Helllo all,

        I had 7 DVDs containing ghost imges made by using Ghost 2003. These are old images, however I have misplaces the last 2 DVDs are not to be found.

       My trouble is that I need to recover some important data, that I am sure to find within the first 2 of the spanned images. Note that these images are having the extension .v2i.

       Is there a way to mount any one of the spanned image file independently of the other spanned image file, so that I can look up what data exists in wach of the spanned image file to try and recover it.

      Please help me!

Sam,

Are you sure about the .v2i extension? That's for Ghost 9/10, not for Ghost 2003.

Yes, these are .v2i files.. And I checked, and yes these files were made using ghost 9

I have only 5 out of 7 parts of the spanned image. How do I retrieve data off the first 5 parts?

Sam, realistically speaking, you face quite a challenge.  I recommend that you ask Symantec to see if they are willing to share specifications about the internal format used by .V2I files as well as about the compression algorithm.  It doesn’t hurt to ask, but I would be exceedingly surprised if Symantec provided such details, probably because they perceive it to be a ‘trade secret.’  If the .V2I files are password protected, then that adds yet another layer of complexity to the problem.

In any case, ask Symantec to see if you can learn more about the structure and format of the .V2I files – and, if Symantec can recommend any solution to the problem (such as a third-party service provider who performs file recovery from .V2I files).

I went on to symantec live chat (after almost 6 hours of waiting.. !!). The support guy, said I'll need all the parts to be present. So he gave up on my issue, saying there is no solution.

Well, my image is not password protected.. I'll try and email them and ask what you did.. but by the sound of it, the chances are very slim that I might get a solution.

Actually, it can happen to anybody that a person stores backup on say 4 discs and 1 of them become corrupt..  Why should the user then, lose data on all the other 3 discs? So what is thery are spanned.. !!

This problem might not be so common.. But I didn't like the way symantec makes it so difficult (read impossible for the moment) to recover data off corrupted images.

Sam Sunders

Well, to be fair--you don't have a corrupt image set--you have misplaced a couple of the discs--not quite the same.

Sam, I understand your frustration.  Your experience does highlight the importance of storing a Ghost image on multiple destinations so as to guard against media failure.  In my own case, my primary Ghost storage is a slave internal hard disk drive and my secondary storage is DVD discs.  The hope is that both media (the hard disk drive and the DVD discs) will not fail at the same time.

As the number of CD or DVD discs used to store a Ghost image increases, so too does the likelihood that the image will not be able to be restored.  If the failure rate (p) of a set of discs (N) is independent, then the probability that one or more discs in the Ghost backup set will be unusable is equal to Np.

Pleonasm wrote on May 6^th, 2006 at 1:35pm:

If the failure rate (p) of a set of discs (N) is independent, then the probability that one or more discs in the Ghost backup set will be unusable is equal to Np.

Pleonasm,
Given that it is more likely than not that the discs are stored near each other, I would say the probability that if one were lost/misplaced is not independently independent to another being lost/misplaced.   ;D

Ghost4me, I agree with your observation.  My comment was directed to the case concerning media failure (i.e., a CD or DVD becoming defective) rather than human error.

The bottom line impact, nonetheless, is that an image spanned over multiple optical discs becomes more risky as the number of discs increase.  Redundancy is the key word in any backup strategy, and the concept applies to media.  Personally, I save the most recent six months of Ghost 10 images on DVD+R discs, so that I have a redundancy across media types (hard disk drive, DVD discs) as well as within the optical media avenue.

Although I predicted that Symantec would not be able to assist Sam, it is still unfortunate that Symantec could not make available a recovery point browser tool that functions with incomplete image file sets.  Maybe an enterprising indepenent programmer will create such a third-party tool in the future?

Pleo,

I was just joking and adding some humor with my post!  :D

Sam Sunders

You could consider contacting one or more of the *data recovery* services--such as *Ontrack Data Recovery*, etc., and asking if they offer any means of accessing an incomplete CD ghost image set or a set with a corrupted disc--this is not the first time I've seen this issue--and maybe the recovery services have developed a solution--but, I've not seen anything like that advetised.

Hey, Ghost4me, I know it was humor – no problem!

NightOwl, I did check the listing of file formats that Ontrack claims to be able to repair, but unfortunately .V2I is not listed.  Nonetheless, it would not hurt for Sam to call Ontrack and ask about the situation.

wrote on May 5^th, 2006 at 2:05am:

"... I had 7 DVDs containing ghost images made by using Ghost 2003... Note that these images are having the extension .v2i..."

A set of Norton Ghost 2003 spanned images with the extension .v2i ?  In my experience, I have yet to see anything other than .gho and .ghs.

EP :'(