Hi

I hope this is the proper place for this...

I'm using ghost corporate 7.5 to backup a group of machines I have. I've managed to get several PCI machines to work, but I can't seem to get some other machines to go and they all, perhaps coincidentally, are SCSI machines. The specific machine I'm attempting is a Dell Precision 420 with an AIC7899 SCSI card running xp sp2 (up-to-date patches) that is not in a domain and the console server is running 2003 r3 on a Dell PowerEdge 840.

Launching the backup from the server causes the client to reboot and, upon return, the normal xp login window is replaced by the ghost warning window. After a while, the ghost warning window goes away. That's it. It just disappears and the normal xp login window shows up. No reboot. Nothing. Just go ahead and login 'cuz there's nothing special going on here. Eventually, the console on the server shows that the backup has failed.

Watching the processes on the client (it's going to fail anyway), rtvscan and AISnapshot both start. Rtvscan seems to terminate normally, and a little while later AISnapshot quits. Can't really tell whether it dies or exits. The event viewer on the client has only 1 relevant event (that I can tell) that seems to be happening around the time that AISnapshot exits (as does ngctw32): "The Symantec Ghost Client Agent service terminated unexpectedly". The logfile on the console at the server shows success through "Changing logon settings" and failure at "To virtual partition".

The system disk on this machine has 1 partition (the whole disk) and has a little more than 10G free. It has been defragged, the pagefile has 2 extents, and the MFT is at 98% in 3 extents. On a second, identical (purchased at the same time) machine, the MFT is 72% in 3 extents and fails in the same manner. This machine also has a little more then 10G free.

The tail end of the debug output on the client is:

Received message #{CreateIncrementalSnapshot #<>}
9:12:37 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 disconnecting from <My IP Server Address>:1347
9:12:57 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 sending status to  <My IP Server Address>:1347
9:12:57 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 acknowledged by    <My IP Server Address>:1347
9:12:57 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 TCP connecting to  <My IP Server Address>:1347
Received message #{CreateIncrementalSnapshot #<>}
9:12:57 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 disconnecting from <My IP Server Address>:1347
9:13:07 PM 160.94.104.208:1346 TCP connecting to  <My IP Server Address>:1347
Received message #{CreateIncrementalSnapshot #<Short_Name -> 15>}
Received message #{Open #<Mode -> Read, Name -> "aierror.log", What -> File>}
Received message #{PreventLoginTask #<DisableLogin -> 0>}
Received message #{taskInProgess #<Cancel -> 0>}
Received message #{Shutdown #<Timeout -> 0, Name -> DOS, VirtualPartitionSize ->
5>}

Prior to this, it is just repeats of the output between the first 2 "Received Message" lines. I'm unable to find aierror.log on either the client or the server.

I've tried dropping the firewalls on both the client and the server with no change.

There doesn't seem to be any relevant SCSI drivers at Dell or Adaptec, though it seems any problems that might be created by them would be later on in the process.

I'm thinking this is a problem trying to alter the partition table, but I really have no idea. Even if that is the problem, I have no idea how to fix it. The kb mentions a few files that SYSTEM needs to have privs, but these all check out (gvpcfg.bin virtpart.dat). That was nothing more than a wild stab as all the conditions described for those being a problem have an actual error message.

Hi

This turned out to be a problem with the boot disk. Disk 0 on the machine was a zip drive and drive 1 was the system disk. Disabling the zip drive allowed it to attempt to reboot into ghost.

InAtari

Thanks for your report back on the results of your trouble shooting--glad you found the solution!