notebook and boot up and no problem???

Last but not least I've noticed something with these two particular drives that doesn't make sense to me. The migration to the WD takes at least twice as long as it does to the Seagate. Last night's migration is a classic example. The migration of 430GB to the Seagate took two hours and twenty minutes. Immediately thereafter (with the exact same settings in Paragon) I started another migration to the WD. This migration took five hours and thirty minutes. Can anybody think of an explanation for this??? Both drives were purchased new in May of this year, both appear to be working just fine, both are USB3, both are 1TB. I just have a hard time believing that the WD is just a slower drive than the Seagate (well maybe BUT not THAT much slower surely). Or could this have to do with the WD encryption (as asked about above)???

Sorry for the long post but I figured I'd get it all over at once.

I'd really appreciate some input on the above. Some many years ago I was in the IT business and I'll never forget obtaining a new client who had booted their old IT support guy because of a backup!!! These poor chaps had been backing up (to tape in those days) every week for just over a year (which is admirable i.e. most people I know now, and back then, get extremely tardy with their backups and then "cry" when the only backup they have is a few months old). And of course: they day they needed to restore (drive in their server crashed) there was NOTHING. The previous IT support guy installed the tape drive and the software, showed them what to do, and that was that. Nobody tested the backups EVER. Turns out there was a config. error from the first day that the tape drive was installed and nobody even thought to check the backups. An entire year's worth of data simply gone. Their fault??? Not a big deal??? Hmmmnnn... It contributed in a large part to the company closing down after about three months!!! So: I just want to be sure that my Paragon software is working and that these migrations that I'm doing regularly are not a waste of time.

Thanks for reading all of the above.

Regards,

Dale.

Hello Dale.
In order not to type a response three times longer than your text, I just advise you to buy a 2.5 disk 500GB and a case for it (for example https://www.comx-computers.co.za/com...are.php?cat=80
https://www.comx-computers.co.za/com...=742&brand=974, I hope the flash drive to create the WinPE recovery media you already have)
After a series of experiments, a lot of questions and concerns disappear. For example:
1. Perform full migration from the laptop to the NewHDD in the NewUSBcase. Change the discs and make sure everything works. Change the discs back.
2. Perform normal migration from the laptop to a NewHDD in the NewUSBcase. Change the discs and make sure that everything works as well. You understand that full migration takes too much time. Change the discs back.
3. Perform a sector-by-sector (HDD raw proc) backup from the laptop to WD Elements or Seagate Expansion. Change the laptop drive to the NewHDD, boot from the flash drive and restore from backup to the laptop with the NewHDD. Make sure that everything works. Change the discs back.
4. Perform a simple backup from the laptop to WD Elements or Seagate Expansion. Change the laptop drive to the NewHDD, boot from the flash drive and restore from backup to the laptop with the NewHDD. Make sure that everything works. Change the discs back.
etc...

Hello.

Thank you very much for the reply (and thanks for reading my rather long post).

I actually didn't know you could buy those enclosures separately (shows how long I've been out of the IT business huh!!!). And as luck would have it: I have the original drive that the notebook was shipped with (replaced it with a 7 200RPM drive on the day of delivery) so I can use that in an enclosure.

The above being said (and while waiting for some input on this): I decided to open a Seagate Expansion drive (I had a spare one of them as well). Sure looks to me like there'd be no problem in simply installing one into the notebook if needed. I've not tried it though (really don't want to mess with my notebook for no reason) (but I suppose I should test to make sure huh!!!). And I don't know what's up with these WD Elements drives i.e. I formatted the WD Elements drive as I've decided I'd rather backup to the two Seagate Expansion drives what with not knowing if there's any truth to this WD Elements encryption stuff noted in my original post. Strange thing is that the WD Elements took almost four times as long to format as a Seagate Expansion drive. No idea what's up with that but there you go.

Anyways. Thanks again for the response. Really very much appreciated.

Regards,

Dale.

About WD Elements is better to ask WD support. Or at the WD forum. Or perform diagnostics with the dlgdiag tool. IMHO.

agree with fireworker. external drives work great.
I have used that method for many years.
I actually just do image backups, to various rotated drives. then, if bootable drive blew up, take my 2nd machine, attach the first machine's new drive, and the drive wit the image backups, restore the image to the new drive, and insert, and you are up and running.