hey guys, ibeen looking for someone to help me with ghost for quite some time now...the problem i'm having maybe very simple but it's crazy for me

i have win xp, and itwont start, i remember my friend putting ghost and he did recover the image for me last time my computer went down, and now i can't remember exactly what he did, i have the boot disk and when i put it, it takes to ms dos and put A:/ and that's about it, this is where im stuck, i remember him putting a D drive and i was putting all my important infos on that drive, just in case i need to restore the image, but i dont know the process AT ALL, i put ghost.exe, nothing happens, can anyone tell me exactly the process on restoring my comp the way it was few months ago when i took the last image. im stuck with my old computer and trust me it takes me ages to get to this page, thanx

It's unclear what your problem is. When you say "i have win xp, and it wont start," do you mean ghost won't start or winxp won't start?

win xp starts but it freezes, i had it for a while now, and i have ghost but honestly, i do not know which one it is though, my win xp, but i don't even know how to start ghost, i know i have it and also the boot disk
when i put the boot disk, it goes to ms dos and this is what it says
A:/ and ask me to put something
i know my friend put something like ghost exe or something but i know how to start to recover the image i took few months ago

but the big problem is, win xp goes to where its trying to load and then it stops, out of no where
so i was thinking about recovering my image since i had almost the same problem as im having now, win xp not starting properly

I dont know much about GHOST though, i have 2 drives i remember, first one was c: and the other one was  the D drive, that's the one that everytime i recover my image had all my things...but i didnt do all this, my friend did it and i can't get a hold of him.

i wanna know how to start the ghost, i dont know the process at all, that's what im saying...

i put it the boot disk, it says A:/ whenever i type ghost.exe, it says incorrect or invalid command

Do you want to create or restore an image?

restore image

Does this help http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_3.htm

thanx for the reply guys, but i went there today to that link and i can't even get to this spot.

1: Select (carefully) Local -> Partition -> From Image [screen shot]. If you were going to restore an entire physical hard disk, you would replace 'Partition' with 'Disk'.

i know i gotta be there, but when i reboot my pc with the disk, it asks A:/, and asking me to type something, should i type ghost.exe or what? what do i gotta type to get to get to the partition place (above)

the link you gave me says

After booting to DOS with the boot floppy, execute ghost.exe from either the floppy or the location on your hard disk

how do i excute ghost.exe from the floppy disk, i know my friend did it that way because i saw him typing it, i can't believe i didnt write all that stuff down

should i just type ghost.exe ,when it says A:/ or should i type dir ghost.exe, or run ghost.exe, what is the command????

topnotch

The first step is to find *ghost.exe*.

At the A:\ prompt, type *dir*, and then press enter--this will show the directory(s) (also called sub-directories) and files present on the floppy in the A:\ dirve.

If there is a *sub-directory* labeled *Ghost*, then *ghost.exe* may be in that sub-directory--to change to a sub-directory in DOS, type *cd directoryname*, and then press enter.  Then use the *dir* command to see what's in that sub-directory.

If you want to go back up one directory, type *cd..*, and press enter.

If you do not find *ghost.exe* on the floppy disk, maybe it's on the D:\ partition where the image is saved.  In DOS, to change to a different partition, type *d:* and enter.  Now type the *dir* command and see what's there.

Results?

hey NightOwl

i did what you said and this is what i found
when i did the dir on the floppy disk, there wasn't any file ghost or ghost.exe
but i typed  d: and i put dir, there was 2 files
one was GHOST and the other was my docu~, (i believe its my documents), and i remember putting all my important things on my documents on the D drive, now exactly what should i do to run the ghost.exe file, thanx for the reply, i feel like im close on getthing this done...

NightOwl

this is what i did afterwards

d:
it says GHOST
so i did cd ghost
and then it says d:ghost\ something like that
so i put ghost.exe
and it brought to the norton ghost main page
and it says norton ghost 2003 and there was an ok there, now i dont know how to restore the image, where exactly should i go now?????thanx again

topnotch

Okay!--I said finding *ghost.exe* was the first step--you have learned and used some bacic DOS commands--good work!

Now--you can do real and permanent damage if you go and restore an image to the *wrong* place--so the questions are--

1.  do you understand how to use Ghost--if *no*, read throught Rad's guide to using Ghost--it takes a while, but read it carefully and understand what it says, and why!

2.  how is your system set up?  

You have already stated that your *Documents* are stored on the D:\ partition--but, are you going to loose anything you will regret if you restore an image that you said was 6 months (?) old--because, if your OS is on C:\, and you restore the *image* of C:\ that is from 6 months ago, then everything you may have added to C:\ in the last 6 months will be gone--permanently, until you add it back again--if you can!

So, you need to know for sure that this is what you want to do.

3.  So, once you open Ghost, you will need to find the image file--any idea what the name is?

You click on *Local > Partition > from Image*, and this brings up the *select the source image file* routine.  If you have more than one drive, you first select the drive, then the partition (drive letter), and then the directory where the image is saved.

Once you find the ghost image file (it should be like this--imagefilename.gho), you select it as the source by highliteing it, and then click *open*.

Let's stop there--report your progress--and have you considered what is said above--are you prepared to procede?!

hey Nightowl

i read the whole guide and i know that if you go back you basicly lose everything you did afterwards but i think that's ok, i have 5 or 6 cd that i backed up all my projects, the only thing on that c drive since few months is a third of a project but i know it by heart so i should be ok

this is what happened when i did what you said, im not that familiar with ghost but i guess im getting there

i found the *gho file, it was the d drive, there was 2 files
IMAGE 1~
BACKUP.GHO and the size of the one was around 586 MB cuz it says 586,898,458,  when i clicked on it and said open
it says PRIMARY  FAT32, so i stopped it there, i believe this is the image i wanna get back, since i put most of my things on that d drive so im not too worried about the c drive since i backed up alot of the projects on it...thanx again for the help

topnotch

You said there were *two* files--but I didn't follow the names you reported in the last post--could you report the exact names?

Have you created only the one Ghost backup that you know of?  If *yes* then these two files are probably a spanned image file set--the first should be *xxxxx.gho* and the second should be *xxxxx001.ghs*--the *s* is for *spanned* file.

Before you restore, it would be good to test the *integrity* of the image--start Ghost, select *Local > Check > Image File*, navigate to the image file and select it, then select to proceed with image integrity check.

The results?

hey nightowl

this is what's happening ok
actually 3 files ok,

< "
IMAGE~1
BACKUP.GHO

the backup has the size 586MB, the first 2 dont have any size
those are the 3 files, now i will do the check

i did the intergrity check and it says intergrity check passed

topnotch

So, to your knowledge, only the C:\ partition was backed up--and that's the only ghost image file you have?

Is the size of the ghost image file consistent with the amount of data on your C:\ partition--it may be compressed in the image file--so possibly about 700-800 MB's of data on the C:\ partition when the image was created?

Do you have one HDD that has two partitions--C:\ and D:\--or do you have two HDD's--one being C:\ and the other being D:\?

Answers?

hey


i only have one hard drive, with 2 sections ,C AND D, when i went to the D:\, IT HAS THOSE 3 FILES and BACKUP.GHO had the size and the biggest size
the C:\ has different folders but i dont see the ghost.gho on the C drive

i dont know the size of the C:\ though
that's what my friend told me before, that i gotta put whatever i need on that one  (d:\)and the C:\ will be erased everytime i restore the image

topnotch

Well, looks like you're ready--you might consider creating a second backup of C:\ as it exists now (if you have room on D:\ )--just in case you discover you need to try to recover its data:

To do a backup, you would start Ghost, select *Local >Partition > to Image*, choose C:\ as the source (if it's a NTFS partition, then it would be listed as *1:1* by DOS Ghost--because DOS can not *see* and assign NTFS partitions drive letters)--then choose D:\ as the destination--Note:  use a different name so you do not overwrite the other image file--for example I use the month and day to name my image files--*1219-C*  (I actually create a new sub-directory with the month and day as the label--so the image files are kept separate from each other--so *1219* would be the sub-directory, and then put the image file inside the sub-directory--with the name *1219*, and Ghost will actually make the image file name be *1219.gho*.)

To do a restore, you would start Ghost, select *Local >Partition >from Image*, choose the source image file you wish to restore, then choose the C:\ partition as the destination.

If you reach the above point and something has not gone right for any reason, or you have a doubt or question--cancel out and post your question(s) here--otherwise, proceed!

Questions?  Report back with the results of your efforts.

nightowl

ok let me see if i understood this clearly

i go local>partition>from image

then it shows me the 3 files
i pick ghost.gho
and click on ok
and then it will ask me for the destination right?
ok theres 2 destination, it doesnt say C:\ though, it says
primary   fat 32     size 10003 data size  9875
logical      fat32 ext    size 9457    data size 660

which one should i pick???

topnotch

(I forgot that Ghost does not use the drive letters in all of it's DOS interface menus--but you can assign *labels* (names) to partitions, and that is why I have *labeled* my partitions with the drive letters that they normally have when booted into Windows--the labels do show in most of the Ghost listings--so my OS is C-WinXP, or C-Win98, D, E, F, H-Fat16, etc.--it's also a good idea to create partitions of different sizes and keep track of those sizes for when using Ghost--as the partition sizes are always listed.  The above are suggestions for the future!  ;) )

Your OS has to be on a *primary* partition on most normal installations--and you have two partitions listed *primary fat 32*--that should be your C:\,

and the *logical fat 32 ext* means it's a partition in what's called an *extended partition*--a special partition where you can put many *logical partitions*--because a HDD can only have a max of 4 primary partitions--one of which can be the special *extended partition*--bottom line it allows you to have more than just 4 partitions.

But....that *primary fat 32   size 10003  data size  9875*--

this says your OS partition is approx 10 GB in size (10003), but it is almost *full* of data (9875)!  This may be where your booting problem is coming from--they say that if you begin to approach 80 % full on your OS partition, you can start having performance issues.

Are you sure there isn't data on that C:\ partition that you need--because it's approaching 15 times larger (9875 MB) than the image (660 MB) you plan on restoring to that OS partition--or is it just filled up with *junk*  ;) ?!

hey nightowl

mostly its all junk to be honest with you i can not think of one thing that i do need except that last part of that project which i know by heart so i'm not too worried about it, the rest of it its probalby videos and music that i do not need anymore, i remember when my friend did the image is when we installed a fresh win xp, probably why its only 660mb, i filled it up with projects which i burned it on cd and the rest of it its just junk

nightowl

good news!!!!!! it worked, it restored the image i was looking for, all the garbage is all gone, i appreciate all the help, no way i coulda done this by myself, i will for sure be around here to learn few more things because its interesting how fast it can go to the image you were looking for, instead of formatting the whole pc

once again, thanx again!!!!!!:) i can now get rid of this pc that was taking so long to load

topnotch

Glad to have helped--and don't be a stranger--there's lots to learn about these electronic *toys*  ;) !

nightowl

trust me i will be around, i wanna learn all i can, thanx again for all the help