Own a Seagate or Maxtor Hard Drive? Free Backup Software

[Woofmeister]

Acronis True Image is very good backup software that sells for $40.00 or more. Without much fanfare, Seagate has released a free version of DiscWizard and Maxtor's MaxBlast 5 based on the OEM version of True Image. These utilities also feature other capabilities--disk drive cloning, full disk imaging, formatting drives, creating partitions, erasing all the data on the drive.

And the price, FREE, BABY, FREE!

You need at least one hard drive manufactured by Seagate or Maxtor. Follow the links to Seagate DiscWizard or Maxtor MaxBlast.

Both are supposedly Vista compatible.

 

[PC911mickster]

Thanks OP!
That cheapo Maxtor(Seagate)HDD at Frys is looking extremely attractive now.
I paid $69 for mine a month ago and it's in my new system...and yes, it IS a series 10 Seagate in a Maxtor box but the model number on the drive itself is all Seagte series 10.
Very sweet!

 

[nekote]

Woofmeister,

#1 - Thanks, super great post (I think!)

#2 - Both links are to Seagate.
(Seagate announced buying Maxtor for $1.9B 12/21/2005)
Everything looks the same, especially the legalease "Accept" stuff.

Apparently, just different versions, enabled for Seagate / Maxtor drives ???

 

[Woofmeister]

Yes, both links are to Seagate's website because Seagate acquired Maxtor. I think there are different versions of the software for both manufacturers because you need to have either a Seagate or Maxtor drive in order to get the software to work. That probably means DiscWizard will not work with a Maxtor hard drive and MaxBlast will not work with Seagate.

I owe it to my fellow Hot Deal addicts to offer complete and comprehensive linkage when I post a Hot Deal--that's part of the AT Hot Deal Blood Oath!

 

[Chadder007]

Sweet....just now needed this, literally. About to swap over to a new seagate drive in a laptop here in a few.

 

[Elixer]

When I got this awhile ago (May 6 give or take a day), I didn't think it was worth mentioning...since all new Seagate/Maxtor HDs should come with this.

 

[Woofmeister]

Originally posted by: Elixer
When I got this awhile ago (May 6 give or take a day), I didn't think it was worth mentioning...since all new Seagate/Maxtor HDs should come with this.

Yes, the new (non-OEM) Seagate/Maxtor HDs should come with this. But there are literally tens of millions of old Seagate and Maxtor HDs that now qualify for the free software. I've never bought a non-OEM internal Seagate or Maxtor hard drive, so I've never received any software with my prior purchases; now I can get the software for free.

Just in time too, my old Retrospect software doesn't look like its going to make the leap to Vista.

 

[evanthood]

102mb? I'm definitely going to check out the backup/imaging component of this, and thanks for the post...but man, bloatware anyone?

Or maybe I'm just not hip to the times. Remember the good old days when it took 3 hours to download that 1.4mb Doom demo?

 

[ElectricLegs]

Maxblast 4 for Windows (and DOS) always gave me a bootable copy of my drives for free too. For that matter I've been using Maxblast and WD dataguard floppies for years to back up my stuff using those cheap removable drive trays. Gotta love FREE!

 

[Bri79]

Nice find. Free is the best deal.

 

[imported_Trailblazer]

In for this deal, since it's the ultimate deal-free! Great find OP!

 

[Jaxidian]

This rocks for those with Vista Home Premium and want a true backup system (the built-in backup in home premium sucks royally - tho WHS will be fixing that when it's released ).

-Jax

 

[AMD K9]

I needed this version of Maxblast 5 last week when I had to clone a drive to a newer size. Particularly the new Maxtor branded Seagate drive in which I bought 3 of (all 200gb) came with Maxblast 4 which did not recognize the drive so the drives sat all this time unused. (Yes I could have used Windows XP to format my drives but it is so much easier using a program like Maxblast.

That said I did find this version to be a little cumbersome when adding multiple partitions. One flaw as I see it is I used to be able to format a drive with as many partitions as possible. MB5 limits it to 4 bootable partitions. Unless there is a workaround, gone are the days of me having a drive solely for the purpose of partitioning 5gb partitions for backup OS's in different flavors (XP Home for my Dell 4700, XP Pro, XP Student Pro, Windows Media Center, Win 2000, Win XP Corp etc. as well as those same version for another computer)

Also the 102 mb size is kind of ridiculous but I guess thats the trade off with it being a stripped version of Acronis.

 

[AMD K9]

BTW I happened to find Maxblast 5 on the Seagate site looking for an updated version of Maxblast or to see if they were working on it. I was going to email Seagate as the 3 CDs of Maxblast 4 are unusable to format/partition these new Maxtor / Seagate drives. Why should I spend money for a bootable copy for each of these drives? Cheap you say, well I want to get what I pay for.

Also unless I don't understand something, I couldn't get it to boot from USB. The "Media Creator" says you can copy the bootable .iso file onto a USB flash drive and it will run Maxblast 5 software. Not in my case it just hung there before the post screen.

 

[vaylon]

I think you have to change the boot sequence in the bio's of your motherboard to get it to boot from a usb.

 

[AMD K9]

That's the first thing I did Vaylon.

 

[blckgrffn]

Originally posted by: AMD K9
That's the first thing I did Vaylon.

Not all mobo's really support booting from a USB drive. It might be there, but it could be touchy in my experience.

Nat

 

[Robzila]

Thanks OP!

 

[AMD K9]

I would assume mine supports it even though I'ver never been able to get it to work. Bought my Dell 4700 Dimension in Feb 05 P4 3.2 ghz. I'll have to check for BIOS updates on Dell.

 

[Nick5324]

Nice, thanks OP.

 

[gcy]

Thanks, geting ready to change HD.
:thumbsup:

 

[13Gigatons]

thx

 

[Harvey]

Great find. Thanks, OP! :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

 

[imported_maildude]

Seems like a nice program but after cloning my drive to a usb drive I couldn't get it to boot either. It lists it in the bios and I enabled the boot from usb but still no go. Now I'm wondering if I take the drive out of the usb enclosure and actually install it in the computer will it boot? If someone knows I would appreciate the info so I don't have to go through the hassle. Otherwise I will do it tomorrow and let you know if it works.

 

[kmmatney]

Thanks! downloading now...