On reading past posts in this forum it seems some people are having trouble copying partitions with Ghost 9. Not having used this function, I had to see if it was easy or not. The technique I followed was outlined in this forum a month or two ago. Remember you can only copy one partition at a time with Ghost 9. The whole HD can’t be copied in one step.

I’ve included all steps for clarity.

The spare IDE HD was 10 GB capacity with 6 GB for the OS partition and 4 GB for the data partition.  I connected it as a slave, deleted both partitions with PM so it then showed 10 GB of unallocated space. In Ghost 9, I clicked "Copy One Drive to Another”, chose my C: drive as source and the unallocated space on the second HD as destination. I ticked “check source for file system errors”, “check destination for file system errors”, “set drive active (for booting OS)”. Destination Partition type: “Primary partition”. Chose Drive Letter of “None”. Ticked “Copy MBR”.

I didn’t tick “resize drive to fill unallocated space”, “disable SmartSector copying” or “ignore bad sectors during copy”.

The 6 GB partition took 4:45 mins to copy (contained 4.3 GB of data). I then shut down the computer, removed the master HD and connected the 10 GB HD as a master. Windows booted normally and Win XP was an exact copy of the original. I couldn’t copy another partition because the 4 GB of unallocated space remaining wasn’t large enough.

Points previous posters have stressed were to copy into Unallocated Space, don’t assign a drive letter and Copy the MBR.

I doubt I’ll need to do this in anger for a long time. I’m happy just creating and restoring images rather than copying partitions, but at least I know it’s easy.

Re: "Remember you can only copy one partition at a time with Ghost 9. The whole HD can’t be copied in one step."

I've never heard this before. Are you sure it's true? I mean, it seems like a step backwards from Ghost 2003, which allows you to clone-copy a whole (physical) hard drive.

I should probably link to this thread in/on the "Cloning" page.

R.

Afraid so. There is no way to select more than one partition.

It's on page 90 of the userguide.pdf

If the HDD contains only one partition, then is okay?

I'd imagine so. One partition on the HD would be equivalent to your full disk to disk example.

The HD (master) I played with yesterday had 6 partitions. I don't have any computers with a single partition on the HD to do the test but I can't see why it should make any difference whether you have 1 or 10 partitions.  Only one can be copied at a time.
You have the option of resizing the partition to fill the unallocated space if the newer HD is larger than the one being copied.

Quote:

"... it seems like a step backwards from Ghost 2003, which allows you to clone-copy a whole (physical) hard drive..." Rad

I am going to keep watching these forums re: Ghost 9.0 with great interest because I already have Norton Systemworks 2005 Premier which includes ver 9.0 of Ghost - albeit I have not installed any components of the suite.

However, if Brian is correct (and I do tend to trust his comments on any topic) and it really turns out that Ghost 9.0 does not allow clone-copying of an entire HDD, it will then be forever useless to me.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

El_Pescador, my experience of cloning a drive is once, yesterday. Is there a problem with cloning partitions one at a time rather than all at once? I'd expect you would finish up with the same result.

Brian wrote on Jun 1^st, 2005 at 12:01am:

"... Is there a problem with cloning partitions one at a time rather than all at once? I'd expect you would finish up with the same result..."

I confess to making an assumption that is perhaps unwarranted, i.e., since a "disk-to-disk" clone is not possible, then neither is a "disk-to-image" backup procedure nor an "image-to-disk" restore procedure. However, if my assumption does turn out to be accurate, then I most certainly prejudge Ghost 9.0 to be useless to me.

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

I think I understand you now. Let's say you have a HD with 3 partitions. In Ghost 9 you can select all 3 partitions at once and they will be imaged to your external HD (say). But, you finish up with 3 separate .v2i files (the images) and a .sv2i file. If you want to restore all 3 partitions at once, you select the .sv2i file which relates to the 3 image files and the 3 partitions are restored at the same time (same session). Or, you can just restore 1 or 2 partitions at the session.

These comments refer to imaging, not cloning.

El_Pescador, it may help the readers of this thread to define “cloning” versus “imaging.”

As stated in the Norton Ghost 2003 User’s Guide, “cloning” is defined as “creating a replica of a specified hard disk of a computer” whereas an image file is used to “create exact duplicates of the original disk or partition.”  (Hey, that’s clear!)  So, the scope of “cloning” is an entire physical hard disk whereas the scope of imaging is a partition – right?  As a consequence, a clone of physical hard disk with only one partition is the same as an image/restore operation - right?

In the language of Ghost 9.0, a “drive” is equivalent to a partition, and the program operates only on one drive at a time.  What I don’t know (and maybe Brian could test) is whether a restore of multiple drives made with the System Index File (.sv2i) yields the same result as a hard disk clone operation.  The Ghost 9.0 User’s Manual (pages 76-77) implies that such is the case.

Pleonasm

I think 'cloning' is a general term referring to creating an exact duplicate.

You can clone 'disk-to-disk' which is whole HDD to whole HDD directly without image creation.  The source HDD can have a single or multiple partitions.  The destination HDD will be over-written so it need not be formated or partitioned.  

And you can clone 'partition-to-partition' which is single partition to single partition directly without image creation.  The source HDD can have a single or multiple partitions.  But  here the destination partition has to already exist.

When you use 'cloning software' to create an 'image file'--'disk-to-image' for example--you are introducing an intermediate step--a 'file' creation--but it is 'cloning' just the same--just not re-creating the HDD structure directly onto another HDD.  To re-create the HDD structure--you now have to restore the image to HDD.

Quote:

"... It all depends on what the definition of 'is' is..." Slick Willy ::)

Pleonasm wrote on Jun 1^st, 2005 at 1:47pm:

"... to define 'cloning' versus 'imaging' ... the scope of 'cloning' is an entire physical hard disk whereas the scope of 'imaging' is a partition – right? ... As a consequence, a clone of physical hard disk with only one partition is the same as an image/restore operation - right? ..."

Where any HDD contains only a single partition, the final results of performing either (1) a "disk-to-disk" cloning operation of said disk; or (2) a complete "disk-to-image" backup/"image-to-disk" restore cycle would be the same.  What must be made clear is that the scope of (2) above almost always is reverting to the source HDD whereas the scope of (1) above is seldom intended to do likewise - albeit it is feasible with two complete cycles of cloning.

Even discounting the habits of current PC owners, in today's world you would still be hardpressed to find a modern PC with only a single partition as most OEM-installed PRIMARY HDDs are outfitted with an EISA configuration in the FAT file system format.  

[glb]El Pescador[/glb]

I chose the title “Cloning partitions with Ghost 9” because I thought it was an accepted term with only one meaning. That was incorrect. Ghost 9 doesn’t use the term cloning. It calls what I understand as cloning, Copy Drive. So from now I’ll use the Ghost 9 term.

Ghost 9 performs three functions. Images, Copy Drive and Restore. The first two functions can’t be done from the Recovery Environment. Restore can be done from Windows and the RE. Restore of the system partition can only be done from the RE.

Copy Drive is a process where one partition is copied to another space on the same or another HD. No image is created. Ghost 9 can only copy one partition at a time so if you have 3 partitions to copy, you need to do it 3 times. No problem from what I can see.

Imaging creates a file which is stored outside of the imaged partition and this file may later be used to re-create the partition. Several partitions can be imaged from the same step but each partition will have its own .v2i image file.

Terms such as “disk to image”, “disk to partition” etc are not used in Ghost 9. I still have to think about these terms because I only used Ghost for a short time before changing to Drive Image 5. Don’t hold that against me.

Anyone have differing definitions?

Pleonasm, after our previous discussion I did try the .sv2i to restore 2 partitions at the same time. Let’s say you have 10 images of the C drive in one folder along with a single .sv2i and 20 images of the D drive in another folder along with its single .sv2i. In the RE, when you choose to restore by .sv2i you can select either .sv2i (doesn’t matter which one) and the two most recent C and D images will be offered as the restore images. You can manually choose earlier images if you like, it really is easy.

Instead of choosing to restore by .sv2i you can choose to restore by Multiple Drives (partitions). Again just choose the relevant images and click Go. So if you had a HD with 7 partitions and you had images for each partition, you could connect an empty HD and restore all 7 partitions in one step. I’m sure you would get the same result as doing the Copy Drive process 7 times.

To summarize - based on the above posts - it appears that Ghost 2003 and Ghost 9.0 have essentially equivalent functionality (albeit different terminology) for cloning and imaging.

Pleonasm said:
"So, the scope of “cloning” is an entire physical hard disk whereas the scope of imaging is a partition – right?"

No, you're talking apples and oranges here.  A clone is an exact duplicate of the original, regardless of whether it's a partition or a whole disk.  An image is a file whose contents can be used to create a clone, but it is, itself, not a clone.  You can have an image of a partition or a whole disk, but in neither case would you have a clone--you would have an image, which you could use to create a clone of the original partition or a clone of the original disk.  The scope of either--image or clone--could be one partition, multiple partitions, or whole disk.

El_P. talks of:
"the final results of performing either (1) a "disk-to-disk" cloning operation of said disk; or (2) a complete "disk-to-image" backup/"image-to-disk" restore cycle would be the same."

That's true--the result of both is a clone.  But I would emphasize that scenario (2) is actually two separate steps, and it's only 'cloning' if both are performed.  And that's not always the case.  It's common to make image files that never get restored.  That's not cloning, that's imaging.  Put imaging together with restoring, and now you've got cloning.  Whether it's back to the same hard disk or a new hard disk is irrelevant--apples and oranges.

Nightowl said:
"When you use 'cloning software' to create an 'image file'--'disk-to-image' for example--you are introducing an intermediate step--a 'file' creation--but it is 'cloning' just the same--just not re-creating the HDD structure directly onto another HDD."

I have to disagree a bit with this.  The intermediate step is itself an end result--the image.  But it's not 'cloning' until you take the separate step of restoring the image back to a hard disk or partition.

As for the distinction of a 'copy' vs. a 'clone', things get fuzzy.  By a rigorous definition, a clone is an exact duplicate, indistinguishable from the original.  Usually, however, an exact duplicate is not what we want; we want a copy that works like the original.  So, if we alter the clone slightly to make it work--such as tweaking the registry, or boot.ini--or resize the partition, do we not have a clone?  If files end up on the destination partition in slightly different sectors, do we not have a clone?  Technically, that's true ... but it works just like the original.  In the common vernacular, a very close copy that works like the original is typically still accepted as a clone.  As the original and clone become less and less identical, at some point we have to stop calling it a clone and refer to it as a copy--but exactly where to draw that line is a bit subjective.

I'm glad I don't use the term "clone" anymore Dan.

"I'm glad I don't use the term "clone" anymore Dan."

I don't mind if people interchange 'clone' and 'copy'--in the case of Ghost they generically mean the same thing.  In fact, if someone says they "copied their XP partition to the new disk", I always have to wonder if they mean they drag-and-dropped the files or did a "copy *.*".  It may not always be literally accurate, but I like to use the term 'clone' when talking about a tool like Ghost.

I have some drama with Ghost baby momma 9. I am trying to clomage my C:/ to my D:/ but am told D:/ is far too small... My C:/ is 60.0 Gigabyte whereas my D:/ is only 4.00 GIG. Don't laugh...

Truth of the matter is the data on C:/ is really only 3.20 GIG. When I do a high compression clomage it's a little over 2.00 GIG. If I try system recovery to restore the image to the D:/ it just won't happen... Forgot the error code... If I try to copy from partitions (C > D) while in Windows, Ghost complains the destination is too small...

I've just resorted to manually restoring files from the Ghost browser direct to D:/. I predict this will cause problems but am really just experimenting.

I remember finding something on the Symantec site "how to force an image to go into a partition *if* Ghost complains it's too small". Yadayada, point was if you knew the partition was big enough but Ghost didn't see it that way you can OVERRIDE Ghost like this...

Ghost.exe -or

Problem is... With Ghost 9 I don't seem to have ghost.exe... I tried putting that switch on other executables but to no avail...

Anybody have any idea why Ghost isn't ghost anymore?

I am on Windows XP Professional and am trying to achieve a dual boot system with two copies of XP Professional. The reason why I would like two copies of the same exact OS is simple. Sometimes system files get corrupt or just go missing and XP is unbootable... I was hoping I could then boot into the second partition to save the first because the second would contain a full working copy of XP... Ghost is just playing me...

Any help is much appreciated!

Victor,

For Copy Drive the destination partition needs to be the same size or larger than the source partition.

For a restore process it should work but I see that it doesn't. I suspect that your C: drive is defragmented with some data extending beyond the 4GB mark. I've seen this explanation for Acronis True Image and at least it sounds logical. Can you look at the defrag graph and see if this is likely. You will need a commercial defrag prog to shift the data back as the Windows defrag prog isn't too efficient at moving data to the left.

Do you have partitioning software to increase the size of your D: drive? What does the defrag graph look like?

You don't really need to do it this way because if your Windows XP does become corrupt you can just restore your image to the C: drive.

Man... I started on Drive C: (68GIG not 60) and got everything perfect. Then I tried cloning to the 4G when I should have done it in reverse... I also did try to clone to the 6G but no go...

I don't have a commercial defragment utility but I did defrag right before beginning the cloning process so this way I could start with an already defragged image...

It's a little difficult checking the status of the images dragmentation as I've already used the disk quite heavily... Unless a report from the last defrag was saved somewhere I don't know about...

Here is something interesting... I went into master.sv2i file just to see if I could see anything unusual or something that I could probably hack at... Here is what the file's contents looked like...


Code:

<SDO clsid="{E097FFA2-58F0-4EDC-8489-4A4BD6230F26}"><Volume1 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">-1</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8">D:\XP2W4685.v2i</ImageFile><Size vt="21">71847784448</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">0</IsLogical><Size vt="21">71847788544</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">63</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume1><Volume2 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile><Size vt="21">4194856960</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical><Size vt="21">4194860544</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">140327838</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume2><Volume3 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile><Size vt="21">6292306944</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical><Size vt="21">6292306944</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">148520988</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume3></SDO>

I noticed the size of the original partition 71847784448 is in there in kilobyte... that equals my partitions size of 68,519.3867G...

I will try to mess around with it but will most likely resort to setting up for the perfect image with a smaller drive...

The reason why I am trying to insist on 3 partitions, two of them with XP Professional is because I plan on putting Ubuntu Linux on the 3rd partition and use GRUB to boot up... If for some reason the first primary partition fails (because it has happened so many times already) I can either A: boot into the second Windows installation to try and save it (using tools such as nero, etc at native speeds) or B: Boot into Linux and burn what I can from Windows or C: Use System Recovery...

I hope I am not headed in a mindless direction... Thanks for the feedback... Does the pasted code of the sv2i file make any sense to you? I am about to mess with it. Thanks!

Here I just thought I post that code again but this time formatted so that it makes more sense...


Code:

<SDO clsid="{E097FFA2-58F0-4EDC-8489-4A4BD6230F26}"> <Volume1 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"> <VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType> <IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden> <IsActive vt="11">-1</IsActive> <ImageFile vt="8">D:\XP2W4685.v2i</ImageFile> <Size vt="21">71847784448</Size> <Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"> <DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber> <IsLogical vt="11">0</IsLogical> <Size vt="21">71847788544</Size> <OffsetOnMedia vt="21">63</OffsetOnMedia> </Segment1></Volume1> <Volume2 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"> <VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType> <IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden> <IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive> <ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile> <Size vt="21">4194856960</Size> <Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"> <DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber> <IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical> <Size vt="21">4194860544</Size> <OffsetOnMedia vt="21">140327838</OffsetOnMedia> </Segment1></Volume2> <Volume3 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"> <VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType> <IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden> <IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive> <ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile> <Size vt="21">6292306944</Size> <Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"> <DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber> <IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical> <Size vt="21">6292306944</Size> <OffsetOnMedia vt="21">148520988</OffsetOnMedia> </Segment1></Volume3> </SDO>

Tell me I can hack this... When I tried opening the file with Ghost it said it could only be used in the recovery environment... I will check...

Victor, that code means nothing to me.

I'd only use one WinXP partition. You could image this partition daily (incrementals) to another partition or preferably another HD. Then if Windows fails you can restore the image and be up and running in 5 to 10 minutes. Why make it complicated? Or am I missing something?

If you have a second WinXP partition are you planning to update it daily? A lot of work.

I believe you're right... My theory was quite simple... If Windows (A) went down and became unbootable Windows (B) could be up in 5 to 10 seconds... Instead of booting from a restore CD or DVD at a very slow read and write speed I could boot up from the hard disk and read and write at blazing speeds. Another thing about my pc, is it only has one bay for CD/DVD... If I needed to boot up and burn a backup, I might as well just dream about it. Another thing about incremental backups is everything between the backups is lost...

Basically what I mean is any given hour of the day I have work and email on the PC which cannot be afforded lost. If I set incremental backups to take place every 24 hours but the pc goes down in the 23rd hour I lost 23x's my work, etc... Whether it was 1x or 23x it is very frustrating... Just multiply x by frustration and you probably get the picture... I was just hoping my theory would help with this problem... For some reason and it is completely unpredictable as to when it will happen I will one day boot up and can't boot into Windows... Some file is missing or corrupt... I hate XP for this very reason...

Trust me, Microsoft itself offers a remedy in which they clearly state will work only *50%* of the time... I tried the remedy probably more than 5 times and not once did I succeed in getting back into Windows... For me it was a 500% failure rate... At times Ghost and Norton Go Back could not even save what I was forced to lose... Ghost is awesome but to an extent which still makes it limited to me... Unless I misunderstand it...

Anyhow, I think at the moment I will dedicate the 4 gigs to Ghost incremental backups... Thanks!

Victor, backup to the same HD can be dangerous. What happens if the HD fails? If you can't afford to lose one hour of data then you need another HD, internal or external. You need to look at data backup in addition to imaging. Second Copy (http://www.centered.com/download.html) can backup your data (email, favorites, wab, documents, pictures etc.) every few minutes if you like. Automatically. Then you can backup WinXP with an daily image.

Or, instead of data backup, you could do hourly Ghost incrementals and delete them every second day.

4 GB is too small for your situation. You need to keep a few images, not just one.

You're right Brian! I agree! I do have Nero which shipped with a backup program and planned on using it. Also, I just wanted Ghost to create a Scratch Recovery Disc*. Would you believe in my over 8 years of working on computers most if not all my unbootable experiences resulting in lost work stemmed from malfunctioning software on XP and not a hard disk failure?

I didn't want to leave this thread unanswered so I thought I report back with my findings. Having two copies of XP on the same disk at the same time is not a good idea. If one goes down, it will bring the other with it. I found this out after a quick test...

Instead what I've resulted to was the following... Install only one copy of XP and make a 2G partition to house the swap file. If the main Windows does go down, restore a slipstreamed (optional) version of XP into the swap file's partition... This is only advisable if XP is unbootable because of software related problems. Doing this over a hardware failure may yield catastrophic results. I haven't fully tested this theory yet but believe it should work right out of the box...

Brian, do you have a walkthrough on how to put the Ghost backup images directly onto the Norton Recovery Disc so when time comes to restore a backup you do not have to swap out the disc? If not, I'll be glad to write one up covering my steps and post it to these forums. Thanks!

* Scratch Recovery Disc: My term for an in house OEM type recovery CD meant to restore the OS and applications specific to the user and there settings. No personal information is to be found on a SRD.

And I agree with you Victor. Most restores are done to correct a software problem, not for HD failure.

You could add your image to the Ghost Recovery CD but I don't think it's worth the effort. Make an .iso of the CD with UltraISO, inject the Ghost 9 backup image,  save the new .iso and burn to a DVD.

I don't follow your planning on what to do if WinXP goes down due to a software problem. I'd just restore an image to that WinXP partition.

Hi I need some help with cloning using Ghost 9.0 (newbie here)

I have a 200GB hdd with partitions
C:30
D:50
E:30
F:79

If I get a 250hdd, using ghost 9.0 do I need to copy each partition one by one, each time booting windows, or can I do it without booting into the OS? Also, if all the partitions are copied onto the new drive, which was not partitioned previously, what would that leave the rest 50GB? would that just be unallocated space which I could use to make a new drive?

Or can I, say, copy C, D and E as they are, then when I am copying F, pick the resize drive with space option and make rest of the disk drive F?

Please help.

Hi.

I'm not sure about your questions, but I don't think you have to reboot each time. I think you have to do each partition individually, and I think Ghost will expand the partitions to use all the space or give you the option to do this.

darnayer,

I'm a little confused. What are you planning to do with your 250 GB HD? Leave it in the computer as a second HD, replace the 200 GB HD with the 250 GB HD, store it in the cupboard as a copy of the 200 GB HD, etc.

Tomas and Brian:

thanks for your replies. I am using the 250GB hdd to replace my 200GB in the same computer due to the fact that my 200GB is showing early signs of dying, so I want to replace it as fast as possible. Since I've never used ghost before, I want to make sure whether I need to reboot each time after every partition i clone. I hope my disk wouldnt die on me in the clone process.

darnayer,

OK, should be easy. Make sure your 250 GB HD is blank, unallocated space. Make sure it's recognized in the BIOS and then boot into Windows.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1117581957;start=

Copy Drive your partitions in order. After the C: drive you don't need to tick "copy MBR" a second time. Don't reboot between copies. On the last copy, your F: drive, tick “resize drive to fill unallocated space”. (Or you could not tick this option and have 50 GB of unallocated space, to be used later.)

Then shut down your computer and remove the 200 GB HD, etc.

Make sense?

Thanks Brian, now both hdds are working along nicely. Used the 200GB as a USB external drive to store backups imgs of the 250GB, teehee~

Good work Darnayer and thanks for the feedback.

Copying one HD to another requires more steps than any other imaging software process. Naturally it's the one most likely to cause trouble if not done correctly. Symantec don't help with pages 93 and 94 of the Ghost 9 Userguide. I wouldn't regard their instructions as saying "you must" remove the old HD before booting for the first time. Quoted below.

"Restart the computer after copying drives
After you have copied the old hard drive to the new hard
drive, do the following:
1 You can remove the old hard drive or keep it as a
slave drive.
2 Change jumper settings to make the new hard drive
the master drive before restarting the computer."

I've just bought Ghost 9 following yet another reformat and XP reinstallation due to crashes and hassles.

On my HD I have created two partitions and reinstalled XP and SP2 updates etc on partition one. I have copied this to the new 2nd partition, and kept a backup.

I like to install various demos and stuff to evaluate, and sooner or later crashes start through some unknown conflict and I have to start again.

I had hoped I could keep partition 1 clean for ordinary stuff, and boot into the second partition for experimenting, then if/when problems started on partition 2, I could easily reinstall the backup and start again more easily.

My question is, how can I make the second partition bootable i.e. so I can choose which partition to boot into?

Sorry if I am missing something obvious

Andrew,

Just a few questions so I understand your situation.

Is the second partition "hidden"?
Did you use the Ghost 9 "Copy Drives"?
Do you have Partition Magic?
Do you have BartPE to enable editing the boot.ini?
Any other partitions on the HD?
What do you mean by "kept a backup"?

Hi Brian

The 2nd partition is not hidden if I understand this correctly. Both show in 'My Computer'

Yes I used Ghost 9 "Copy One Drive to Another" to copy my new XP installation on partition 1 (having also updated it to SP2, plus AV updates & firewall etc) to save future downloads & installations, I thought, to the 2nd partition.

No I haven't got Partition Magic, I had hoped I could sort my problem without the further expense of buying this also

I haven't got BartPE, have just done a cursory  Google search on this & it looks interesting

Just a 19.5Gb partition 1 and 92.2Gb on partition 2. I set these up on reinstalling XP. Something I haven't tried before

By backup, I mean I used the "Back Up Drives" option in Ghost 9  "Basic View",  to hopefully backup the new XP installation just done in partition 1 to save going through it all again in the future

Hope I am not expecting too much of Ghost and thanks for any advice

Cheers, Andrew

Andrew,

I haven’t copied an OS partition to the same HD so I’m not speaking from personal experience. This is what I’d try but I understand you don’t have the software so someone may be able to resolve your problem in a different fashion.

Install Partition Magic, make the floppies and use them for partitioning. Shrink your second partition to 10 GB and make a logical drive of the remaining unallocated space. This drive will be visible from both OS. Hide the second OS partition with PM.

Copy the file Pqboot32.exe from your PM installation and put it in your logical drive. You will be able to select the OS to boot by running this file.

Using PM, make the OS on the second partition “active”. Reboot. It won’t boot. Boot to BartPE and with the A43 prog, edit boot.ini so it points to partition 2. It will probably say partition 1 as it's a copy of your original OS. Reboot and hopefully the second OS will load and OS 1 will be hidden. Use Pqboot32.exe to get back to OS 1.

Where are you storing the image of partition 1? It should not be stored on the same HD in case something happens while doing the above.

Sorry, it’s the only way I know.

I have two WinXP partitions on my computer but I installed them separately.

Brian

Thanks for the info, I will refer to this if I get Partition Magic. Sounds like I shall have to buy it. I have a little knowledge of PM and had read that it included Boot Manager and so wondered if this might do the trick i.e. boot into different partitions? Is this not the case then? What does Boot Manager actually do?

On my last corrupted xp pro installation, before I gave up and reformatted & reinstalled, I tried the XP repair installation option on the xp disk. It all crashed when half way through it asked for the original XP CD, as it needed a load of files. It couldn't find them on the disk, & I sort of assumed that as I had previously downloaded SP2, the files it wanted were not on the original xp disk. Unfortunately it clearly wasn't seeing them on the system either. Stuck. It was probably about this point that I thought I needed to get Ghost for the future!

Anyway, I reinstalled the original xp over the top, but into a new directory,"Window" not the default "Windows" directory. When I rebooted I got the dual boot menu offering two XP Pro OS's. One was the corrupted one which if selected just tried to initiate Setup for the repair again, and the other, the new one, booted into a clean XP installation, allowing me to get my files off, although it didn't see any of the programs of course.

I note that you have installed two XP partitions on your drive. Do you have a backup image of both, and could you restore the 2nd one to a working OS from the image if you had to? This seems to be what I am trying to achieve. I had assumed that a restored clone of a drive image would be bootable.

I have now installed a copy of XP in the 2nd partition, so have two XP partitions as you do, and have the dual boot menu again appear on startup. Could I now restore my image of partition 1 into partition 2 to save downloading all the updates again, AND have it boot? Sorry that I seem I am missing something somewhere.

Andrew, I should have referred you to Dan's web-site on MultiBooting. Along with Rad's Guide to Norton Ghost, it's among the best computer articles available.

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm#partsigs

I'm not familiar with what you are doing. The "Microsoft way" as Dan calls it. I do it the PM way. I have images of each OS and I restore the second OS to its original state every few weeks to get rid of software that I have been examining. I think that is your aim too.

Partition Magic includes Boot Magic. I used it in the past but as I only boot to my second OS once a week or so, I find using Pqboot32.exe is simpler.

Here are some instructions from PowerQuest. For Win 2000 you could read Win XP.





Quote:

Solution: How to Partition Your Hard Disk to Install Windows 2000/XP on an Existing Windows 2000/XP System (PartitionMagic 8.0) 1. In the Partition list, right-click the current Windows 2000/XP partition. 2. Click "Resize / Move." 3. In the "Free Space After" field, enter the total size (in megabytes) for the new Windows 2000/XP partition.   Or, to place the new partition before the existing Windows partition, enter the size in the "Free Space Before" field.   IMPORTANT! In most cases, Windows 2000 and Windows XP partitions should start below the 8 GB boundary of the hard drive to be bootable. If your system supports INT13 extensions, then Windows 2000 and Windows XP can boot from a partition that begins beyond the 8 GB boundary. Consult your system documentation to determine if your system supports INT13 extensions. 4. Click "OK." 5. In the Partition list, right-click the new unallocated space. 6. Click "Create." 7. From the "Create As" drop-down list select "Primary Partition." 8. From the "Partition Type" drop-down list, select "FAT32."   NOTE: Windows 2000/XP also supports FAT and NTFS partition types. FAT partitions are limited in size to 2 GB. 9. (Optional) In the "Label" field, enter a descriptive name for the partition. 10. Verify that the size displayed in the "Size" field is sufficient to install Windows 2000/XP. 11. Click "OK." 12. Right-click the new partition, and then select Advanced > Set Active from the quick menu. 13. Click "OK" to confirm that you want to set the new partition active.       Set the partition active if you plan on installing Windows now. If you want to install Windows later, wait until that time to set the partition active. The active partition is the partition that the computer attempts to boot to when the machine is started up. Windows always assigns the active partition the drive letter C:. 14. Click "Apply." 15. Click "Yes" to apply the changes.     NOTE: If the partition you are resizing has open files on it, PartitionMagic will prompt you that it must reboot the machine to apply the changes. Click "OK" to allow the machine to reboot. Make sure there are no floppy diskettes or CDs inserted in the machine. 16. Once the changes have been applied, use the Windows 2000/XP installation floppy diskettes or CD to reboot the machine and start the Windows installation.     Make sure that the boot sequence in your system's BIOS is set to boot from either floppy diskettes or CD first, and the hard drive second. Some machines may not be able to boot from CD, or the CD may not be bootable. Check your documentation to verify this. 17. Once Windows 2000/XP is installed, you may install BootMagic so you can choose which operating system to boot when the computer starts up.

And for Boot Magic


Quote:

Solution: How to Install BootMagic on an NTFS System (PartitionMagic 7.0) NOTE: BootMagic cannot be installed on an NTFS partition. It can only be installed on a FAT or FAT32 primary partition on the first disk, and the FAT or FAT32 partition must begin before the disk's 8 GB boundary.   This document shows you how to: - Create a FAT primary partition on a disk that has only an NTFS partition (or partitions) on it. - Install BootMagic to the FAT partition. - Configure BootMagic so that it does not hide the FAT partition. To install BootMagic on a system that has only NTFS partitions, perform the following: 1. Start PartitionMagic. 2. From the "Disk" drop-down list, select Disk 1 (if you have more than one disk). 3. In the tree view, right-click the first primary NTFS partition (if there are multiple NTFS partitions on your hard disk) and select "Resize/Move" from the quick menu. 4. In the "Free Space Before" field, type 50.   Or, to place the new partition after the NTFS partition, enter the size in the "Free Space After" field.       IMPORTANT!  The BootMagic partition must start below the 8 GB boundary of the hard drive and must be at least 32 MB large. 5. Click "OK." 6. Right-click the new unallocated space and select "Create" from the quick menu. 7. From the "Create As" drop-down list, select "Primary Partition."     NOTE: You can have only four primary partitions per hard disk. If your hard disk already contains four primary partitions, you must delete one of your existing primary partitions or convert it to a logical partition before you can create the primary FAT partition for BootMagic. 8. From the "Partition Type" drop-down list, select "FAT." 9. (Optional) In the "Label" field, enter a descriptive name for the partition (such as "BootMagic"). 10. Click "OK." 11. Verify that the status of the new FAT partition is "None."     If the status of the FAT partition is "Hidden," do the following to set the status to "None":     a. Right-click the FAT partition and select Advanced > Unhide Partition from the quick menu.     b. Click "OK" when asked if you are sure you want to unhide the partition.     c. Click "Yes" when the warning message appears. 12. Click the "Apply Changes" icon. 13. Click "Yes" to confirm that you want to apply the changes.     NOTE: If the partition you are resizing has open files on it, PartitionMagic will prompt you that it must reboot the machine to apply the changes. Click "OK" to allow the machine to reboot. Make sure there are no floppy diskettes or CDs inserted in the machine. Once the changes have been applied and Windows has loaded, verify that the new partition has a drive letter. 14. Install BootMagic.     The new FAT partition will be automatically selected as the destination location for BootMagic. Create the BootMagic diskette when prompted during the installation process. When the BootMagic installation is complete, the BootMagic Configuration program automatically loads. IMPORTANT!!!  Do not allow the machine to reboot until you have completed steps 15-22! 15. From the BootMagic Configuration menu bar, click Options > Advanced Partition Hiding.     A checkmark appears to the left of the "Advanced Partition Hiding" menu item. 16. In the "BootMagic Runtime Menu" group box, verify that your current Windows operating system is highlighted in the list of available operating systems. 17. Click "Properties." 18. Click the "Visible Partitions" tab. 19. Place a mark in the "Override Default Selections" checkbox. 20. Place a mark in the checkbox next to the FAT partition where BootMagic is installed. 21. Click "OK." 22. Click "Save/Exit." 23. Reboot the machine to apply the changes. You can now use BootMagic with your NTFS system.

Note, this is for BM 7. The Boot Magic 8 partition can be  anywhere on the HD and can even be on the second HD.

Hi,

I need help cloning my harddrive of my notebook!
I got a 20G Harddrive installed in my Laptop, after space got rare I purchased a 80G Harddrive!
Now I used Ghost 9 to clone the Harddrive IDE to USB! Everything went fine so far, shut down the Computer, exchanged the Harddrives, switched it back on.
Windows logo appears, it boots up to the blue screen before the User login appears. At that point nothing is happening anymore, not even in save mode. I did clone a harddrive on a desktop with win2000 which worked out fine.
Really don't know what the Problem is.

I read something about, that XP is saving something like the Product Number of each harddrive, so it won't let you use a different harddrive which hasn't got allowed to be used by windows. Could that be the Reason.

Does anyone know what I'm doing wrong?
Any suggestions?


thanks,
Mario

Mario,

It sounds like you did everything correctly but there is a MBR problem. Try fdisk /mbr. Let us know the progress.

See Method #3

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm


Out of interest, did you Drive Copy into a partition on your 80 GB drive or into unallocated space?

Hi Brian,

thanks for your suggestion.
I don't have the Laptop in front of me right now, but I will try in the next couple of hours.
And for your interest, I copied the harddrive into an unallocated space.
Also, are you sure there is a MBR problem as the harddrive is booting! It is only before the final Desktop appears, actually before the user login appears, it stops working! I do have a regular boot time of about 15 Seconds, until the system stops.
Or does the mbr has something to do with the drive letters -> like the link you gave me!

Anyway, I'll try your mbr tweak and let you know what happens.

thanks,
mario

Quote:

The boot process may hang (usually at the login or blue "Welcome" screen) while XP-2 searches in vain for "drive C:".

From the link.

Working!

Thanks for help Brian, I did use the fixmbr of the winxp recovery cd first, until nothing has changed I started to read the article.
Looked around for a win98 cd, gladly found one, and now it's working.

Thanks again for this fast and great support,
Mario

Isn't it great when things work.

In retrospect, what do you think went wrong? Did you tick "Copy MBR"?

PS  Did you choose a drive letter of "None"?

What's wrong with the following back-up routine?

Two hard drives each with just one partition.
Windows XP Home
Ghost 10.0
Second Hard Drive just used for back-ups--nothing else.
Every week, "copy my Hard Drive" to the second drive.
No image is created--just a complete clone
Don't disconnect either drive
That way, if the C drive fails, you just remove it and put the D drive into the c drive bay and hook it up.

rick stone


Quote:

What's wrong with the following back-up routine?

I don't know--does it work?!

Have you put the second HDD in place of the 1st one--boot okay?

I haven't tried it yet. I'm just hoping that the system will boot O.K. if I leave the C drive AND the second hard drive (D) hooked up. I'd like to do the disk copy weekly without disconnecting the D drive. Since it's a duplicate, will Windows get confused with 2 identical drives?
Since it's a clone, I assume it'll boot up if I disconnect the C drive and hook up the D drive as my C drive.

rick stone


Quote:

Since it's a duplicate, will Windows get confused with 2 identical drives?

That's why I asked if it was working--the answer is--sometimes WinXP has a problem with *seeing itself in a mirror*!

The boot HDD copy of WinXP will have to deal with the fact that it sees a second HDD that is supposed to be assigned the drive letter C:\, too, based on the fact that it is a *clone* of the boot HDD.  I've seen some posts that say they get away with it--and others end up with a system that will not boot at all!

It's been unclear what makes the difference--but, I'd say it's risky--and I would want to do the experiment knowing I have already made a reliable, and restorable Ghost image to another HDD--or be using a spare HDD that I've cloned for the purpose of experimenting, and keeping the original disconnected during the trial.

Thanks Night Owl.

All I want is to be able to replace a damaged C drive with my D drive that I've cloned once a week. Ghost can copy the entire C drive without making an image, but nowhere in the manual does it say that the second drive then has to be removed (or disconnected).

rick stone

I'm looking at the Ghost 9.x user guide (I should download the Ghost 10.x guide  ;) , but haven't yet!):


Quote:

Set drive active (for starting OS) Make the destination drive the active partition (the drive the computer starts from). Only one drive can be active at a time. To start the computer, it must be on the first drive, and it must contain an operating system. When the computer starts, it reads the partition table of the first drive to find out which drive is active and starts from that location. If the drive is not bootable or you are not certain that it is, have a boot disk ready.  Set drive active is valid for basic disks only (not dynamic disks).

Looks like Ghost 9.x will not *automatically* make a cloned HDD's primary partition *active* unless you specify that.  So maybe your scenario would work--but, you have to have the needed boot disk that allows you to set the HDD active if you need to replace the original boot drive.  You would also have to place the backup HDD in the same position as the original HDD on the HDD controller.

If you want to do thing that way--may be worth the effort to test it out.

But, best to have a *cloned* backup drive to do the testing with before going *live* with your active HDD.

The issue of how to continuously "re-clone" a second HDD with Norton Ghost (v9, in my case) is not often discussed, so I was glad to come upon this thread.

In my case I am cloning (disk copying) from my main HDD to a second larger one in an extra bay in my Thinkpad Notebook (an A31). So no issues with jumpers and all that sort of thing.

The Ghost manual is really vestigial, though, and doesn't explain in enough detail for my liking. Brian's explanation was much more helpful). Here is a list of the sorts of things one has to watch out for - beyond the obvious like making sure you clone the right drive :-):

1. Don't allocate drive letters to the destination drive

2. Only tick the MBR box for the destination's active primary partition (the mirror of your source's C: drive)

3. If you have a hidden active recovery partition of some sort on your source drive (Thinkpad's usually do), make sure NOT to tick "active" when you copy it to the destination drive (I did and had to use PartitionMagic from DOS later to de-activate it).

4. Finally, the question of when or whether to  activate the primary partition of the destination drive.... In the User Guide, it clearly says to tick the box, “set drive active (for booting OS)”. Now that is all very well for two scenarios: first, when you want to check out whether the cloning has actually worked; and/or second, when you actually want to replace your original source drive by the newly cloned destination one.

BUT many people don't actually want to do this until their source drive either gets filled up or breaks down. In the meantime what they want to do is continuously re-clone their destination drive - say, once a week or so in order to keep an updated "spare" on their system.

I am not quite sure what the best thing to do in this case is. Maybe NOT setting the destination drive active the next time one clones to it might be the best thing to do to avoid confusing XP SP2 (my brand of Windows). Of course, one would need to be able set the destination drive "active" in the event of the source disk filling up or breaking down. This could be done by using a PartitionMagic boot floppy to boot up the notebook and then changing the status of the destination HDD's C: drive to "active".

The reason I am rambling on about this is that I re-cloned my destination HDD for the first time today. When I did so, I - possibly mistakenly - set the destination drive active (for booting OS), as it mentions in the Manual.

Everything seemed to go fine but, later in the afternoon when I had to re-boot for an unconnected reason, I found myself booted into the destination disk, not the source one. After a lot of not very expert fiddling I managed to boot back into the original source drive, but it gave me a nasty fright.  

Has anyone esle had this problem, and does NOT setting the destination drive active solve it?

Derek  

Derek, I've only done Copy Drive once as I'm not planning to change HD's. Even with new HD's you can get them up and running by restoring images. Copy Drive is not a sensible backup technique.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1132968474;start=

See Reply #7

Let us know if you see advantages in the Copy Drive technique of backup. I see lots of disadvantages.

Brian-

Sorry; I wasn't being very clear. I have been using the re-cloning technique I mentioned as an additional backup technique rather than as a replacement. I do it about once a week or so.

But I also make image files, which I do more frequently using a PCMCIA FlipDisk (removable HDD). I am just about to invest in a larger external HDD (USB or PCMCIA) so that I can do more frequent imaging, and keep sets of these files.

Apart from this I also copy important folders in my data partition to a CD-RW on a daily basis, using my file manager (TotalCommander), and use Caddais BackupOnDemand - a  backup program that backs up open files (e.g., Word docs) in real time while you are using them.

So I am a belt-and-braces user. Having said that, I do like the idea of being able, additionally, to swap out a faulty hard disk and swap in a new one ASAP, rather than to depend entirely on the integrity of any image file I have.

As you say, though, there do appear to be problems with the constant re-cloning backup technique. But  am hopeful - or foolishly optimistic ? :-) -  that a reliable way of  doing it will be found.

Maybe one problem with my current method is that I am using Ghost v.9 and doing the cloning from within XP. Various people have suggested that XP easily gets muddled when two identical cloned and active drives exist on the same machine. Others have reported problems following upgrading to XP SP2.

Nothing much to be done about the SP2 issue, but could it be that this method would be safer if Ghost 2003 were used, and the cloning done from DOS?



Just a few more thoughts on this interesting topic.

Derek

You really are a belt and braces man, Derek. I understand now.

I don't think there is a problem with your technique if you are following my original suggestions in post #1. Which would mean deleting the partition every week and copying into unallocated space etc. But you wouldn't tick "set drive active". The partition would be hidden when you rebooted. You certainly don't want two visible WinXP's.

You should however make sure that it works. At least once. Remove your primary HD, set the secondary HD as master, use a PM floppy to set the partition active and see if it boots. If it doesn't you may have been wasting your time with this technique.

Belt and braces and pants sutured to the skin.

I was wondering if anyone knows of a way to "clone" a drive that has been sealed using sysprep.  What I want to do is to make a disk image that I can then install onto different machines to save myself the time of doing Windows XP installations.  I want to create an answer file with sysprep so that it will re-detect hardware on a new machine, and then mini-install an updated version of Windows with all of the necessary software already installed.  So far the only solution I can think of is this:

1.  Prepare a Windows installation. on drive A
2.  Run sysprep to seal the installation on drive A.
3.  Remove drive A, and put it into a machine running windows with ghost installed.
4.  "clone" or copy drive A to drive B making it bootable and keeping the mbr intact.
5.  Put drive A into a new machine, and hope that it goes.

Does anyone see problems with this?  Has anyone done anything similar?  My concern is that if I make a disk copy with ghost it will not work on a machine with different hardware, unless I run sysprep.  I have tried g4u, with no success (always get some sort of corrupt file, or drive just won't boot).  I have not yet experimented with simple dd of an unmounted system partition, but this may work also?? Any input would be greatly appreciated.

--Paul

Brian -

Thanks for your advice. You've confirmed my suspicions that setting the destination disk "active" may be at the root of problems when regularly re-cloning to the 2nd HDD in situ. Next time I do a backup to that drive I'll test things out as you suggested.

Incidentally, even though at present the primary partitions on both my source and destination drives are set "active", XP only sees the source one - luckily. Somehow the destination one remains invisible, though Ghost v9 sees it if I prepare to clone to it. A further interesting fact is that PartitionMagic v8 sees the destination drive as "bad" when I run it in XP, but sees it and all its partitions perfectly well when I run PM from its DOS boot floppy. All of this suggests, as you rightly comment, that XP is easily confused by these goings on.

To summarize: As a rule of thumb, setting the destination drive as "active" should only be done if the cloned second drive is going to be removed from the computer and used - immediately or in the very near future - to replace the source drive. In this case, it must be removed from the computer once the cloning process is over and set aside until needed, using the procedure you outlined i.e.,  shutting down the computer immediately, and removing the destination (2nd) HDD before any rebooting.

To test whether the cloning has worked, one would use the same procedure (shutdown, removal of 2nd HDD) but, in addition, the source drive would also be removed and set aside, and the destination drive (the cloned one) would be installed in the main drive's bay and booted up to check it out. If it worked ok, then it could either be left in there as a replacement for the original drive, or taken out and set aside for installation at a later date.  

In all other cases - and especially where regular re-cloning is going to take place - the destination drive should NOT be set "active."  Testing whether the cloning process worked should be done as above and, perhaps, from time to time thereafter - although notebook users should note that main drive connector sockets are not designed for constant plugging and unplugging of HDDs.

Sorry to be so repetitive, but I wanted to get this straight in my mind :-)

Derek

Sounds fine Derek. Let us know when you have done a test.

I agree, those socket pins look very fragile.

Hey, so I'm sort of a n00b here... but reading the posts it doesn't seem like anyone has experienced the dilemma im currently facing. Or maybe I've just been to depraved of a noise free environment to catch the posts.

Anyways, I've got norton ghost 10.0 and I want to clone my 40GB Maxtor HD, with my os and stuff, to my 200GB Seagate HD. My good ol' 40GB Maxtor is just to loud and I cant stand it. The thing is, I've already formatted my 200GB HD and it has a lot of valuable data on it. Sooooooooo, if I clone my HD, will it just overwrite all my data, or can I configure it to create a new partition within the 200GB HD.

What I want to do is remove my 40GB hd after all this is done, so i can have some peace and quiet. Is this even possible tho, cuz it seems that everyone here wants to clone their old HD's onto NEW hard drives, that have not already been formatted. Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks,
Sleepless in Vancouver

Andrew,

A few basic questions.

How many partitions and how much data is on your 40 GB HD?
How many partitions and how much data is on your 200 GB HD?
Do you have an external HD?
Do you have partitioning software?

wrote on Dec 24^th, 2005 at 6:24am:

Anyways, I've got norton ghost 10.0 and I want to clone my 40GB Maxtor HD, with my os and stuff, to my 200GB Seagate HD. My good ol' 40GB Maxtor is just to loud and I cant stand it. The thing is, I've already formatted my 200GB HD and it has a lot of valuable data on it. Sooooooooo, if I clone my HD, will it just overwrite all my data, or can I configure it to create a new partition within the 200GB HD.

For safety's sake, Norton Ghost will restore an image (or copy/clone your existing one) onto UNALLOCATED/UNUSED space on a hard drive.  That's so in a misunderstood panic, a user doesn't accidently overwrite an existing partition.

If your 200 GB drive has some unallocated (by that I mean not in a partition) space you could do what you want.  However, I suspect that you have the entire 200 GB already formatted and in use.  In that case you need a partition manager (one is Symantec Partition Magic, other good ones as well).

1. Backup up everything on your 200 gb first!!!!!
2. Use PM to shrink your 200 GB by at least 40 GB to create an unallocated space.  Be sure that the 40 GB unallocatged/free space is in front of the 160GB so that the partitions are in the same relative order:

40GB (empty)
160GB your shrinked partition

3. Restore your 40gb image backup to the new empty drive space and make it bootable using Ghost option.
4. Change your 160GB partition from primary to extended/logical.

Brian--did I miss anything here?

Ghost4me.John, you are a mindreader.


Quote:

Norton Ghost will restore an image (or copy/clone your existing one) onto UNALLOCATED/UNUSED space on a hard drive

I understand this is so       "do not let old-XP see the new partition before cloning. Doing so would give XP a chance to assign a drive letter, it will be remembered by the registry when it is cloned, and the clone will adopt the wrong drive letter for itself."

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

Ghost 9 "clones" (Copy Drive) from the Windows environment so I don't know if the above explanation would apply if one did the Copy Drive from BartPE. I haven't tried "cloning" to a partition from BartPE yet.

Brian wrote on Dec 24^th, 2005 at 3:02pm:

I understand this is so "do not let old-XP see the new partition before cloning. Doing so would give XP a chance to assign a drive letter, it will be remembered by the registry when it is cloned, and the clone will adopt the wrong drive letter for itself."

I've never done a live clone from XP.  I always used the standalone diskettes or boot cd to do an "offline" clone or disaster recovery.  I always felt that was safer.

Sounds reasonable for earlier Ghost versions but Ghost 9 only allows Copy Drive from Windows.

Brian wrote on Dec 24^th, 2005 at 5:48pm:

Sounds reasonable for earlier Ghost versions but Ghost 9 only allows Copy Drive from Windows.

Yes, you're right (again).  I just booted my Ghost 9 CD to see and the copy drive function wasn't there.

I never used earlier versions of Ghost prior to 9 (I used DriveImage).  The few times I had to do bare metal disaster hard drive failures in the past, I used the DriveImage disaster recovery diskettes to restore from a backup image from a separate internal IDE hard drive which had backup images on it.

The beauty now and in recent versions is the ability to restore individual files/folders.  This is honestly used more frequently when I or someone else wants a copy of a file that existed several weeks ago.  That's another reason I like weekly backups and monthly archives to DVD.  It's not a $10,000+ tape archive system solution, but for most home/home office environments it has most of the protection needed for a reasonable cost.

Hey guys, thanks for the quick replies. Here are the answers to your original questions Brian.

I have one parition on my 40 GB HD. The total size of that drive is 37.2 GB, and as of this moment I have 14.3 GB free. So I supose there is about 22.9 GB of data on it.

As for my 200 GB HD, there is only a single 187 GB partition, with 62 GB of data stored on it.

I unfortunately do not have an external HD available, which I'm sure would make this whole process much easier. My original plan was to eventually use this 200 GB HD in an external enclosure, but my efforts to isolate my PC's high pitched whine have singled out my 40 GB HD as the culprit. Further, it seems that this drive may also be near the end of it's life cycle. So, though eventually I will have one available, at the moment my hands are tied.

I was under the impression that I might require Partition Magic, though I had hoped Ghost would have much of that program's functionality included. I was unaware of the fact that Parition Magic is now Norton Product. I'm sure I could obtain a copy however.


Reading a little futher down, Ghost4me.John looks to have a pretty straightforward instruction set for me, which I appreciate very much. So I guess this is what I'll be attempting to do either today or tommorow.

Catchin the last bit, you guys were mentioning problems with 'old-XP seeing the new partition before cloning'. Do you expect this to be something I should look out for?

Thanks!

Andrew, follow Ghost4me.John's instructions. He did read my mind.

Then follow the instructions from page 1. Ask questions if it's confusing.

Hey guys, so here's the update. Using Partition Magic, I shrunk the partition on my 200GB HD to allow for an unallocated partition of 40GB. I then did a HD Copy in Ghost 9 following the instructions from the 1st post in this thread.

However, I did not change my 160GB partition to extended/logical before turning off my computer. I was under the impression that I would have to do that AFTER I removed the original drive. I'm thinking this may be the reason why I'm encountering this problem...

Having performed what I thought was a successful Copy, I turned off my computer and removed my orginal 40GB HD. Making sure the 200 GB HD was now the Master drive, I turned on my computer.

This is what I encountered:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll
Please re-install a copy of the above file.


Sooooooooooooo, having read about problems of booting a computer with two idential HD's in the Radified Guide to Norton Ghost, I unplugged my 200GB HD and reinserted my orginal 40GB HD.

And now here I am, sorry to disappoint guys, but it looks like I need some help.

Thanks,
AJ

Andrew,

Should be only a minor problem. The following should be met.

Was the 40 GB Unallocated Space you created in PM on the left hand side of the 160 GB partition?
Is the 160 GB data partition a Primary partition with a status of "None"? (use the PM floppies)
Booting to the Ghost 9 CD, I think try Utilities and then Edit boot.ini. The boot.ini should point to Partition 1. (The hal.dll message usually refers to a boot.ini mismatch)

Here is my boot.ini. Yours should be similar.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

See the reference to partition(1). Change it from the Ghost CD if it says (2)

Naturally you need to swap HD's so only the 200 GB HD is installed as Master. If you have a BartPE CD you could edit boot.ini as well. Whichever is easier.

Andrew,

In addition to what Brian said, use Partition Magic to be sure that your new 40GB partition on your Seagate drive is set/marked to ACTIVE and the other partition on the Seagate is not active.  Also make sure it is bootable.

There can be more than one primary partition on a hard drive, but only ONE of the them can be set active.  (You will not be able to access the other primary one, but after making the change you can verify if your system works.  Then you can go back and change the 160gb one from primary to extended/logical).

Andrew,

Here's just one link that explains and shows the different kinds of partitions on a physical hard drive.

http://www.ahuka.com/other/partition.html

John, I think the "160" GB partition will be OK as a primary partition with a status of "None". It will be visible with a drive letter in Windows. Conversion to an Extended Partition will be optional.

As you point out, only one "active" primary partition can exist on a HD. But Andrew's "160" GB primary partition won't be active or hidden and should be visible. I just did something similar (before I wrote this) on my son's computer and the partition was visible.

Hey guys,

I'm about to boot up with my Ghost CD, but having finished up with the PM diskettes, here's the update. As you guys originally noted, the 40 GB partition is in fact on the left side.

The 40 GB Partition is set to Active, and Primary.
The 160 GB Partition is set to None and Primary.

Having read your suggestions, I'm under the impression that even with these settings, I should not be experiencing that error/problem. So I hope to see what my boot.ini looks like shortly.

One thing that I should note however, is that unlike the original post, I did select "resize drive to fill unallocated space" when originally Copying the 40 GB drive. I did that because the 40 GB Parition I created is slightly larger than the actual 37 GB size of my Maxtor drive. I'm hoping that slight deviation is not contributing to this problem.

Will report back,
AJ

Nearly 5,000 views .. popular thread.  

Dear gosh,

This seems to be turning into an ordeal. After spending all day finding myself a bootable Ghost CD (why isn't there some utility in these newer versions of Ghost, like the one in Ghost 2003 that creates bootable media?) I finally was able to enter the Norton Recovery Environment, where I was able to edit the Boot.ini file via Utilities.

However, my boot.ini file looked pretty pristine... Here is what I saw:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

or somthing along those lines.

Should I just try deleting this partition via the PM utility and attempt to do all this through Windows with Ghost 9 again?

I'm wondering if the fact that I left Avast & Kiero running while Ghost was doing it's business caused this problem, as reading the PM User Guide, I was advised to turn off AV functions while the program was running. Which is what I did, and things seemed to be going fine until I began Copying my 40GB Partition...

Any further advice would be much appreciated guys.

Thanks!
AJ

Andrew James Chang

I would give this a try:

Instead of *partition(1)*....try *partition(2)*

My reasoning--even though you created the new *40 GB* partition *to the left* of the data partition--so physically it occupies the *1st partition* position--I'm betting that in the partition table--because that 40 GB partition has been created after the first partition (i.e. second) on the HDD--it may be identified in the ARC path as the second partition as far as booting.

I may be wrong, of course--this stuff gets all muddled--but it's a simple trial--worth the time to try?

I agree. I used to have a partition 1 that only booted with partition(2) in the boot.ini.


Andrew, I don't think you made any mistakes.

Hey guys, you were right. I edited my boot.ini to access partition(2) and all was good. I just wanted to thank Brian, Ghost4me.John, and NightOwl for helping me through this. You guys were rad!

ciao,
AJ

Andrew, I'm pleased it worked out.

Good call NightOwl.

Yes, NightOwl and Brian, that was a good one.

So does that mean that the 160gb primary partition is not viewable because it is not active?  Or is it just that the bios or boot can only handle one active partition per physical drive?

Can a drive letter be assigned to the 160gb partiton in XP even though not an active partition?

Ghost4me.John

I have no personal experience *unhidding* additional primary partitions, but quoting from PowerQuests PartitionMagic v8.x User Guide, page 64:


Quote:

3 To confirm that you want to hide the partition, click OK. Under Windows 9x and Windows Me, hiding and unhiding partitions can cause the drive letters of other partitions to change. When this happens, your computer may not boot and applications may not run. PowerQuest recommends that you allow DriveMapper to run automatically to update drive letter references that change as a result of hiding or unhiding partitions. If your hard disk has more than one primary partition, only one is visible by default.  When you use the Set Active operation, PartitionMagic unhides the selected primary partition and hides other primary partitions. While you can unhide more than one primary partition, we recommend that you do not. (NightOwl edit:  I think the above is in reference to Win98 or ME OS's.) If you are running Windows NT/2000/XP, partitions are not hidden automatically; therefore, you can have multiple visible primary partitions.

Partition Magic: "While you can unhide more than one primary partition, we recommend that you do not. "

NightOwl:  "I think the above is in reference to Win98 or ME OS's."

That's correct.  Multiple primaries is a Microsoft-supported configuration with NT/2000/XP/2003.  If was not an officially supported configuration with DOS/Win9x (although it would actually work in many cases).

(In case it needs to be clarified, note we're only talking about multiple primary volumes on the same hard disk.  If you had multiple hard disks, DOS/Win9x supported more than one primary in the system, but no more than one per hard disk.)

Dan Goodell wrote on Dec 29^th, 2005 at 3:51pm:

Multiple primaries is a Microsoft-supported configuration with NT/2000/XP/2003.  If was not an officially supported configuration with DOS/Win9x (although it would actually work in many cases).

Dan, thanks for that clarification for XP, etc.  I'm still curious as to why the boot.ini had to point to partition(2)?  I'm wondering (guessing) that at some time prior to the cloning, that Andrew had the second drive visible to XP and XP assigned the existing 200GB (later resized to 160GB) partition as partition(1).

If Andrew had started with a completely blank unformatted 200GB drive, cloned from his 40gb to the 200gb, made it active and bootable, then I'm betting boot.ini would have said partition(1).  What does everyone think?

(Just trying to understand this process.  Thanks for all opinions!)

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partbkgd.htm#pt_order

See line beginning

Quote:

Typically, you'll find the MPT order follows the chronological order in which the corresponding partitions were created.

Thanks Brian and Dan for the explanation.  Everything makes sense now.   :)

Dan, I added a link in the FAQ with your great partition explanations.

Ghost4me.John

I had a problem similar to AndrewChang (actually a bit more complicated--I'll share if someone really wants the mind numbing details--anyone may read into that--*home movies* being shown friends and relatives  :D !).

It was Dan's webpage reference above that started my down the path to figuring out the issue--and I finally resolved the problem--but here's a tool that finally helped:

Editing the Boot.ini file using BTini

If you expand *Editing Boot.ini*, it explains how to use *PartInfo.exe* to generate a *Diagnostic Report*--after the shown example of the diagnositic report, it outlines how to determine what the actual boot number is needed for the *partitition(X)* in the boot.ini file.

If you expand *If Boot.ini is on an NTFS partition*--there's a link to download the program to edit boot.ini called *BTini*, or click here:

BTini.zip

***********************************************
There appears to be better tools for editing *boot.ini* now:

The Ghost 9.x and 10.x *Recovery Disk*, I think under *Advanced Utilities* has a *Edit Boot.ini* utility.

And there is a freeware program that can be run from DOS from TeraByte called *EditBINI* found here:

TeraByte Unlimited Freeware--look for EditBINI

***********************************************

You can get *PartInfo for DOS* here:

PartInfo.zip for DOS

and how to use it here:

Generating diagnostic reports using Partinfo.exe

Thanks NightOwl. I learned something here; previously I thought the boot.ini only needed modifying when the physical partition order on a disc got changed.  I didn't realize that the entries could/would not always match the order of partitions on the disc.

Another addition to the FAQ.

I installed Windows XP on a new drive (clean install)
I tried to clone the new XP C: drive onto my backup disk Windows 2000 Pro C: drive.  Both Op sys are formatted in the NTFS.  
Strangely enough, the op sys is NTFS and the other partitions are FAT32 formats. I don’t know why, but everything works perfectly fine this way.  
I used  Symantec Ghost 9.0 (failed) and Ghost 2003 which failed.
I can boot with the clone and watch it freeze just prior the welcome screen.  
I make all of my clones using Ghost 2003 by booting from a diskette so, “ I know the routine”  because of my many successes.

My backup “receiving disk” had Windows 2000 Professional in the C: primary partition.  
All I wanted to do was clone the new XP bootable partition over into the “Windows 2000 partition and leave the other data partitions alone.  

I went back to Ghost 2003 where I shut down the op sys and booted with a diskette.  

I used Partition Magic to diagnose the error.  Failure 1516, “Partition improperly dismounted.”  I ran chkdsk /f as their suggested fix.  No success.  
Chkdsk found no errors.  
I followed all of the recovery procedures, including using Norton Systemworks  2005 Disk Doctor didn’t find any errors.  
A subsequent trial said that chkdsk found several undefined errors, with no descriptions or suggestions how to fix any of them.  

At first blush I thought that maybe the hang up might have been caused by the fact that I did not register XP yet (still going to change my motherboard as part of upgrading my computer) and perhaps MS thought I was doing a mass install (deployment) and locked me out.  The software is legitimate so I registered and tried to clone again with no success.  It takes me 2 hours and 11 minutes to clone just one partition, so a lot of my time is being wasted by FUBAR software.

I haven’t tried cloning the entire disk because 300 gigs (couldn’t pass up a brand new Seagate 300 gig for $79 bucks) will not go into 120 gigs. I have manageable partitions, and Ghost will only let me do one partition at a time anyway.  

I have a love hate relationship with Symantec. When it works (any program, it is wonderful)  When anything goes bad, whether I caused it or not, it is horrible. I have had many “go-arounds” with “Mark Anthony” somewhere in India.  All I got was bad advice and the run-around. Their web-site diagnostic section is miserable with a usual final solution of editing the registry. Been there, done that and don’t want to fool with it.
 
I am at a loss how to get a good backup. I STRONGLY DISAGREE  with those who advocate simply re-installing the operating system as a recovery method.  Backing up the data is a snap.  Re-constructing the op sys is a nightmare in wasted time.  Several times I just cloned my fully operational, spare hard drive over the recently messed up one, plugged it in and was back in business in a matter of minutes instead of hours and days.  

My ultimate goal is to put the 120 gig in an external USB enclosure and do my cloning without having to remove covers or having to swap cables and jumpers.  I am still a long way from that and I will not buy any more of Symantec’s bloatware to try to achieve that goal, so any words of advice are more than welcome.  

wrote on Apr 10^th, 2006 at 9:57pm:

I can boot with the clone and watch it freeze just prior the welcome screen.

DoctorDan,

See http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/partsigs.htm

I don't think you have been cloning into Unallocated Space. It's worth trying especially if there are problems.

DoctorDan

When you use Ghost 2003, and clone *Partition to Partition*, the master boot record remains intact (as it should, because you indicated there are other partitions with data), but your WinXP uses the disk id plus sector starting points to tell the boot files where to find the ongoing boot partition, etc.

If you use *Kawecki's Trick* from this web page on the former Win2000 HDD with your now WinXP OS on it, you might be set to go:

Fixing Windows 2000/XP Drive Letters

Make sure you use the correct version of *fdisk*!

*Method #2 might also work if you use it just before booting to DOS and cloning the WinXP to the former Win2000 HDD.

Brian

I see you beat me to the punch  ;) !

Thanks guys.  I printed Brian’s response last night and went to bed thinking it would be 5 minute fix first thing in the morning.  I scrounged through my old diskettes and actually found a Win 98 boot disk, unfortunately from the year 2002 when I first installed it.  I popped in the diskette and voila, I learned that NTLDR means “dead in the water.”  I couldn’t go any further.  I tried to reinstall Win 98 on a spare hard disk so I could make a fresh recovery diskette. I must have had a Windows 95 to 98 upgrade CD instead of the full blown version, because I could not boot or install the 98 version at all on a freshly formatted disk. Hours later…

Talk about frustration.  

So without any hope of getting the correct recovery diskette, I might try doing a full clone using Ghost 2003 and hope for the best that only data gets copied instead of blank sectors.  “Gozinta” doesn’t work when it is a 300 gig “going into” a 120 gig.

Any suggestions if this will work or for a work-around?  

I have two 120 gig hard disks, one of which has my master data, so in effect I have a spare 120 gig to experiment with.  The Windows XP on the 300 gig works fine.  I transferred all of my data files from the 120 to the 300, so everything is functional at this time.  It’s just that I do not have an ongoing, simple backup procedure that works.  Of course, I want a method that will allow me to swap hard disks and continue.

I thought (sometimes a dangerous undertaking) that it was going to be a simple matter of cloning the new XP C: partition on the 300 gig over to the 120 gig C: partition.  Evidently, it is not that simple.

So, “I did not pass go and did not collect $200” in this game.  I feel like I am in jail at the moment waiting for my next roll of the dice.  

As I implied earlier, my ultimate goal is to make a fully functional clone via USB backups so I don’t have to remove covers and cables.

If anyone has a game plan that will work, I will be forever grateful.  

Thanks,

DoctorDan

DoctorDan,

It's certainly a challenge. I need some information. How large is the C drive on your 300 GB HD and how much data does it contain? Has it been defragged with Perfect Disk or Diskeeper so that all the data is on the "left"?

A philosophical question. Could you live with images as backups instead of clones?

Win98 boot disc    http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

Catching up on suggestions.

Brian, I went to the suggested web-site to download the bootdisk.  Either I missed something or something is missing.  I downloaded the bootSE98.exe  file to a diskette hoping there would be some sys files on it. I got the NTLDR error.  OK, no sys files so the only way I could fix that was to format a diskette with the boot files from XP.  Done.  I copied the contents to the diskette and tried to re-boot.  I was given another dead in the water error message about not being able to boot in Windows or DOS, I can’t remember which.   Back to the penalty box.

I used Windows to defrag.  I was amazed that it needed defragging at all because all I did was load programs and a few data files.  The disk is only a week old in terms of time from formatting.  I try to keep program and data files separate as much as possible, so the programs take up the most space.

Finally, the stats on the 300 gig.

CapacityFree%freeused
C:NTFS97.6 GB83.985%~15%
D:84.164.5765
E:DVD
F:CD
G:48.839.2880%
H:48.848.7799%

The C: drive on the 120 gig disk has plenty of room.  
I don’t like the fact that the CD/DVD drives are “in the middle.” But there was no way around that.

Finally, my next door neighbor and tape drive guru at IBM has always twisted my arm about backing up and having a fully operational, independent clone that I could pop in case of a disaster.  For a long time I poo-poohed him about having the CD’s and all I needed to back up was the data.  He convinced me otherwise and begrudgingly I took his advice.  He saved my bacon at least three times with non-recoverable software faults.  I call him and thank him for his advice every time a disaster occurs.  So, I want a fully operational backup, not an image.  As you can see, I am having a week’s worth of grief with a fully functional computer.  My wife keeps telling me that computers,  “Are not ready for prime time yet.”  I believe her.  

I believe there is an answer out there somewhere, I/we just haven’t stumbled on it yet.  

And... thank you for your promopt attention and diagnostic prowess.


DoctorDan

DoctorDan,

So the C drive is around 98 GB and contains around 15 GB of data. That should go onto a 120 GB HD easily.

Humour me. Do it this way....

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1117581957;start=0

wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 6:24pm:

I downloaded the bootSE98.exe  file to a diskette hoping there would be some sys files on it. I got the NTLDR error.  OK, no sys files

After downloading the boot98se.exe to your HD, did you double click on the file and let Windows write to the floppy?

No, I just copied the file to the diskette not anticipating that it might be a compressed file.  

I'll go back to the drawing board and re-do that last step.

Hang loose.


DoctorDan

Success.  

Thank you .  I just didn't realize that the rescue diskette was ZIPPED.  

I have a few more questions.  So, I will go off-line to compose them and probably re-post later.


DoctorDan

wrote on Apr 11^th, 2006 at 7:38pm:

Success.

Does that mean fdisk /mbr worked and you now have the 120 GB HD booted up?

Sho' nuf.  

It looks just like the big one except for the e-mail traffic that I missed during the last week.  

Doctor Dan

Now for the difficult questions.

I know that Ghost 2003 does not support USB, therefore I cannot use it.  Besides that, I’d have to get under the covers and fool with the cables and jumpers etc. which is what I am trying to avoid.

The Ghost 9 booklet of instructions illustrate the Ghost 2003 procedure of hardwiring the second drive onto the flat cable as a slave and booting from the CD.  In essence, it is a newer version of 2003.  No change here except that the diskette is gone.   Still under the covers and fooling with cables.

My external USB enclosure Acomdata requires the drive to be set as master.  Their engineer said it was OK because the USB master is not in conflict with the IDE master.

So, it appears that I’ll have to:
change the BIOS boot sequence to start with the Ghost 9 CD,
connect and power up the external USB drive.  
Power up the main unit next and cross my fingers that Ghost 9 behaves as expected.  

This is where I get nervous because once the system is powered up, will the USB drive letters get re-assigned because of their plug and play design or will they remain static? If Ghost does what I expect it to, the drive letters will remain the same.  However, if the boot changes my external “C:” drive to the next higher available drive letter, I am in trouble.  I see the fdisk /mbr routine becoming part of the process.  Not good.

Is there any unique sequence of events that I need to perform to achieve my goal of cloning from the 300 gig internal to the 120 external via USB connector with Ghost 9.0?  My goal is to have a fully functional external drive after cloning without having to remove covers or fooling with cables.

I am sure there are others who are following this thread because a lot of good can come from it if and when the procedure works.  

Thanks,

Doctor Dan

I'd like NightOwl to add some thoughts to this thread. I've never cloned to a USB external HD before so I don't know the problems. I would like you to read the thread below about cloning and images. I think you are on the wrong track. Let us know if you really want to avoid images but I think they are the way to go for backup. Especially reply #7.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1132968474;start=7#7

You can change E and F to Y and Z (or whatever) in Disk Management and then change G and H to E and F if they are just data partitions.

I’ve been off digesting all of the good information about partitioning etc.  As you can tell, my experience is with fully functional clone hardware.  This “image thing” is unfamiliar to me, and therefore somewhat foreboding without knowing a little more about the mechanics and recovery methods.  

Can you point me in the direction of a good tutorial to walk me through the process?  I got the feeling that when I read the Ghost 9.0 instruction book, it was like being handed a dictionary and told, “All of the words for the greatest selling novel are inside, all you have to do is put the right words together, good luck.”  

I need that overview and more specifically, the HOW TO process.

Thanks,

Doctor Dan

DoctorDan,

Good answer. You need to be convinced that it's right for you.

http://ghost.radified.com/

http://partition.radified.com/

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm#partsigs

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#13

To summarise, images are for backup, clones are for changing to a new HD. In fact I use images for the latter and have only cloned for testing purposes. For example, your image will be around 8 GB so it takes up 8 GB of space on your external HD as opposed to 100 GB for your clone. So instead of one clone you can have multiple images if you desire. With Ghost 9/10 I do a baseline image weekly and incremental images daily. I delete images when they are 3 to 4 weeks old but I burn a baseline image to DVD every few months for long term storage. You can't do any of this with clones. To restore an image from your external HD to an internal HD takes 5-10 minutes and you are up and running. To swap in a cloned HD might only take a few minutes but what if it doesn't boot and you have to look for a floppy?

To restore the OS partition.. (for Ghost 9)

Boot to the Ghost CD
Set the Time Zone
Advanced Recovery Tasks
System Restore
dot in Restore drives          ,Next
dot in Single drive            ,Next
Browse to your image file      ,Next
Select a destination           ,Next
tick Verify backup
tick Check for file system errors after restore
tick Resize drive to fill unallocated space (Y or N) Will be greyed out if partition is correct size
tick Set drive active (for booting OS)
tick Restore original disk signatures
tick Restore MBR (for new HD's)
Next
tick Reboot after finish
Finish

Check computer clock after OS boots. May be out by an hour or two.

Sorry if this has been covered before (it kind of has but the answer didn't work for me). My system has an original 80GB hard drive partitioned into C: and D:. I just installed a new 160GB HD alongside the original. I was hoping to clone the entire contents (both partitions) onto the new drive, then make the new drive the boot drive, using Ghost 9.0.

I read the threads about having to copy partitions one at a time. The Help documentation says: "If the hard drive you are copying contains more than one partition (for example, a C:\ drive, a D:\drive, an E:\ drive, and so forth), you must copy each partition, one at a time, to the new hard drive." but it's not working for me.

I can copy C: (using "Copy Drive") no problem. However, when I copy D:, the destination drive letter selections are greyed out - I just wind up with a copy of D:

I guess I could achieve what I want with images, but the discussions here imply that Copy Drive should work and there's something I'm not quite getting.

Any help would be appreciated.

MikeT,

I don't think that you have a problem.

When the OS copy is complete the new partition isn't visible in Windows Explorer because it doesn't have a drive letter. It is visible in Disk Management however. Then copy D: drive as you have done.

On first boot (with the old HD removed) your data partition will be D: drive. When you reinstall your old HD as a slave, the old data partition will be assigned a lower drive letter.

Beautiful! Thanks for the quick reply - this really wasn't obvious from the documentation!

Was the old OS partition hidden when you installed the old HD as a slave? That is, no drive letter.

The point that I was really missing was the one about copying to UNALLOCATED SPACE. When I first installed the new HD I ran the manufacturer's (Seagate's) installer, which put a partition on the disk. I guess that's why the drive letter choice was grayed-out when I tried to do the Ghost  Copy Drive - there wasn't any unallocated space.

Since the whole process worked out very nicely in the end, I feel I should summarize it here - might be useful to someone else:

My original configuration was a Maxtor 80GB partitioned (when I bought the system) as C: (primary) 16GB + D: (logical) 61GB.

That Maxtor drive was ~ 4 years old & making me increasingly nervous. The plan was to buy a new drive, move everything to the new drive, then use the old drive as backup (on the assumption that the old drive would fail first & in this new configuration I could simply replace it it without any rebuilding agony).

The new drive was a Seagate 160GB partitioned (by the Seagate installer) as H: (primary).

I used the Windows Disk Manager (Start -> Administrative Tools -> Computer Management -> Disk Management) to delete the H: partition - now I had  “Disk 0” with partitions C: and D:, and “Disk 1” with 149GB of Unallocated Space.

This is the situation I should have been in when I first tried working with Ghost. From here on everything went by the book:

(1) Did Ghost Copy Drive  - C: to Disk 1 Unallocated Space.
    (no drive letter, copy MBR)

(2) Did Ghost Copy Drive  - D: to Disk 1 Unallocated Space.
    (no drive letter, no MBR, Resize Drive to Fill Unallocated
      Space)

(3) Shut down computer, set the jumpers on the new Seagate drve to Master, disconnected the old Maxtor data & power connectors, re-booted.

(4) System came up wanting to do a CHKDSK on C: - ok.

(5) Everything looked good  -  at this point C: looked the same as before (16GB with ~ 1GB free), while D: was 133GB with 130GB free. Contents of both looked good.

(6) Shut down computer, set jumpers on old Maxtor to Slave, reconnected data & power cables, re-booted.

(7) System came up nicely - the configuration looked like this:

   C:  16GB  with 1 GB free          (on the new Seagate)
   D:  133GB with 130GB free       (on the new Seagate)
   H:  16GB  with 1 GB free          (on the old Maxtor)
   I:   60GB  with 57GB free         (on the old Maxtor)

I'll probably run it like this for a while (until I stop shaking!) then delete H: and I:, possibly combine them into 1 large partition, and use it for Ghost image backups.

Thanks for the timely help - I could have struggled with this for quite a while.

MikeT,

Thanks for that excellent summary. That's how it should be done.

You can also do Copy Drive into partitions with the exception of the OS. The OS must be copied into Unallocated Space otherwise you will have trouble getting the new OS to boot. Data partitions can be copied (cloned) to partitions if you like.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=1148252120;start=

Correct me if i am wrong but the days of using ghost to "clone" like pre-ghost 9 are gone. Ghost is only good now to make a back up of the HD to a spare HD, in case of a crash. what happened to "cloning"? As in one would boot up with a dos disk run ghost.exe and create a .gho file. the only reason we when to 9 is trying to use bartsPE to "clone" a system with a usb nic driver being can't seem to get a usb nic to work in dos.

Hello !

I am new here, and I need some help.
I have a HDD with two partitions
C and D (Both of them are FAT 32)

This is a multiboot system, so first I installed Win98 onto drive C, and after that I installed XP onto drive D
I can choose between the OS's at booting, as usual.

Now, I would like to copy the drive (both of the partitions) to a new and bigger HDD

I read this forum, so I found this:
Of course, I will boot in XP, Ghost is installed under XP.

(1) Ghost Copy Drive  - C: to Disk 1 Unallocated Space.
    (no drive letter, copy MBR)

(2) Ghost Copy Drive  - D: to Disk 1 Unallocated Space.
    (no drive letter, no MBR, Resize Drive to Fill Unallocated  
 Space)

(3) Shut down computer, set the jumpers on the new HDD to Master, disconnect the old HDD reboot.

I hope it will work, and please tell me - I must copy MBR of C drive with WIN98, and I don't need set anything on D drive with the XP?

XP give its boot records to C too, doesn't it ?
XP copies only the its files and folders on partition D, doesn't it ?

And I hope, Ghost can copy the partition with WIN98
without any problems.

Please answer me, because the HDD has strange voices...
I would like to do the copy as soon as possible

Thank you very much.

Chamb,

Your approach should work. Just follow the instructions in my initial post and “set drive active (for booting OS)” only for the C: drive copy. You only need to tick “Copy MBR” once. It doesn't matter which clone you choose as the MBR is not contained in either partition.

Let us know the outcome.


PS See "What's Wrong with the Microsoft Way?"

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/principles.htm

Thank You !
I will try it !

Two more questions :

1., I made a backup image from the C and D partitions
What's the order if I would like to copy my driver from these images

2., "Resize Drive to Fill Unallocated"
Can i begin with copying D, and after this copying C to the same drive of course, and setting  OS active,
and now resize drive to fill - I would like to have more space on the C partition on the new drive, instead of D

Is it possible ? Thanks

Restore the C: drive first. You need to have the partitions in the same order as the original HD. The link I posted indicates that if you resize the partitions then the dual boot may fail. So keep the same C: drive size but you "may" be able to resize the D: drive.

If I would like to use my backup images instead of copy drive function, is the method the same ?

Hm, I checked your link
I found this:

"Subsequent resizing of your partitions may break the dualboot. Tools like PartitionMagic can non-destructively resize partitions and adjust the PBR correspondingly, but remember, the 98 "boot sector" was captured and tucked away in the bootsect.dos file. It doesn't get fixed as its partition is resized, so when you later try to boot 98, the resurrected boot sector no longer matches the partition. "

It doesn't sound so good....
I hope XP will work at least...

Chamb,

It doesn't matter if you use Copy Drive from Windows or Image Restore from the Ghost CD Recovery Environment. Just personal preference. But in your case I'd use a blank HD (Unallocated Space) either way. To help avoid the Dual Boot problem.

My preference for your computer, I'd use Copy Drive. Copy C: drive and then copy D: drive and tick resize the  D: drive to fill unallocated space in Ghost. If the dual boot is broken I'd reinstall the new HD as a slave, delete both partitions from Disk Management, reboot and do the Copy Drive again but not resize the D: drive this time. The latter process should definitely work.

Keep us informed.

Hello Brian

It was a kind of adventure to me, but now,it seems to work.
So, I installed my new HDD (80 GB Seagate) the old Maxtor is a 20 GB one, with the two partitions.

I did as we told, copy partition C, OS activate, copy MBR, no resize. It was an easy one.
Now, next was partition D, with the resize function.
And the problems began.
At about 90 %, Ghost wrote an error - device unreachable, or something similar.
Well, I tried it (why not ? ) Old HDD is out from the computer, new one installed, set to master - boot.
Win98 on C works perfectly.
Let's try booting XP - XP cannot find hal.dll.
I said OK, I put this new HDD to an USB Rack, and I watched it in my other computer, under XP.
In manage, I have seen both of the new partition, but the second was damaged, of course. I deleted this second partition, and made a new one - a new logical one.
I took the old HDD, and put it my USB Rack, and I simply copied all of the datas of partition D to one of my partition on my computer. It was an hour, now, new HDD went to the USB Rack, and I copied all of the D to its second logical partition.
So, I went to my wife's computer, put the new HDD and what happened ? It worked ? No, it didn't :)
It hanged at the welcome screen....
I read about this situation, so I contacted a floppy drive to this computer, and I found a WIN98 bootdisc
Booting computer with the floppy, and fdisk /mbr.
Restart - and it works.
I have a working, multibooting and resized HDD.
It is simply, isn't it ?
:-))

Thanks for your help.
We did it
:)

Chamb wrote on Dec 12^th, 2006 at 2:53pm:

I have a working, multibooting and resized HDD.

That's what we wanted to hear. Great work.

Anyway, I don't know why did an error occure during copying... One of my friend wanted to restore its drive from an image written to DVD a few days ago, and he called me really angry, because the restore was unsuccesfull, because it crashed after 4-5 % , to a 'one file missing' -error...

Maybe Ghost 9 is not so reliable ?
Is Ghost 10 better ? Or more stable ?

Chamb, I've used Ghost 9 and 10 and haven't seen any restore errors. I don't know why you had an error. I would have re-tried the same process.

I don't restore images from DVDs. Writing Ghost 9 and 10 images to DVDs can be unreliable and is hardware dependent.

there is some thing wrong in the state of denmark.

post back and we will help