Solved Can't do Image backup on external hard drive.

t-4-2

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A mod moved a similar thread of mine to Hardware forum, but I receive no response.
So, I am posting here with more up-to-date infos.

I am running Win 8 in VMware in my Win 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1.

I have a 1 TB external hard drive connected to my Win 7 laptop.
I use it to do System Image backup and I also backup a lot of files to it.

But, Win 8 does not see the external hard drive at all.
I did go to Settings > More PC Settings > Devices > Add a device > it went to look for devises and said No devices found.

So, what is the next move ?

Thank you.
t-4-2
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 7741Z
With VMware's Player 4.02 recommended at this time by the way you look at the icons found at the bottom right corner to find any external usb HDs or flash drives plugged in and click on that to disconnect from host first. That will mount the external drive on the VM.

VM Player Mount External HD or Flash Drive.jpg

You won't be able to create a full system image backup of the CP from any VM player regardless of which program is used. You are running 8 on a Virtual Machine which makes that option unavailable automatically. Here I will be waiting for the Release Preview due out next month to test the backup features from the second physical drive's replacement of the CP there.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    1st W10 Professional x64/W7 Ultimate x64 - 2nd Remote system: W10 Insider Builds/W7 Professional
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Builds
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 975 Deneb 3.6ghz -2nd case AMD Atholon II 3.2ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4
    Memory
    Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 1600mhz 16gb - 2nd case Kingston Hyper-X "Fury" DDR3 1600mhz 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb - 2nd AMD Radeon 6450
    Sound Card
    Creative Xtreme Gamer - 2nd case Realtek Onboard audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 19" dual monitor setup - 2nd case HP 20" lcd
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 same on both builds
    Hard Drives
    1st build
    WD Caviar Black Edition Sata II 1tb two OS drives
    WD RE "Heavy Duty Sata II 2tb two Storage/Backup
    2nd build
    WD Blue Sata II 500gb
    WD Black Edition Sata III 1tb
    WD Green Power Sata II 1tb in external usb enclosure
    PSU
    Corsair TX750H 750w -Corsair 500w
    Case
    Antec 900-2 -NXZT Vulcan Mini tower/carrying handle
    Cooling
    120mm front pair, 120 rear 200cm top - 120mm Front intake 200mm side cover
    Keyboard
    Azio Blue led back lit both builds.
    Mouse
    MSI DS200 11 button programmable Gaming optical mouse - Odessa 3 button dual scroll trackball
    Internet Speed
    30mbps
    Other Info
    two MSI 22x ide dvd burners, 25 usb flash drives used for Linux Live, live data recovery 128gb, and Windows 7, 10 usb installation keys
With VMware's Player 4.02 recommended at this time by the way you look at the icons found at the bottom right corner to find any external usb HDs or flash drives plugged in and click on that to disconnect from host first. That will mount the external drive on the VM.

View attachment 5867

You won't be able to create a full system image backup of the CP from any VM player regardless of which program is used. You are running 8 on a Virtual Machine which makes that option unavailable automatically. Here I will be waiting for the Release Preview due out next month to test the backup features from the second physical drive's replacement of the CP there.

Thank you very much.
The instruction posted at the top of your reply solved the issue.
Now my ext. hhd and usb flash drive are installed in VMware. I can use them now.

t-4-2
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 7741Z
I have a "glitch".
Seems to me that if I put Win8 to sleep mode and go back to Win 7, ext. hhd is not there anymore.
I have to shut down VMware first before the ext. hhd is returned to Win 7.
Is that normal or, is there something else I can do so that I can switch back and forth between win 8 and 7 and still be able to use the ext.hhd in either OS ? I have tons of files in the ext.hhd.

Thank you.

t-4-2
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 7741Z
You can dismount as well as connect the external drive by the same method. When clicking on it a second time the option for disconnect from VM Player is then seen.

When first seeing the drive mounted on the VM you should have also seen a notification popup in dark blue for VMware from the system tray area showing something being installed. Once disconnected from the host you repeat the process and this time see the option for disconnect(connect to host) when clicking on the same icon.

VM Player Disconnect External HD or Flash Drive.jpg

Notice the drive labeled CONFIDENTIAL in this screen being the drive in an external fan cooled usb enclosure used here and the second click on the icon at the lower right on VM Player. It's a simple reverse process you can take care of while the VM is still running.

Note you may not see any usb drive remounted on the host(7) if you simply end the VM session and close VM Player up. Sometines it simply won't automatically remount the drive in Windows until your next restart or unplugging, replugging the drive which can be an annoyance at times.

Here I went back and forth between connecting and disconnecting while transferring files from a physical drive by way of flash drive over to the VM for the 8 CP enough times for trying things out and got all too familiar with this! :roflmao:
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    1st W10 Professional x64/W7 Ultimate x64 - 2nd Remote system: W10 Insider Builds/W7 Professional
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Builds
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 975 Deneb 3.6ghz -2nd case AMD Atholon II 3.2ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4
    Memory
    Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 1600mhz 16gb - 2nd case Kingston Hyper-X "Fury" DDR3 1600mhz 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb - 2nd AMD Radeon 6450
    Sound Card
    Creative Xtreme Gamer - 2nd case Realtek Onboard audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 19" dual monitor setup - 2nd case HP 20" lcd
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 same on both builds
    Hard Drives
    1st build
    WD Caviar Black Edition Sata II 1tb two OS drives
    WD RE "Heavy Duty Sata II 2tb two Storage/Backup
    2nd build
    WD Blue Sata II 500gb
    WD Black Edition Sata III 1tb
    WD Green Power Sata II 1tb in external usb enclosure
    PSU
    Corsair TX750H 750w -Corsair 500w
    Case
    Antec 900-2 -NXZT Vulcan Mini tower/carrying handle
    Cooling
    120mm front pair, 120 rear 200cm top - 120mm Front intake 200mm side cover
    Keyboard
    Azio Blue led back lit both builds.
    Mouse
    MSI DS200 11 button programmable Gaming optical mouse - Odessa 3 button dual scroll trackball
    Internet Speed
    30mbps
    Other Info
    two MSI 22x ide dvd burners, 25 usb flash drives used for Linux Live, live data recovery 128gb, and Windows 7, 10 usb installation keys
Thank you.

Same procedures for mount and dismount. Understood.

t-4-2
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit SP1
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Aspire 7741Z
Hi there
the EASIEST way of "Imaging" a VM is on the HOST machine with the VM powered off to just copy the Virtual machine files for that VM to another folder with Windows explorer.. VMware will issue a message when you open that VM -- Did you move or copy it -- just click the I copied it box. This VM will be an identical clone of the original one.

Other ways are -- if you have VMware workstation select the "Clone VM" option to copy the VM.
Or from within the vm itself run an acronis type backup to an external drive.

I usually use the first option -- it's the simplest.

I only use the Acronis Backup method if I have to re-size the "C" drive's virtual partition in the VM. It's easier to back the vm up with Acronis, create a new VM with the required disk sizes and then restore the backup from within the VM -- simply make a bootable iso and use this for the next boot when powering on your new VM -- just restore the data.

Cheers
jimbo
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Linux Centos 7, W8.1, W7, W2K3 Server W10
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 X LG 40 inch TV
    Hard Drives
    SSD's * 3 (Samsung 840 series) 250 GB
    2 X 3 TB sata
    5 X 1 TB sata
    Internet Speed
    0.12 GB/s (120Mb/s)
I've manually copied both VM files in one folder and VHDs created by the program used to another drive entiirely. When going to the newer version of the same the VMs would fail to run that had been backed up. That was with that other player mostly however not the VM Player itself while one version lately did need to see a newer release for 8 to connect online.

The Linux Mint Debian VM however was simply left in the previous install's folder and loaded when selected! The uninstall of 4.0 for the fresh install afterwards of the two months newer 4.02 version left the folders under the "C:\users\user account name\AppData\Local\" sub folders intact.

Once the Release Preview is available I will be more involved with creating backups of the second drive and restoring each backup image as a test of the reliability as well as using the full paid for as well as free WD Acronis TI Disk Director suite to see how each works out. I never worry about backing up a VM since those are mainly reference installs as far as the CP or other like the XP Mode rather then the need to boot out of the 7 host to look at something in the other version whether XP or 8.

Presently I could also use a Vista VM which will be the next VM reference project while that would need Acronis not being the Ultimate edition of the older version there. Still don't think I would need any backup image for that either since all files are coming over from the 7 host or backup drive to start with as far as files and programs(downloads, updates backed elsewhere).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    1st W10 Professional x64/W7 Ultimate x64 - 2nd Remote system: W10 Insider Builds/W7 Professional
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Custom Builds
    CPU
    AMD Phenom II X4 975 Deneb 3.6ghz -2nd case AMD Atholon II 3.2ghz
    Motherboard
    Gigabyte GA-790XTA-UD4
    Memory
    Kingston Hyper-X DDR3 1600mhz 16gb - 2nd case Kingston Hyper-X "Fury" DDR3 1600mhz 8gb
    Graphics Card(s)
    MSI Radeon HD 5750 1gb - 2nd AMD Radeon 6450
    Sound Card
    Creative Xtreme Gamer - 2nd case Realtek Onboard audio
    Monitor(s) Displays
    Acer 19" dual monitor setup - 2nd case HP 20" lcd
    Screen Resolution
    1440x900 same on both builds
    Hard Drives
    1st build
    WD Caviar Black Edition Sata II 1tb two OS drives
    WD RE "Heavy Duty Sata II 2tb two Storage/Backup
    2nd build
    WD Blue Sata II 500gb
    WD Black Edition Sata III 1tb
    WD Green Power Sata II 1tb in external usb enclosure
    PSU
    Corsair TX750H 750w -Corsair 500w
    Case
    Antec 900-2 -NXZT Vulcan Mini tower/carrying handle
    Cooling
    120mm front pair, 120 rear 200cm top - 120mm Front intake 200mm side cover
    Keyboard
    Azio Blue led back lit both builds.
    Mouse
    MSI DS200 11 button programmable Gaming optical mouse - Odessa 3 button dual scroll trackball
    Internet Speed
    30mbps
    Other Info
    two MSI 22x ide dvd burners, 25 usb flash drives used for Linux Live, live data recovery 128gb, and Windows 7, 10 usb installation keys
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