I've been using a Reatogo Ghost 9 disk, with the addition of the standalone restore program (V2ISR.EXE), for a while. I use the standalone restore program so that I can use the "Restore MBR" option, which preserves activations for programs like Photoshop CS2.

I recently moved to a D975XBX2 motherboard, with an Intel ICH7R SATA/RAID controller. I successfully built a new Reatogo Ghost 9 CD, and can make backups with no problem, i.e. Ghost 9 sees my RAID arrays ok.

But, I get the dreaded EC950001 problem when trying to run the standalone restore program. It sees my RAID arrays fine. I HAVE applied the paging file fix that caused this problem on previous Reatogo Ghost disks and have confirmed that my disk doesn't create a paging file.

I suspect that the standalone restore program just doesn't like my SATA/RAID drivers.

So, o helpful community members, two questions:

1. Anyone have a fix for this?
2. If not, is there a way to restore the MBR that's saved in the image file using the non-standalone restore program, to preserve application activations? The RESTOREMBR.EXE utility doesn't ask for an image file, so I'm wondering what MBR it's restoring!

Thanks! Alex.

AlexOsadzinski,

V2ISR.EXE. Is that LiveState Recovery? I guess it restores the MBR similarly to Ghost 9/10. These apps, from the recovery CD, restore the First Track, the first 63 sectors. As you point out, there is no option to restore the MBR from the Ghost 9 plugin on ReatogoXPE.

You can backup and restore the First Track with MBRWork. A free download.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/utilities.html

Download, put the exe on a bootable USB flash drive, boot to the flash drive and backup the First Track to the flash drive. Now you are ready to restore the First Track when it's needed. Be careful to backup the First Track of your HD and not the First Track of your flash drive. I almost made that mistake.

I haven't used RESTOREMBR.EXE so I'm not sure what it does either. I'll test it.

Very helpful, thanks!

V2ISR.EXE (and its associated V2ISR.MANIFEST file) is the application that the Symantec Ghost 9 RE runs when you restore a drive or drives. It's the "System Recovery Wizard".

I use it to avoid having to deactivate various apps before restore, and then activating them after restore. Photoshop and some others use the MBR for activation info, and seem to notice a change (and hence require reactivation) if you restore the system drive without restoring the MBR at the same time.

I wonder how others get around this problem? I'll certainly try your super suggestion.

Thanks!

Alex, I've read about Photoshop losing its activation after restoring an image but it has never happened to me. I assume this could happen when restoring an image to a new HD because when you restore an image to the same HD, the MBR should be unchanged. Have you had this problem with Photoshop?

Yes, I've had Photoshop lose its activation when restoring to the same drive. It may be related to the fact that it's actually a RAID array. I've been using the standalone restore (with Restore MBR selected) for several years, so haven't tested a "regular restore" recently. For all I know, it works fine now.

Alex, you jogged my memory. It did happen with Acrobat a few years ago. I had to activate after a restore. Hasn't happened again.

I should have mentioned you can run MBRWork from a bootable floppy as well.

A floppy? What's that?  ;D

I'll just integrate MBRWORK onto my Reatogo Ghost disk; it can save the MBR onto one of my data partitions, I would guess.

Acrobat activation seems to be even more problematic than Photoshop activation, in my experience. There's a set of secret incantations to make it work on a RAID array, with system-specific serial numbers provided by Adobe technical support. I expect to have to go through that on my new system, hence my strong desire to preserve activations after a Ghost backup and restore.

Thanks for your help!

AlexOsadzinski wrote on Dec 14^th, 2006 at 3:58pm:

I'll just integrate MBRWORK onto my Reatogo Ghost disk

Only works from DOS I'm afraid. If you get it to work from ReatogoXPE let me know.

Thanks for the warning. Life is too short for me to try to figure that out. Reatogo is a very useful tool indeed, but I find it, er, hard to comprehend the full beauty and breadth of its vision.

In other words, my puny mind doesn't really understand how it works. And the sheer fact that Frodo's Ghost 9 plugin works amazes me every time that I use it.

Booting from a flash drive (a great use for one of those 16MB tradeshow giveaways) will be just fine.

Interesting thread. Especially about the Adobe activations.

"What's a floppy?" .. made me chuckle.

Rad wrote on Dec 14^th, 2006 at 4:38pm:

"What's a floppy?" .. made me chuckle.

Me too.


Quote:

(a great use for one of those 16MB tradeshow giveaways)

So true. 16 MB is quite adequate.

AlexOsadzinski

You might find this tool, MBRWizard!  The MBR Management Utility, useful for independent backup and restore of the MBR absolute sector 0, or 0-62, or individual sectors as needed in the boot tract (head):  


Quote:

I initially designed MBRWizard with basic functionality as a DOS application, but quickly found the need for similar functionality within Windows, specifically for WinPE, which led to the addition of a Windows version,

Download here.

Reference on how to use it here!


Quote:

/Save=filename - Saves the current MBR to a file, where filename is the path+filename used to store the file.  Specifying /Sector=# on the command line will save the sector # specified rather than the MBR (Sector 0).  Additionally, specifying /sector=head will save the entire first head to file.

You probably need to backup the whole boot tract (head), i.e. absolute sector 0 thru 62.  If you manipulate the partitions after making a backup, then a new backup needs to be made!--if you restore an *old* Master Partition Table from absolute sector 0 to a system where you have changed the Partition Table since that backup, you will probably loose access to your current partitions!  (Make backup of current boot tract before restoring an *old* backup!)

It would be interesting if you tested this tool, and could report if it in fact does maintain the *activations for programs like Photoshop CS2.*

Perfect, thanks. I'll investigate.

Alex, I tried RESTOREMBR.EXE and it just writes generic boot code and a DiskID to absolute sector 0.

I zeroed a HD with CopyWipe, booted to ReatogoXPE and ran RESTOREMBR.EXE. It opens in a command window and asks whether you want to write a new MBR. After closing ReatogoXPE I checked the HD with DE. Apart from absolute sector 0, the HD was all zeros.

So you were wise to ignore it.

Wise? No. Lucky? Yes.  :)

Thanks for looking into it.

I have my new Reatogo Ghost 9 disk, with MBRWIZ, and it all seems to work. Now I need to see if it prevents Adobe activation problems.

I tried a bunch of things to get the standalone restore utility (the one that allows "Restore MBR") to work, but it just doesn't like the ICH7R drivers that I tried. But, of course, the "full" version of Ghost works fine under Reatogo/BartPE.

Thanks again for the help and advice. Much appreciated.

Alex, concerning your initial error. Have you tried older SATA drivers? I found that Intel 5.1.0.1022 were the best for my computer.

Interesting thought. I have 5.1.0.1022 now (from the Mass Storage Driver plugin), and have tried the current version. I'll try an older version.

Well, it was a good suggestion, but it didn't work out. I tried the 5.0.0.1032 drivers (the oldest I could find that support the ICH7R controller), as well as the two newer versions that I tried previously. Struck out on all of them. V2ISR.EXE just doesn't like this controller.

Bad luck. Ver 6 no good either?

Well, that's weird. The most recent download for the ICH7R on Intel's site, for my D975XBX2 motherboard, is 5.5.0.1035. I wondered why it was over a year old.

Thanks for the tip. I'll try the 6.2.0.2002 version tonight. I remain optimistic....