Seagate Disc Wizard refused to admit the WD (Western Digital) Passport Drive and told me I was only allowed to have a Seagate, Maxtor or Samsung drive.
The RESTRICTION window also told me there is an upgrade that will work, called Acronis True Image, so tomorrow we'll see about that.
Meanwhile, the Passport HardDrive came with a Backup software, but I'm not sure its the same thing as the Disc Wizard.
The construction zone is closed again.
Now having visited the Acronis website we find there is a backup program that does what Seagate Disc Wizard refused to do, but at a cost of $29.99.
For the time being the 2nd computer install process is halted until we come up with a new plan.
Carl,
While I use Backblaze for my backups now, years ago I used SyncBack which worked fine for me. If you scroll down on the linked page you will find the free version.
SyncBack
< https://www.2brightsparks.com/
Thank you Jim Henry for this link.
It will be tried and a report made here.
This project is causing me to learn deeper things about Windows and PCs than I knew before.
Everything is right on schedule. There is no emergency, no rush, and its fun to work on this stuff when life doesn't depend on it.
By canceling everything else for the day we were able to concentrate 100% on getting the new Windows 7 system safely burned to an O.S. image as well as a System Recovery Disc, so now the way is cleared to integrate the computer as a redundant system that will do everything the XP unit has been doing for 10-years.
Deep thank you's to all the helpful members who provided guidance through the process. We have some wonderfully smart people!
Taking extreme security measures I want to duplicate the Windows 7 O.S. Image from the Passport USB drive to a DVD Disk, but the computer being prepped only has a Disk ROM Player and no burner, plus it's pre-mature to connect an ethernet cable to the first computer due to security fears...
So I plugged the Passport USB Drive into the original computer where it would be available to the disk burner, but the (XP) computer refused to install the Passport USB drive, asking for drivers that it was unable to find.
The Passport USB Drive worked easily with the newer computer (Windows 7).
If anyone has an idea about this situation I'd be curious to know.
Meanwhile, we'll try using a USB Thumb Drive to move the OS Image.
The Addition of 2nd Computer for KDX
The new HP computer is securely backed up so we connected it by ethernet cable to the router and installed the latest Firefox and connected to the internet.
However, attempts to get into the older XP computer for file sharing has failed, the Windows 7 O.S. posted some notifications that only Windows 7 computers could be reached.
Is this a limitation or is there a way of two-way file-sharing?
Furthermore... can this Windows 7 O.S. be installed on the XP computer or do we need to purchase another Windows 7 package?
The first Passport I bought works on XP. When it is plugged in you get a prompt to install something. Just cancel out of this window and the drive will appear as a regular disc drive and it works fine this way.
As mentioned earlier, the second Passport was formatted with some new and unknown to XP format and I formatted it for NTFS and it works as described above.
Regarding sharing files over the local net between XP and 7, unless there is some new security update on 7 unknown to me sharing can be done. You need to get into the sharing and security settings on 7 and make some changes from the defaults. I don't remember specifically how to do this but it can be done and I used to share files when I ran dual sysstems.
Neil
Thank you Neil.
As stated earlier, this is a no-rush project so I can take a week or a month per step as we go along.
Given the guidelines you've offered we know where to look for the keys to fully integrate these two systems.
Another question we have:
Can this image of Windows 7 be double used by installing it on the other computer so they will both be Windows 7?
Probably not. When Win 7 is installed it is taylored to the hardware present on the system so if the second system has different hardware it may not be able to find the files it needs. Then there is the business of the Windows keys which are also tied to the hardware and which probably keep it from working. It may be possible to put the image on another machine but this is dubious at best. I have never tried to do this.
Neil
Finding ourselves unable after two hours of clicking and scrolling to establish LAN contact between two computers for file sharing, we are turning attention to establishing an alternate method for exhanging files.
Actually the KDX Website Server on the XP computer can be accessed from the Windows 7 computer via Firefox browser, which allows planting files on the website server for grabbing by the other computer, but there is no return path.
Plan B will probably be a couple of USB Thumb Drives swapped between both computers, which asks the question... can USB Thumb Drives be "hot swapped" with the power on, or do the computers need to be powered down before plugging and unplugging from the USB ports. This has never been made clear so far as I've noticed.
Here's another question... can one of the computers be blocked from the internet while still being able to access LAN, assuming I ever make contact with the other computer? I've looked in the router for a way to do this and not seen an obvious method.
Yes, thumb drives can be hot swapped but if they are formatted with NTFS format then be sure to click on the "Safely Remove Hardware" icon on the task bar and tell the system you want to remove the drive. If you prefer to avoid this then format the drive with the exFAT format which does not requre telling the system about removal and allows removal just by unplugging the drive as long as there is no activity happening on the drive. There is a setting of the disc properties which will turn off the nag screen which appears when a thumb drive is unplugged.
You can configure a system to work on the LAN without internet access by disabling internet access. This involves changing the IP address for your internet access within Windows and not at the router. The best source for such information I have found is to do a web search on "Win XP disable internet connection" for example and there will be many helpful articles found on the subject. Same goes for other such questions. This is much more productive than trying to use the Window Help functions.
Neil
.
Neil, there's something you said a few posts back...
"Sometimes I wonder if the "priesthood" of IT people intentionally make simple things complicated so users have to run to them all the time for help."
That is SO TRUE, except that nowadays when you try to go to them for help they become very scarce, unless you're spending money, in which case they have whole buildings full of eager phone friends.
Spending time digging into pages of information I happened across a lengthy instruction on making Non-Windows 7 computers (XP) network with Windows 7, requiring opening of 11 ports.
My router's port capacity only has 9 spare ports left over, so I am out of luck port wise.
Is this still fun?
Ask tomorrow.
Members of the ALPB spend a lot of time helping each other with radio and internet problems, and we learned a lot on Saturday evening about getting a Windows 7 computer to network over LAN with an XP computer.
One valuable tip came from both Troy TheLegacy and Neil Radio8Z who mentioned a free software called Team Viewer which makes interchanges between computers a simple matter of installing the apps.
One thing I noticed that I'll ask about is that there are two websites...
[teamviewer.us] and [teamviewer.com].
They both look alike except that one of them mentions the free version and the other one seems to address only a commercial version. Are both of these sites legitimate?
Attempts to network our new and old computers for file sharing are still in the stumble stage in which it hasn't worked "yet", but there are some signs that its going to work.
Team Viewer was downloaded but set aside in favor of trying "Tight VNC" which claims on its website that it "sets itself up" which ours did not do.
But both computers seem to know the password which were entered into only one of the computers, an indication that at least the password traveled through the "network".
Reading about it causes severe napping so I only read three sentences a day.
By now I think we will set a deadline because there eventually will be opther things that need to be done, so we'll make it... June 30, 2018.