Hello,

My Ghost can not read its own images... it always says "image seems to be corrupted", in DOS mode as well as windows mode.
I am using w2k with ntfs and a USB HDD.
I tried splitting the image in 500MB parts as well as using FAT32 and NTFS on the image drive - no success..
???
Do you have any suggestions?
Thank you very much!
Boris

what are you using to read the images?

have you performed integrity checks on the images in question?

what version of ghost?

have you used live update?

Hi,
thank you for the fast reply!
I use the Ghost Explorer from Windows, and the option"check image after write" for the dos mode - neither works.

Windows and Ghost are both up do date with windows/live update.

Integrity Check? I think this is what I did with the dos-option. (I have to translate from the german version, so I don't know exactly hows it named in the english one)

http://ghost.radified.com/screens/ghost_2002_check.gif

Boris

Sounds like there is a compatibility problem with Ghost properly communicating with the HDD during image formation.

Have you tried having Ghost assign a drive letter to your USB drive?

Have you tried using MS-DOS vs PC-DOS?

Have you tried USB 1.1 vs 2.0 drivers?

Hello,
I only tried starting Ghost from windows-wizard. I wanted to automate it for inexperienced users.
I will try to make a boot disk with the other dos-version, though, maybe this helps.
When I use USB 1.1 drivers, the HDD ist detected by the iomega drivers, but ghost can not access it afterwards (something like "your hdd is not accessible from here...)
Assigning a drive letter or not does not make any difference with USB 1.1 and USB 2.0 drivers.
What I am wondering about is, since ghost does write the image, why does it write something it can not read afterwards? The file is there, it has different sizes depending on what has been backed up, but it seems corrupted. Never saw an applikaton writing something it can not read...

I have another problem that may be related:
When turning off the device in windows, the computer does not redetect it until the computer and the hdd have been completely shut down and turned off. Simply plugging it again, it will not even show up in the device manager. I installed new VIA drivers for USB without success.
???
Boris

Question 1:  Are your USB ports 2.0 or 1.1?

Question 2:  Are your USB ports routed directly off of your systemboard or are they routed through a PCI card adapter?

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

usb 2.0 on board ports.
at least the device manager says its USB 2.0

Boris

Sometimes I have found that using the device manager and removing a device (or devices as the case may be for USB) that is not functioning properly, rebooting and letting Windows re-detect the device and reinstall the drivers can solve a problem.

Worth a try?

Quote:

... usb 2.0 on board ports... Boris

First, generate a Ghost Disaster Recovery Disk without any USB or FireWire support whatsoever.  Then, try performing a Ghost BackUp of Drive C: onto an image somewhere on your external HDD, but decline all USB or FireWire support during the BackUp procedure.

Check your BIOS set-up to make sure your floppy drive (A:) is first in line while booting up, then reboot with the Disaster Recovery Disk in A: and ascertain whether or not you can successfully perform an Integrity Check on the image created.

If this routine fails, try again with  a Ghost Disaster Recovery Disk with USB 1.1 support, and allowing Drive Letter assignment.

CLICK HERE to view related posts.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

The drivers for usb 2.0 are contained in sp1 for wxp. after installing sp1, update you usb drivers. let windows find them on its own. see if that helps.

thank you all for the replies...
I will do all of this as soon as possible (i have to do that kind of stuff while she is not working, and she works all day long...) and post what happened...
only wondering if booting without usb support will detect the drive anyway?

Quote:

... only wondering if booting without usb support will detect the drive anyway? Boris

Quote:

... For my Dell Dimension 8300 with USB 2.0 ports on the systemboard running XP Professional, the only option that works during Ghost BackUp is no USB support... previous post

Most definitely yes in my case; go to last post on the thread indicated below:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1077337678;start=9#9

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

Hi,
I finally got it working - all that was necessary was a BIOS update... After trying with Ghost and DriveImage on different computers with the same hdd, that was the only possibility left. But it's kind of wired, anyway, because all other files where readable without errors, only backup images were not.

After all, I think DriveImage is quite better than ghost, since it works when windows is running, without a need for restart, and you can easily schedule backups.
The Recovery environment works very well, too; it starts from cd.

Thank you all for your help.
Boris

:D

Quote:

... DriveImage is quite better than ghost, since it works when windows is running ...

I have looked around and asked around for an explanation on how it actually is done. When the questions below have been answered, I may believe in that a dependable Image is created:

1) In what condition is the open registry which is continually being written to?

2) In what condition is the operating system which has files, continously being written to?

3) In what condition are opened applications?

Even if these question get answered, I wouldn't create an Image of a running system. I can spare those five minutes and be sure that it gets it right ...... :-X ...... !

Christer

I believe a snapshot of open files is taken and that is written to the image file.
That means, restoring the image is quite like a restart after sudden power-loss to your system - any cached operations will be lost.

So, it would not be a good idea to work with your SQL-Database (or any other application) while the image is beeing written, or some data may be lost. Anyway, its worse to loose the complete drive. (if an application performs updates on different,depending files you may run into problems)

Since you can schedule the backup, starting it when no one uses the system should work.

Some applications (like databases) my be stopped before performing the backup to ensurce consistency.

Hi Boris,
thanks for the information!

Since it takes some time to create the image, then the snapshots of the opened files are not taken at the same moment which means that they don't correspond exactly to eachother.

It obviously works but I don't frequent any DI forums and have not "heard" about the problems people might experience.

Is there an option in DI to create an Image from DOS, like in Ghost by the GBD's?

Christer

you can use DriveImage6 which is included in the package, since 7 does only support XP and 2000, but 6 does not support USB.
I don't think there is an offline-Option in 7, since even the rescue environment is some emergency-windows booted from cd.

The case you described may happen I believe, so I would suggest not using any application that uses the drive beeing backed up during that time.

Maybe the snapshot is taken at the beginning of the backup-process, reducing unsynchronized time to maybe a few seconds or less. At the end of the backup there is some"cleaning up" happening, which could be the removal of the temporary snapshots.

By the way, "True Image" uses snapshots, too.

Well, if it is recommended to not use the system while it is being imaged, then I fail to see what is gained by imaging a running system other than it being more "user friendly".

Ghost is adamant in NOT imaging a running system. Even when the operation is initiated from the Windows interface, the computer gets rebooted into DOS to carry out the operation itself and then restarted.

Ghost can create bootable CDs but I actually prefer having the images only on CDs and booting from the Ghost Boot Disks.

Feel free to call me an old geezer but I have never used a computer running PURE DOS as geezers older than me call it.
Ghost the Boot Disk way has never failed me and I trust it.

Christer
(who isn't on Symantecs pay roll)

Christer


Quote:

Feel free to call me an old geezer but I have never used a computer running PURE DOS as geezers older than me call it.

Not sure what you're trying to say here--when you boot from the Ghost floppy boot disks, you are using a computer running PURE DOS (aren't you?)!

Hi NightOwl!

Yes, at that time I am running a computer in DOS and am using the comand line for specific Ghost commands.

However, what I meant by PURE DOS was using a computer with only DOS installed, pre anything Windows and that I haven't which makes me non-proficient in DOS commands.

It seems like a lot of people believe that a person must be a DOS-guru to use Ghost but that's not true. If I can ...... ;) ...... then anyone can!

Christer