HP Simple save - problems

[Reiki]

Hi

 

I have a '5 year old' pc & windows xp. I recently purchased a new HP Simple save hard drive 320gb to do automatic backups on a daily basis. However it isn't doing what it says on the packet!

 

It did a massive long (5 hour) first backup 2 nights ago when i installed it for the first time and that seemed ok. However it is meant to backup when the pc is idle but nothing happens (no idea if pc does go idle - i think it does as i get occasional norton messages saying its checking the system as its idle). Instead i have to manually prompt the HP device to do another quick back up which wasn't what i wanted to have to do - i wanted it automatic.

 

Also the HP icon is sometimes visible and sometimes invisible on the bottom applications bar. There is no mention of this plugged in device on the program files (should it be?). If in doubt i have to plug and unplug it to bring it back to life. I have tried plugging it in on two different usb ports - no difference.

 

I have also tested the system by moving files & documents around and checking when the backup catches up - well it doesn't unless i manually arrange for this to happen and even 2-3 days later one document is still sitting in a folder on the backup copy and yet i have moved this document elsewhere into another folder.

 

Your advice please.......

Sue

[snow]

Hello Sue, welcome to FPCH

 

If you have other applications like Norton running tasks when the computer is considered idle, then from the perspective of the backup software, your system might never be idle.

 

Try turning off idle system checking in Norton, and see if the backup software starts to run as it should.

[Reiki]

Hi Snow,

 

Thanks for your reply. I have tried this following your suggestion and disabled the autovirus auto-protect function (not sure how to disable the whole of Norton as they change their display screen each year and i haven't got familiar with this 2009 screen - soon to be upgraded to 2010 version :)). No nothing happened and the HP icon also wasn't visible in the bottom application (?) bar either - this icon seems to come and go!. The blue flashing light on the hard drive flashes away. Could it be a usb cable issue? (just a hunch).

 

Any other suggestions? Not looking forward to phoning HP as got feeling it could be a longwinded phonecall!

 

Thanks

Sue

[Plastic Nev]

Hi Sue, not familiar with the HP hard drives so can't help much with that, but I did have a problem with my HP printer and the drivers causing a problem with a different program. Rather than phone them, I E Mailed their tech help and got a tremendous amount of help from HP, they are good at that sort of thing, and all via E Mail, so no costly phone calls.

Nev.

[Reiki]

Hi All

 

Thank you for your responses - well after the first HP Simplesave device got worse and worse in terms of not doing what it was meant to do, the icon on the bottom application bar finally disappeared, so i couldn't control it at all, so i returned device to Tesco, they checked it and it didn't launch on their machine either now (although it had been ok on a previous visit to Tesco - what fun i had taking this device in and out of Tesco setting of the alarms every time!). So they gave me a replacement and £5 change as it had gone down in price! Came home all excited and guess what it didn't even launch let alone back up or backup on idle. I spent another hour on yet another PChelp line and decided to go on to Plan B e.g. use the device as a giant flash drive and just do a daily 'windows run backup' that does one big backup and then just amends the data therafter daily. That worked but on clicking on 'backup' i couldn't access anything in any detail so couldn't see what it had backed up. It was only any use if you were to need to restore all yours documents - so with that i returned to Tesco for about the forth time with the device and gave it back! In the meantime i went to PC world & explained the problem to them and ended up buying a 'Clickfree Portable hard drive 320GB' for £109 - yep twice as expensive as the Simplesave but my god its brilliant and worth every penny (both in me feeling secure with having my data reliably updated and in terms of getting my life back from trying to problem solve the HPSS device for which i spent hours trying out different ideas and calling various PC helplines). 'Clickfree' does an initial big backup and then backups every day if you want it to (you can see exactly what it backs up and can control it e.g. how often it back-up and what it does in so many ways). I love it so much! Such a relief to find a gadget that really fully satisfies and does what it says on the label (only thing it doesn't do is delete anything you delete on you main drives (so if you were to need to do a restore at any time it would bring up everything that its backed up - but when it backs up it will add any new documents to the backup including edited copies of documents.

 

So if your HPSS is messing you around get a refund and get a Clickfree portable external hard drive!

 

Cheers

Reiki Sue x