Here goes...
I tried to create a backup of a partition on a striped Sil 3112 raid array and the destination of this image was to be a different partition on the same array.
Didn't think I could do any damage.
Well...I was wrong.
Ghost never was able to boot in to dos mode.
It stops at
Verifying DMI pool data.....
Boot from cd:

The problem is now my hard drives have disappeared in the BIOS and will not auto detect them.
How can I get them back?? Obviously, I can't do anything untill my hardrives are recognized.
The only place I can see my drives is during the post when I can enter the raid utility. They are in there.
I have tried everything I can think of at this point.
Any ideas??
thanks in advance

woodz

Because you state that your HDD's do not show up in the BIOS--I've not heard of that before--but you may have run into a problem that can occur when hardware is not compatible with Ghost's software...

Confirm--did you set up the Ghost procedure in the Window's Ghost interface--sounds like you did.

Do you have documentation as to whether your RAID controller supports DOS compatibility--Ghost is a DOS program!

You may be stuck in what Ghost calls it's 'Virtual Partition'.

Do you have the ability to boot with a floppy disk and/or bootable CD?

Here are some references regarding getting out of the Virtual Partition:

How to restart the computer into Windows if a problem is encountered after running Ghost 2003

How to use GhReboot

Cannot start Windows after starting a Ghost 2003 task from Windows

winXP frozen at Ghost2003 (PC DOS) background


Let us know if this applies to your situation and if if helps.

Thank you thank you for those links...they definitely seem right on with my problem. I guess I need to work on my search skills.

Unfortunately, I will not have the opportunity to try them until I return from a short trip. Will definitely post a follow up.

To confirm... I did run ghost from the windows interface. Do you think it would have made a difference if I had done it thru dos?
Also, I was able to boot from a cd.
I think I am probally stuck in the virtual partition, due to the raid incompatiblility, from what I was able to gather from the links you provided. I am anxious to resolve this problem...might have to take the damn thing on vacation with me.



::)

woodz


Quote:

Do you think it would have made a difference if I had done it thru dos?

It might.  That's why I asked if you had documentation that your controller is compatible in DOS.

Good luck with your efforts.

Not sure how to check sil's 3112 compatabilty with dos> Any idea?
This is a mobo onboard controller and was created with an updated driver from silicon image less than year ago.
I would imagine that there is some compatibility with dos since the raid array is configured and the utility run in a dos enviroment.

Just guessing but it is probally not possible to create an image from a raid striped array to a partition on the same array. Or maybe the virtual partition is the problem in the raid array. Do you know of any additional documentation on the raid/ghost subject ?
Symantec is very mysterious on the subject.
:-/

woodz

Yes, they are very non-forthcoming--basically say that RAID is not officially supported--say you have to try it to see--suggest that mirror array may work, but stripped array can not be recreated using image.

Try the website for your controller to see if they list specifications and if DOS is supported--worth looking--otherwise you just have to try!

Stuck...I hate being stuck

Somehow(out of pure stupidity) I think I  deleted the raid array in the raid set-up utility while trying to solve this problem.
Now I can not boot from floppy or cd and am stopped at the enter raid utilty screen. I tried to repair the set in the raid utility but nothing I have tried has worked. There are very limited options in the raid utility.
Any ideas how I can get this thing to boot from floppy and possibly save my data?

woodz

Deleting Raid Arrays is not good!--best not to do anything that would write something to the disks until you figure out a recovery plan.

You might be able to boot from floppy or CD if you enter BIOS and change the boot order so the RAID controller is after the floppy drive and/or the optical drive.  May have to disable the RAID controller--don't know for sure on this one and on your system.

But, I did a 'Google Search' on 'recover stripped raid array', and got this as the first result:

http://www.runtime.org/raid.htm

Says 'You can run RAID Reconstructor from a WinPE boot CD-Rom' with this link:

http://www.runtime.org/peb.htm

Says you get a 30 day trial before you have to purchase--don't know if it's a full version or if some features are disabled.

There were many other 'hits' on the search--try it and see--hope this helps--good luck!

Night owl,

Thanks for the links.
To be able to boot from floppy or cd I had to change the bios option from "halt on all errors" to "halt on No errors" during post.
This allowed me to boot from cd or floppy.
Once able to boot I ran  both the ghreboot.exe and Gdisk... the two utilities norton reccommended in the links you provided.
Neither of them worked. I am sure it is because I deleted the array.
Gdisk did not show any partitions to restore or delete and ghreboot did not recognized the disks.
I am going to check the links you provieded now.
If I can repair the array I might have a shot.

** Well it doesn't appear that I can repair the array.
The only option appears to be using the raid recontructor to create an image of the raid drives to an additional hard drive which I don't have right now. Before I go and get another drive I am going to use the raid reconstructor utility along with BartPE to see if they will even see the drives since nothing else has been even able to recognize the drives. How and the hell am I going to get out of this Virtual Partition :'(

WOW...WOW  think I in over my head. Can't figure this thing out.

Nothing is seeing my drives. I got bartPE and raid reconstructor and diskexplorer from Runtime and made a BartPE disk with the Runtime plugins... booted with the new BartPE cd and still no recognized hard drives on my system.
Where does the ghost virtual partition actually exist?
What could be preventing the hard disks from being seen?
HELP
I can't believe how much worse I made this by deleting the raid array.
I have even tried creating a new array but I don't believe it is working correctly because nothing changed after I created the new array.
An array is shown at post(by the raid screen) but the disks still aren't seen anywhere else.
When I run ghreboot.exe I get Warning...this disk does not contain any non-hidden, primary partitions. The computer will not restart correctly if the Virtual Partition is removed.
Well I selected to remove the Virtual Partition because nothing else was working and this didn't work either.
When I ran Gdisk to show all partitions it only returns:
GDISK (E) Invalid fixed disk number.
All hope is fading...data loss depression setting in....
:'(

Quote:

"... You may be stuck in what Ghost calls it's 'Virtual Partition'..." NightOwl

All of this is way above me, but has the situation in the remark above been ruled out yet ?


Quote:

"... Not sure how to check sil's 3112 compatabilty with dos> Any idea? ... This is a mobo onboard controller and was created with an updated driver from silicon image less than year ago..."

I have a Vantec PCI-to-SATA Host Adapter Card based on the Sil 3112 chipset, and I navigate freely in DOS during Norton Ghost 2003 activities - albeit it is with a single 120GB Maxtor SATA 150 HDD.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

woodz


Quote:

How and the hell am I going to get out of this Virtual Partition

You may not be in a 'Virtual Partition' any longer.  I suspect the problem is having deleted the Raid Array.

Do your HDD's show up correctly in the BIOS (not the Raid utility) if you enter into the BIOS at boot?


Quote:

Where does the ghost virtual partition actually exist?

My best guess--in the master boot record and/or partition table.


Quote:

I can't believe how much worse I made this by deleting the raid array. I have even tried creating a new array but I don't believe it is working correctly because nothing changed after I created the new array.

Anything you do that 'writes' something to the HDD, may be over-writing any previous data that was present--that may make recovery less likely.  It would be best to do things that just 'look' at the HDD's for data and/or 'copies' data from the HDD's--but writing something to the HDD's almost certainly puts any data on the HDD's at risk of being over-written.

You might want to try a couple PartitionMagic Utilities from DOS to see what information they 'see'--do not try to edit anything just yet:

Partinfo.exe

PTEdit

With PTEdit, you may want to use the 'Set Type' button to see what the partition type is.  See here for a discussion about using PTEdit:

Exploring the Partition Tables

See in particular:


Quote:

Click the [Set Type] button to reveal the byte codes for the various partition types (expressed as two-character hexadecimal values), but be careful not to accidentally alter any of the values in the partition table. Notice there are codes for hidden partitions, as well. How clever--to hide or unhide a partition we need only change the partition-type entry! The rest of the fields in that line of the partition table remain intact to show the space occupied by that partition is not unallocated free space.

These utilities are available 'free' and you can find 'ptedit.zip' and 'partinfo.zip' here:

Utilities


Quote:

All hope is fading...data loss depression setting in....

It is looking less and less positive...I have to admit...

El Pescador

Nothing has really been ruled out except the fact that I'm a dumass!

The Ghost virtual partition probally has a lot to do with my problem.
I have run a couple of utilites from Norton (ghreboot.exe and Gdisk) that are supposed to remove the ghost virtual partition and allow the machine to boot back to windows.
These tools probally would have worked and solved my dilema but I have deleted my raid set which I think is now complicating the matter.
However, I am not sure of this because my hardrives disappeared--completely--immediately after the first use of Ghost.
and the whole issue with none of the fixes working is because you can't fix something that ain't there(btw i have checked their there).  I am beginning to realize that if the BIOS doesn't recognize your drives then no software is going to. Right?
This is sooo bizzare.

NIGHT OWL,
Thanks for those tools--I will give them a shot.
Bios is not seeing my drives.

Night Owl

These utilities are out of my league...maybe you can provide some insight.
It is not looking good.
ptedit is not showing much.
It is showing:
Drive 1(152695 MB) 19466cyl,255 heads,63 sectors per track
That is it for drives which I guess makes sense since it is a striped array of two 80GB drives.
However, all other values on the Partition table section are 0
Then where it says Partition information it has 'Freespace'

This doesn't seem good...I did create a new array and one showed up but it did seem that any thing happened/was written to the drives like formatting. I really don't think that all the data could have been wiped clean with that operation..it was instantaneous and I didn't think that data on a hardrive could be wiped that quickly. I mean formatting a disk takes several minutes.
Can either of these tools help with the drives showing up in the BIOS?

woodz

If your system does not 'see' the HDD's in the BIOS--then I do not think a DOS based program will 'see' your HDD's either!  But you are saying that 'PTEdit' is seeing the HDD stripped array you have re-created?!

Can you 're-detect' the HDD's in the BIOS so they show up there?

In 'PtEdit', on the left side are listed the 4 master boot record 'slots'--1, 2, 3, 4.  In the next column--what's the 'Type' listed for 'slot 1'?

Can you click on '1' and then can you click on 'Set Type' button to see the list of the various partition 'types' that are available!  Don't change anything--just look--what 'type' is your 'slot 1' set for?


Quote:

I really don't think that all the data could have been wiped clean with that operation..it was instantaneous and I didn't think that data on a hardrive could be wiped that quickly.

I suspect the 'data' is still on your HDD's, but the partition table has been wiped out and the system can not access it.  If the 'RAID Reconstructor' program is unable to rebuild the partition table, I'm not sure how you would recover.  I was hoping that program would re-build the partition table for you.

But, perhaps when you re-created the stripped array, it wiped out the old copy of the partition table and that's what preventing 'RAID Reconstuctor' from working.  Is there any documentation with the program that talks about that at all?

Night Owl,

The Bios will not re-detect the drives. I have been trying though.
I am not sure what ptedit is really seeing. In the Hard Disk drop down it is showing Drive1 152695 MB. I don't know what happened to the 7305 MB. Should show 160000 MB. Well Whatever.

In ptedit slot 1 type is listed as 00=Freespace when checked under type set. The others 2,3, and 4 are also 00=Freespace.
Do you think I should try changing the Set_Type? It is the only button available in ptedit.
The problem with raid reconstructor was it did not see any drives to reconstruct. I will have to check their documentation. It seems like a very easy program to use. Instructions are shown with each step. However, step one was identifying the drives...of which I had none.
I too believe the data is still there and believe raid reconstructor could save me if I could figure out why the drives are not being seen...which brings me back to....you guessed it....The Virtual Partition.
If you wanted to forget about the data how would you go about re-installing windows on the problematic drives??? I wonder if I installed a third drive and installed windows if I would be able to read the data from in explorer in the working drive??
Heh!

woodz


Quote:

The Bios will not re-detect the drives.

That seems to be 'the' problem, but....I'm not sure where that's coming from...


Quote:

I too believe the data is still there and believe raid reconstructor could save me if I could figure out why the drives are not being seen...which brings me back to....you guessed it....The Virtual Partition.

If the 'virtual partition' was still in the picture, then 'ptedit' should show it in its table--but it's not there according to your report--only 'free space'!


Quote:

I am not sure what ptedit is really seeing.

It's just seeing 'free space'.


Quote:

Do you think I should try changing the Set_Type? It is the only button available in ptedit.

At this point--looks like it wouldn't hurt to try--should be 'active, primary, 'file system type''--it would be interesting to see if that has any effect on whether the BIOS now 'sees' the HDD's, and whether 'Raid Reconstructor' can now see the drive.  But that really doesn't rebuild the partition table.


Quote:

If you wanted to forget about the data how would you go about re-installing windows on the problematic drives

Probably running the Windows install program would reset the partitions and format them.

woodz -

When I installed my Vantec PCI-to-SATA Host Adapter Card based on the Sil 3112 chipset, it modified my BIOS to reflect its existence.  So, would there be anything to lose if you "refreshed" your BIOS with the off chance of the Sil 3112 chipset on the systemboard recognizing your HDDs anew?

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

NightOwl
El Pescador

First let me say that I can't thank you enough for your ideas.
NightOwl your input has been especially appreciated.
Without them I'm not sure what I would have tried.
If I can the return the kindness let me know...please.

Unfortunately, found a solution we have not.
Frustrated with this I am.

I tried to flashing the bios and still no recognizable drives.
Tried changing the set-type with ptedit and it tells me that my sector values have to me greater than 0. Have no idea where to start here.

BTW I booted with a windows cd to see how far I would get on
a re-install and windows does not see the drives either. So at this point a re-install is out untill I get my drives back.

Ideas guys I have not.
Crushing computer with hammer I might.
Hurt my wallet this would.
Saw Star Wars recently I did.

woodz

Yoda made an impression, he did  ;) !

Other ideas--you could contact 'recovery' services and find out if they think they can help you--but that's big bucks usually.

If you are ready to try and start over--your HDD maker probably has a HDD utility tool for diagnosing problems--mine had an option to wipe the HDD, including the master boot table--total clean slate--then use fdisk and re-format.

Rad's download page has a 'delpart.exe' program that is supposed to wipe everything out of the partition table:

Radified Binaries--Downloadable Files

download here:

Delpart.exe

And more information here:

Radified Guide to Deleting Hard Drive Partitions

Sorry we have not been able to revive your system  :( .

Let us know how things turn out.