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Are portable USB hard drives ok to use for Windows Image?
I have always imaged my Windows 7 laptop using the in built Windows system image back up and it works great. A couple of times I have restored the image to get me out of a hole and it worked every time.
Anyway over the weekend I went to take an up to date image onto my USB 3.0 WD My Book Hard drive. I plugged the USB drive into the power strip and heard a loud bang like a balloon being burst. I quickly unplugged the USB drive. After a change of underwear I flipped the breaker back up to restore upstairs power. Everything came back to life indicating the problem must of been with the USB hard drive. But bizarrely when I tested the WD drive at another power strip it lit up and seemed to still be alive!!! So I put it down to one of those unexplained things and proceeded to start the windows image of the laptop. It took a while because it was backing up 650 gb of data and hadn't been done for nearly 6 months. After about 2 or 3 hours it was nearing the end of finishing the image backup when suddenly I got BSOD on Windows 7. Pretty annoying. I force powered off the laptop and rebooted windows. I decided to try and start the imaging off again but now the USB HD isn't detected by windows when I plug it into any of the USB ports. I tested the ports with a couple of small USB flash drives and they were detected just fine. So the problem obviously lies with the WD drive. I am just worried by the BSOD and whether that may of risked damage to my windows installation being disrupted during the image process. Everything does appear to be ok.
So a long winded story to my eventual question ... I am looking to order a portable Samsung USB 3.0 hard drive (1 Terrabyte). It draws it's power from the USB port and has no external supply. Is a portable drive still ok to take a Windows image on?
Samsung M3 1 TB USB 3.0 Slimline Portable Hard Drive - Black: Amazon.co.uk: Computers & Accessories
Cheers,
Wayne