Original Title: Backup program with WD external driveI have a WD My Book Essential 320 GB external drive. The Windows Backup program does not recognize the drive.. The drive IS recognized on My Computer and I can access it and transfer and copy and paste to it with no problem. It is just the Backup program that does not recognize it. No error messages or anything. It just doesn't recognize the drive when I get to the destination box.I've tried updating the drivers. The WD support site has Backup downloads for OTHER external drives but not this one. Their site says to contact Microsoft support. Any suggestions?

Hey mrlray,Here is what you may want to do.Perform Clean BootMany at times this problem is contributed by third party software conflicting with the Windows backup process. See if this is the case here by putting your system in clean boot state before performing backup.How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" statehttp://support.microsoft.com/kb/310353Note: Ensure that you return the computer to normal startup mode once you're done with the troubleshooting.Regards,Shinmila H - Microsoft Support Visit our Microsoft Answers Feedback Forum and let us know what you think.

my recommendation is to not use the old fashion backup methodologies. they are unreliable, time consuming and provide a false sense of security. instead you might want to consider utilizing the method known as disk imaging. you might look into something called drive image xml, but there are others. but you can forego with disk imaging and old fashion backups by understanding the value of the built in windows system restore feature and how to use it. this feature will essentially backup the state of the system and programs at different points in time. it's easy, effecient and convenient.if the feature is used properly, the state of the system (and programs) can then easily be reinstated. with it you can make a restore point once a month or so. ideally, you would want to make a restore point before installing any new software. that way if the software proves detrimental and corrupts the system, you can reinstate the restore point you just made and restore your system.however, personal files, pics, music, videos, etc that are stored under my documents are not system files and will not be restored. so for these types of files i would highly recommend you make a straight copy of them to another drive on a regular basis. a straight copy is much better than an old fashion backup archive and or disk images.for this process i highly recommend microsoft's synctoy. its easy, fast and highly reliable. the utility will copy files and folders under my documents to the other drive. you would likely want to use the echo option.also, microsoft provided another method to protect your personal files. you can upload them to microsoft's skydrive website for free. between these two methods, ie synctoy and skydrive, you will have double protection to ensure you don't loose your one of a kind files.let us know if the above proves helpful.db`...>-)))> `...>-)))> DatabaseBen, Retired Professional - Systems Analyst - Database Developer - Accountancy - Veteran of the Armed Forces- @Hotmail.com "share the nirvana mann" - dbZen ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ > >