I just bought a new Toshiba A205 Satellite running Vista Ultimate preloaded.  I've been making DOS-based Ghost 2003 backups.  Has anyone tried restoring Ghost 2003 images to Vista?

FYI, there are two partitions on the Vista notebook's 200GB SATA HD:  1) 1.5GB "unknown" partition (is this the Vista restore points, etc. partition???), and 2) the remaining space is an NTFS partition.

I backed up the Vista full disk image to external USB 2.0 hard drive using a DOS Ghost 2003 boot CD with the following switches:

GHOST.EXE -split=690 -cns -auto -z9   (so I can burn off to CDs or DVDs at my choice later to make space for newer backups)

By the way, Vista complains that the Windows install of Ghost 2003 has a known compatibility problem with Vista, but doesn't state anything further, so I haven't installed the Windows portion yet.

Questions:

1.  Can I install the full Ghost 2003 (Windows install) on Vista without screwing anything up?  Has anyone done this???

(If nothing else, I'd like to have Ghost Explorer installed to be able to do selective file restores.)

2.  What are the steps to properly back up and restore a full disk Vista image with Ghost 2003 (in DOS)?  Other posts here seem to indicate Vista does something different with the MBR.

Any help appreciated.

GhostUser

ghostuser


Quote:

1.  Can I install the full Ghost 2003 (Windows install) on Vista without screwing anything up?  Has anyone done this???

No one that I've seen here has posted that they have installed Ghost 2003 on Vista--just have reported the warning about not being compatible!


Quote:

(If nothing else, I'd like to have Ghost Explorer installed to be able to do selective file restores.)

Do you have Ghost Explorer installed on another system?  Just find the *Ghostexp.exe* program from the *Norton Ghost* sub-directory, and copy it over to the Vista system.  Execute it and see if it works.  I have copied the *Ghostexp.exe* to systems that do not have Ghost installed and it has worked fine--but those where either WinXP or Win98--so I can't vouch for Vista.


Quote:

Has anyone tried restoring Ghost 2003 images to Vista?

Ghost 2003/Ghost 8.2 and Windows Vista

Vista and Symantec Ghost 8.x

Copied *Ghostexp.exe* over to this Vista Ultimate install and it works no probs in opening the image I created with the Ghost floppy.

Geez your good NightOwl! 8-)

Seems I may just have one of my favourites apps, being Ghost 2003, working fine on this Vista/sata drive machine.

Installed Ghost 2003 in it's entirety as a test.

Two compatibility warnings came up, one before the install and one when I initated ghost but the gui came up as per norm and ghost tray icon is there as well.

Ghost Start Service is in services and has started.

As I'm running in Returnil mode (virtual) atm where no changes are kept after a reboot I will try a few things after a reboot into real mode and reinstall Ghost 2003.

Oneder


Quote:

Geez your good NightOwl!  8-)

You're welcome!

And thanks for your report back on your experience with installing Ghost 2003 on Vista--I'm betting the real potential problems occur on an OS restore where the new Vista boot sequence uses the *BCD-based boot manager* rather than the *boot.ini* of WinXP.

But, if you do the necessary changes outlined here:  Vista and Symantec Ghost 8.x, it may work fine.

Please continue to report back with your experiences--we're all learning from these kinds of efforts and reports!

Will look into that link NightOwl.

Where I'm at now.

Installed Ghost 2003 on this Vista / sata drive machine and disregarded the compatibily warnings.

Seemed to install fine and on executing another warning came up which I OK'd / don't warn again.

Added the -noide switch and attempted a ghost image.

It actually rebooted into dos and made the image but after finishing the image it rebooted to a black screen with the blinking curser.

Rebooted with my boot floppy and "ghrebooted" which executed no probs booting back into Vista.

Went back into dos with the ghost floppy and performed an image check which came up fine.

Have to go and have few beers now and will peruse the link about the bcedit a bit later.

Oneder

Good work--I await your further reports!

Hooked up the Vista 120 gig "IDE" drive.

I think I was supposed to run the commands below which I did and were succesful.

"Logon as Administrator and from a command prompt invoke the following changes:
BCDEDIT /set {bootmgr} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} device boot
BCDEDIT /set {default} osdevice boot "

Attempted a ghost image of C saved to E which locked up as per the initial problem.

Booted from the floppy and "ghreboot.exe" and went back into windows.

Now this is the funny part as I added the -noide switch on this ide drive and Ghost made the image but locked up at the black screen with the blinking cursor.

Ghrebooted from the floppy and all is well.

Tried an image restore with 320 gig sata drive which was succesful but ghost still locked up after restoring the image  at the black screen / blinking cursor.

Ghrebooted back into Vista and the image was restored and seems spot on at this stage.

Well at least I have a working Ghost 2003 here on these Vista Ultimate installs on both the ide and sata drives.

Seems just adding the -noide switch to both the sata and ide drives gives me the ability to create and or restore a ghost image with having to to use my Boot Me floppy and use the ghreboot.exe command to boot back into Vista which is only a minor annoyance which I can live with. :)

Oneder


Quote:

Hooked up the Vista 120 gig "IDE" drive.

Got *lost* here--your notebook has the option of either IDE or SATA?!  Opps--I see you are not the original poster with the *notebook*, i.e. *ghostuser*--we switched gears here...!


Quote:

Added the -noide switch and attempted a ghost image.

I didn't see an explanation for why you tried or needed that switch--was there a problem on your previous Ghosting attempts without it?  Or, were you trying to see if that switch would allow the system to successfully re-boot from the *virtual Ghost partition* back to the Vista partition with using *ghreboot.exe*?

You could also try the *-fni* switch:  see here Re: Bootable cd without floppy


Quote:

Seems just adding the -noide switch to both the sata and ide drives gives me the ability to create and or restore a ghost image with having to to use my Boot Me floppy and use the ghreboot.exe command to boot back into Vista which is only a minor annoyance which I can live with.

You could simply by-pass the *virtual partition* by creating a bootable floppy or optical disc with Ghost on it--boot directly to DOS, do your Ghost thing, and then remove the floppy and boot back to your regular OS from the HDD--skipping the need for *ghreboot.exe*.

You might also find this thread of interest:  Ghost 2K3: My Experiences

Really bad news: I just had a string of problems with Vista Ultimate.  During a system restore point restoration, Vista crashed with a Blue Screen of Death, and all my restore points are now gone. :-[

So I'm desperately in need and would *really* appreciate a quick and straightforward answer to my original question:

2.  What are the steps to properly back up and restore a full disk Vista image with Ghost 2003 (in DOS)?  Other posts here seem to indicate Vista does something different with the MBR.

My Vista backups are all Ghost 2003 disk (not partition) images.  I haven't needed to restore until today.  Do I just restore the disk image via the DOS Ghost interface per usual with prior Windows versions, or is anything else required (e.g. additional command switches) for Vista?

All suggestions GREATLY appreciated.

here is a work around which because I do not have Vista I can not confirm
Night Owl may be can confirm it .or Not !
=====================
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14127&st=38&start=38
========================
the trouble is that most of the computers like Dell, Toshiba, IBM , HP, all have
restore partitions , some of them like IBM have a boot manager that if you press say
F10, or F11 key it boots from the recovery partition ,
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=14127&st=23&start=23

others (vista)go straight to recover it you press F8, so by using these work arounds one can Knaker the Boot Manager for recovery partition.
so you got to be careful. as yours is a Toshiba .
=============================
this has been discussed in length some where on this forum and the experts like Night owl
can advise you on general situation but not on individual computers.
my advise is do not mess around with the recovery partition (say enlarging it or reducing it
or demolishing it)
======================
and Microsoft got their own imaging way of doing things complicated!!!
http://www.boxpost.orangehome.co.uk/vistaimaging.htm
===========================
Starting WinRE

WinRE should be available on most computers and is loaded in different ways depending on how the manufacturer has changed the visual style of the recovery process.



Packard Bell
WinRE will start automatically on Packard Bell system which have Windows Vista pre-installed and which have startup issues.

If you upgraded to Windows Vista, or installed Windows Vista yourself, you can start WinRE as follows:

Insert your Microsoft Windows Vista DVD and restart your system.
Allow your system to start from this DVD.
You'll get the Windows Vista installation wizard.
On the first page, you'll be prompted for the language and regional settings you prefer. Select your preferred settings and click Next.
On the next page of the wizard, click Repair my PC.
After a while you will get the WinRE menu.

Advent, Patriot, Philips-Freeventsâ„¢ and Ei System
WinRE can be loaded by tapping F8 on startup and choosing to Repair your Computer.  Once loaded choose the option to Start Microsoft Windows Repair Environment.

HP/Compaq
Load the recovery program by tapping F11 on startup.  Click Advanced Options where you will have the folowing options available to you.  Simply select the one you require and click next to launch the tool.


Computer checkup
Launches the PC Doctor diagnostic tools that has a basic test, hard drive test, optical drive test and CPU/Memory test.
Microsoft Startup Repair Tool
Launches the startup repair tool.  This tool will attempt to fix any startup issues being encountered.
Microsoft System Restore
Launches System Restore allowing you to take the machine back to a previous date when the machine was working ok providing a restore point has been created.  This process can now be run without having to load into windows first and should help to resolve most software issues.
File Backup Wizard
Launches the HP/Compaq backup wizard allowing you to backup your data to an external hard drive or USB pen drive.
System Recovery
Launches the recovery process.


==================================================
no offense intended  
with respect
Regards Ben
:)


 

Thanks Ben, I appreciated the quick response.  Unfortunately, your first two links didn't work for me -- neither IE7 or Firefox could find the pages.

There's nothing like just jumping in and doing it, so I did.  I thought it might help to share with others how it went, and what was needed in terms of cleanup and repair since it needed some extra TLC after the restore:

1.  First, I backed up all of the Vista "User" directories to my external USB HD for a current data backup since I was restoring a backup from mid-July.

2.  Next, I rebooted with my Ghost 2003 boot CD, and selected to restore the entire disk from image.  In the Ghost screens, I noticed that my original "unknown" partition (the "Toshiba System Volume" in Vista) was 1500 MB and Ghost had resized it to 1506 MB.  Ghost would not allow me to change that value, so I left it and the NTFS partition's size as-is per Ghost's dialog.

3.  Rebooted after the Ghost restore finished, mentally crossing my fingers.

4.  Naturally, Vista wouldn't reboot that easily.  During early bootup, it complained that it couldn't find the path to the windows startup file as the path was invalid, and refused to reboot.  It suggested inserting the Vista install disk and selecting the repair option, which was actually quite helpful.

5.  FYI, like many laptop manufacturers, Toshiba doesn't provide a Vista install disk, but rather a system recovery disk.  So I was understandably curious/anxious to see if this was going to work.  I inserted the Toshiba recovery disk #1, rebooted, and selected the system restore option (not the Toshiba restore option above it).

6.  It found my Vista installation and reported an error with the partition.  I clicked Next for it to fix it, and rebooted.

7.  Sure enough, Vista rebooted normally, and I was very relieved to see my previous system!  However, upon my admin login, it auto-detected a "generic volume" and added it, which seemed odd since the hard drive was obviously working.

Next, I discovered the System Restore Points needed fixing!

8.  Since Ghost 2003 (DOS) couldn't properly "see" the "unknown" partition, I suspected it may have lost my prior Vista "restore points".  Sure enough, under "System Protection", it listed 3 disks (I only had 2 disks listed before), and none had any restore points.  Also, clicking on the "System Restore" button resulted in an error dialog each time, something to the effect of an invalid disk or label.  I also could not create any new system restore points.  Defintely not good!!!   >:(

9.  I discovered the "new" volume it added had the same name as my C: volume above it, but the new volume had a folder icon to the left instead of the windows drive icon.  To the right of the new volume, it said "( C: ) (Missing)" instead of "( C: ) (System)".  Also, my regular C: drive volume wasn't "checked" for creating restore points, but the "new" volume was checked.

Solution:  Unchecked all drives and clicked "Apply" to clear out all restore points since Vista reported there were none anyway.  Clicked OK.  When I reopened the System Protection dialog, the strange "new" volume was gone, and I was back to my regular "Toshiba System Volume" and my Vista Windows volume.  Yes!

I was then able to "check" the regular Windows volume "( C: ) (System)", and clicked "Apply".  Now I could click on "Create" to save a brand new baseline restore point.  This could save me some time instead of having to doing another long Ghost restore later.

So that's where I'm at now.  I just need to restore my data files created since that backup, and reinstall a few programs and updates I added since then.  I haven't fully tested Vista out yet, but so far it looks pretty good.  Sure beats having to reinstall and re-tweak everything from scratch!  Far more hours/days needed for that!

Like I said, hopefully this will be helpful to others who may find themselves in a similar situation.  This was done on a Toshiba Satellite A205 laptop, so there might be some differences between brands.  At least I seem to have my answer.   8-)  If there's an easier way to do this, I'm all ears.

Would also be very interested to hear how Ghost 12 is working with Vista -- might be worth the upgrade if it saves me the time and trouble by doing a cleaner restore.

All My Best,

Ghost User

ghostusr wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 9:55pm:

Would also be very interested to hear how Ghost 12 is working with Vista -- might be worth the upgrade if it saves me the time and trouble by doing a cleaner restore.

ghostuser,

I'd like to see numerous reports of successful restores too.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1186616396

ghostuser

Good to see you found a work around--keep us posted on your on-going testing of the restored Vista OS!


Quote:

If there's an easier way to do this, I'm all ears.

This previously mentioned reference (Vista and Symantec Ghost 8.x), has *three* different solutions as to how to deal with DOS Ghost and Vista:

1.  Edit the BCD data before using Ghost to create images--so restores work without further issues,

2.  If you did not edit the BCD data before creating Ghost images, then restore the image--then boot from a PE boot disc (Windows Vista installation CD)--and now, apply those BCD data edits to the restored Vista OS boot partition.

3.  Use Ghost's *-FDSP* switch to force Ghost to preserve the disk signature when doing a restore--now I have not ever done this before, so I don't know if you have to use that switch when creating an image--or just when restoring the image--or both--my guess is you only need to use it when you restore--I'm betting that Ghost already has saved the *disk signature* when you create an image--but, by default it does not preserve it on a restore unless you use the switch to force that to happen.

NightOwl wrote on Aug 9^th, 2007 at 11:15pm:

Quote: If there's an easier way to do this, I'm all ears. This previously mentioned reference (Vista and Symantec Ghost 8.x), has *three* different solutions as to how to deal with DOS Ghost and Vista: 1.  Edit the BCD data before using Ghost to create images--so restores work without further issues, 2.  If you did not edit the BCD data before creating Ghost images, then restore the image--then boot from a PE boot disc (Windows Vista installation CD)--and now, apply those BCD data edits to the restored Vista OS boot partition. 3.  Use Ghost's *-FDSP* switch to force Ghost to preserve the disk signature when doing a restore--now I have not ever done this before, so I don't know if you have to use that switch when creating an image--or just when restoring the image--or both--my guess is you only need to use it when you restore--I'm betting that Ghost already has saved the *disk signature* when you create an image--but, by default it does not preserve it on a restore unless you use the switch to force that to happen.

Thanks NightOwl.  Sounds like I just lucked into performing option #2 above, since the Vista recovery boot disk repair option seems to have worked.  Or does the PE boot disk do something different?

I was sweating it for a few minutes there until it repaired it.  Although, I lost all my prior restore points, so it wasn't perfect.  Wish I knew about options 1 and 3 beforehand.  Oh well.

As a guess, it sounds like that new volume detected after the restore may have resulted from a difference in the drive signatures.

Would it be worthwhile to use option 1 (BCD edits) on my newly restored system, so that the next Ghost backup iterations would be more easily restored?  Also, is there any downside to running those three BCD commands that might be a problem later with Vista or any patches?  I ask because this BCD stuff is completely new to me.

Next, I'll have to look up the -FDSP switch to see when to apply it (backup and/or restore).  Might save me some extra effort, thanks.

In the long run, I'll probably just break down and purchase Ghost 12 after it's been out a while and more fully debugged and tested in the market.  Meaning: After Radified members report it works well.  But for now, it's nice to know that I got my system back, just without the prior restore points in the hidden partition.  Not such a bad trade off, all considered, and assuming I don't get any rude surprises from this down the road.

Well, several days later, it seems that my Vista restoration is acting okay.  I haven't run all programs or options since the restore, but in normal usage it seems fine so far.

I also just ran the three BCDEDIT commands as an administrator and they "completed successfully".  So hopefully, when I backup my my drive image going forward from this instance, I won't have to run the repair option from my Toshiba Vista recovery disk after each Ghost restore.

Whew!  Thanks again for the suggestions.  Just glad I got it back from my last backup.  Up to this point, I had only been making Ghost 2003 drive backups.  This was the first time I needed to restore.

Just thought I'd post an update here.  Although most things in Vista Ultimate worked well after the Ghost 2003 restore, I had to do a factory recovery restore from my Toshiba CD.

I discovered that although Vista booted okay after restoring the Ghost drive image and repairing it per my previous post, I couldn't run the Memory Diagnostics included in Vista.  It reboots the PC to run the diagnostics outside of Vista.  Well, it gave me an error that it couldn't find the file listed in the path beginning with \boot\..., so it wouldn't run.  If anyone knows of a fix for this specific problem, I'm all ears.

Even though I ran the three BCD commands, it just didn't fix that problem.  So I figured if that didn't work properly, what else wasn't right with Vista?  I also noticed it was taking much longer to boot up and shutdown, although that could've been due to some of the NIS 2007 settings I tweaked.  In the end, I did a factory restore and reloaded/reconfig'ed all my apps and Vista, and all is well.

I also performed a Windows Complete PC Backup and tested the restore.  It worked very well and was painless.  It compressed the files heavily onto only two 4.7GB DVDs, which is impressive for what took up ~30GB of hard drive space.  It also only took about 50 minutes, much faster than Ghost 2003 writing to my external USB 2.0 HD with the -Z9 heavy compression switch.

Granted, the Complete PC Backup feature is only available in Vista Business, Ultimate, and Enterprise, which leaves out the Home users.  But if all one needs is a simple drive image backup and restore utility, it really seems to work well.  Like most MS-included utilities, though, you don't get any bells or whistles, like Ghost's great ability to extract individual files from an image via Ghost Explorer.

I've been a die-hard Ghost user and supporter for many, many years.  I might eventually purchase the latest Ghost version made to support Vista after it's been out awhile and patched.  But for now I'll probably just stick with Vista's built-in image backup for restoring the OS and apps, and just make separate backups of the data files.

Hope this proves useful for anyone encountering similar issues.

ghostusr wrote on Sep 14^th, 2007 at 10:03am:

I've been a die-hard Ghost user and supporter for many, many years.  I might eventually purchase the latest Ghost version made to support Vista after it's been out awhile and patched.

Wait no more.  It's been patched.  I have Ghost 12 with Vista and ran LiveUpdate a couple days ago for Ghost 12 and it was updated/patched.

Ghost 12 Service Pack
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1187802080