Hello forum! First time poster here searching for help.

Used the search function and read several threads but my problems are not solved.

I'm trying to build a Ghost boot floppy to save partition images to an external USB/Firewire hard disk (Lacie BigDisk Extreme+, 1 NTFS partition, 1 TB) but I'm not able to access this disk neither via USB nor firewire. My system (Asus P5B/Intel P965/Intel Core 2 Duo/2 GB RAM) has two other SATA hard disks (each with some NTFS/Linux/FAT32 partitions) and one SATA DVD-RW. Ghost is 2003 build 793.

1) Using the built-in BIOS USB support (no USB DOS drivers in config.sys), the external hard disk is recognized and listed by Ghost. When I select this drive to check/retrieve an image, Ghost opens the drive window but fails to report the directories/files already on the disk. If I try to force a partition>to image operation in that disk, I get an Error 622. Strangely I can perform a check on this disk (local>check>disk). From the ghosterror report it seems that Ghost is recognizing the Lacie (sector/head/capacity/file system, etc..., it has 2 disk, if this helps). What makes me crazy is that Ghost can check the disk but not the images already on the disk (copied from internal disks). I can perform any operation on all other drives (included the SATA DVD without loading gcdrom.sys!).

Here is my config.sys:
files=20
lastdrive=z

and autoexec.bat
@echo off
SET TZ=GHO-01:00
path=a:\
ghost

files on disk:
config.sys
autoexec.bat
command.com
msdos.sys
io.sys
ghost.exe

and here the drives reported by Ghost
1:1 NTFS drive
1:3 NTFS drive
2:2 NTFS drive
2:3 NTFS drive
2:4 NTFS drive
3:1 [Lacie] NTFS drive
@CD-R1 LITE ON DVDRW SHM-165S6S
A: local drive
C: local drive

(I omitted the names of the partitions of the internal sata disks; "C:" is a fat32 partition on the 2nd disk). Note that "USB Functions" and "USB legacy" are enabled in BIOS. If disabled, Ghost does not see the external disk at all.
The BIOS has many USB options ("Legacy USB, Port 64/66 emulation, USB 2.0 controller mode, BIOS EHCI Hand-off") and USB device emulations (FDD, Forced floppy, HD, CDROM). I have tried almost all combinations without success. I've also tried the following Ghost flags: -wd-, -ws-, -fni, -ffx.

Note also that the same boot disk does work flawlessy when the Lacie is linked by USB to my laptop (Thinkpad T61) with the BIOS USB support enabled: I can save and retrieve images from it without loading any USB DOS driver. This makes me suppose that the problem comes from the Asus P5B BIOS, not the Lacie. However the BIOS correctly reports the Lacie at start-up.

2) Using the Panasonic USBASPI manager (ver. 2.20) does not work either.
Here is the modified config.sys:
device=usbaspi.sys /e /v
device=di1000dd.sys
files=20
lastdrive=z

With this configuration, the behaviour varies with BIOS settings. If "USB functions" is disabled in BIOS I get an "Error: PCI UHCI/... USB host controller not found" and Ghost does not see the external drive; if "USB functions" and "USB legacy" are both enabled, the aspi manager does find two controllers but freezes initializing them and a hard reset is required. If "USB functions" is enabled but "USB legacy" disabled, the aspi manager does install itself and find the Lacie but the di1000dd driver causes a "division overflow error" and the system freezes.

Similar results with the aspiehci.sys USB driver that comes with Ghost: if "USB functions" and "USB legacy" are both enabled, the aspi manager freezes and hard reset is required. If "USB functions" is enabled but "USB legacy" disabled, the aspi manager does install itself and find the Lacie, then the blue Ghost screen appears but before the "About Norton" window (probably when Ghost is checking all drives), the program does stop and some lines of the screen become garbled with colours as if the video driver was corrupted. Probably there are dos messages and prompt, but these are unreadable. Adding guest.exe does nothing, no drive letter is assigned, probably because the disk is NTFS.

3) Using the Iomega Firewire driver provided by Ghost does not work (device=aspi1394.sys /int /all). I get a "no devices found" error. The Lacie is connected to a Firewire 800 PCI adapter (backward compatible).

I would prefer if Ghost could work without usb/firewire dos drivers (hey, the BIOS is pretty advanced and with all its options it should take care of a simple USB external disk; indeed Ghost does work with USB flash drives), however if this is not to be I would go the dos drivers route, but what I'm doing wrong in 2) and 3) above? And if I get the dos firewire/usb drivers working, is the NTFS-formatted Lacie a problem?
Thanks for any help and sorry for the long post.

bbct


Quote:

The BIOS has many USB options ("Legacy USB, Port 64/66 emulation, USB 2.0 controller mode, BIOS EHCI Hand-off") and USB device emulations (FDD, Forced floppy, HD, CDROM).

Your difficulties most likely reside somewhere in these options, as you have already speculated--and it may turn out that no combination of settings will create a *compatible* environment--and it may be the external HDD/system USB controller compatibility--or BIOS/software compatibility--so there are multiple permutations!


Quote:

Note also that the same boot disk does work flawlessy when the Lacie is linked by USB to my laptop (Thinkpad T61) with the BIOS USB support enabled:

Interesting!

I'm not a laptop owner, but a friend just bought a ThinkPad T61, and I had a chance to work with it for a couple hours:

Fresh out of the box, default BIOS settings for USB was *BIOS support for USB* enabled and *Power always on* disabled (this setting apparently keeps the USB power to various peripherals hot even when the system is powered down--some devices are rechargeable and this allows them to recharge even if the laptop is off--apparently only works if plugged into the AC outlet--not battery powered!).

Anyway, Ghost would not see the external USB HDD in this setup.  Loading the Panasonic USB DOS drivers would freeze the system when trying to scan for USB controllers!  If I set the *BIOS support for USB* to disabled, I could then load the Panasonic USB DOS drivers and Ghost would work fine.

Your statement above suggests the opposite experience--I'm not sure why we are reporting two completely different results!

The setting on the ThinkPad for *BIOS support for USB* loads DOS drivers in memory, and was so that booting from a USB device (external floppy drive, external CD-ROM drive, Flash drive, or external HDD) was available as an option--but apparently it did not make a USB HDD available for use in DOS by Ghost--but disabling it and then loading the DOS USB drivers did allow the drivers to load successfully and allowed Ghost access (my USB HDD was only 160 GB--Seagate).  So, disabling that setting did not disable the USB controller, it just disable support for booting from a USB device--and the Panasonic USB drivers could still see and use the USB controller.

So, from the above, where I'm trying to get is that you need a setup where the USB controllers are still available, but the BIOS is not actively injecting its own BIOS support for USB--then boot to DOS and load the Panasonic USB DOS drivers:

I would enable *USB 2.0 controller mode*, disable *Legacy USB* and *USB device emulations*--my thought being this should keep the controller active, but no DOS support is being added by the BIOS (I'm not sure as to what *Port64/66 emulation* is for!?).

Have you tried that combination--results?

NightOwl,

thank you for the reply and sorry for the delay, I can post only at office.


Quote:

Your difficulties most likely reside somewhere in these options, as you have already speculated--and it may turn out that no combination of settings will create a *compatible* environment--and it may be the external HDD/system USB controller compatibility--or BIOS/software compatibility--so there are multiple permutations!

using the built-in usb bios support (1, in my previous post) if I quit Ghost after unsuccesfully trying to read the external disk directory, I get a "memory allocation
error. Impossible to load Command, system blocked". However, what surpises me is that the bios can support the operations involved in Ghost checking the disk (and during this operation I can see that Ghost lists the files present there), but not those for reading and writing on it  >:(! And why a simple usb flash drive (admittedly, FAT formatted) does work?

As for the Thinkpad

Quote:

Your statement above suggests the opposite experience--I'm not sure why we are reporting two completely different results!

I don't know either! I checked again this morning and can confirm that it does works :-?. My Thinkpad is this one, bios version is 1.22 (08/27/2007), embedded controller version 1.06. I have both "bios support" and "always on USB" enabled. The external disk must of course be turned on before the laptop in order to be recognized.


Quote:

So, from the above, where I'm trying to get is that you need a setup where the USB controllers are still available, but the BIOS is not actively injecting its own BIOS support for USB--then boot to DOS and load the Panasonic USB DOS drivers: I would enable *USB 2.0 controller mode*, disable *Legacy USB* and *USB device emulations*--my thought being this should keep the controller active, but no DOS support is being added by the BIOS (I'm not sure as to what *Port64/66 emulation* is for!?). Have you tried that combination--results?

Yes and invariably get the "overflow error" loading the D1000 aspi driver (any ideas about this error?). I'll try to play with the aspi manager flags, just to see if anything changes. Note that if "usb functions" is enabled but "legacy support" is disabled in bios, all other options (included usb emulation) are unavailable and the bios does not reports the disk at start-up.

Please could you confirm that, should the dos drivers work, the NTFS format of the disk is not a problem? Otherwise, my efforts are useless!

Thanks a lot for your effort!

bbct


Quote:

Note that if "usb functions" is enabled but "legacy support" is disabled in bios, all other options (included usb emulation) are unavailable and the bios does not reports the disk at start-up.

That sounds like what you should need--don't want the BIOS reporting anything USB!


Quote:

2) Using the Panasonic USBASPI manager (ver. 2.20) does not work either. Here is the modified config.sys: device=usbaspi.sys /e /v device=di1000dd.sys files=20 lastdrive=z

I doubt it will make a difference, but I used Panasonic v2.15 on the ThinkPad:

v2.06, size=37,903, dated 11/26/2002

v2.15, size=39,093, dated 10/26/2003

v2.20, size=39,179, dated 11/07/2004

After clicking on the downloaded *.exe* file which extracts the enclosed files, you will find the *Usbaspi.sys* file in the *F2h* subdirectory.




Quote:

Yes and invariably get the "overflow error" loading the D1000 aspi driver (any ideas about this error?).

 
Shot in the dark--you might try loading *himem.sys* in [config.sys]--some systems do not manage memory correctly without a memory manager loaded.




Quote:

Please could you confirm that, should the dos drivers work, the NTFS format of the disk is not a problem?  Otherwise, my efforts are useless!

I have never run into a problem with NTFS and USB external HDD as long as the USB drive gets mounted correctly--admittedly, the USB external drive I used with the ThinkPad laptop was FAT32--but doubt my other USB HDD with NTFS partitions would have had any problems!  But, you never know!!!  For testing purposes, you could try adding a small test partition to the USB HDD (can be done without loosing other partition data if you use PartitionMagic!) so DOS does see at least one partition on the HDD!

Why would FAT32 on the external HDD be a *deal breaker* for you?


Quote:

indeed Ghost does work with USB flash drives

So, you are able to put a small Ghost image on a flash drive, do an image integrity check, and restore that image--all on the system where the external USB HDD will not work?!  That would tend to point the finger at the external HDD compatibility!!!  It's not uncommon for folks to have a particular external HDD brand not work--and another does!  Also, the capacity of the HDD is large--may be an issue--don't know!


Quote:

My Thinkpad is this one, bios version is 1.22 (08/27/2007), embedded controller version 1.06. I have both "bios support" and "always on USB" enabled.

The ThinkPad T61 that I worked with is not mine--so I don't have it here to confirm any information--but I do remember that the BIOS date was Aug., 2007.

Quote:

That sounds like what you should need--don't want the BIOS reporting anything USB!

Ok!


Quote:

I doubt it will make a difference, but I used Panasonic v2.15 on the ThinkPad:

Unfortunately it didn't, at least in my system  :'(


Quote:

Shot in the dark--you might try loading *himem.sys* in [config.sys]--some systems do not manage memory correctly without a memory manager loaded.

I tried this, both with and without dos in high memory, same overflow error. Hey, it was fun to go through the good old ms-dos manual after my last 80386!


Quote:

I have never run into a problem with NTFS and USB external HDD as long as the USB drive gets mounted correctly--admittedly, the USB external drive I used with the ThinkPad laptop was FAT32--but doubt my other USB HDD with NTFS partitions would have had any problems!  But, you never know!!!  For testing purposes, you could try adding a small test partition to the USB HDD (can be done without loosing other partition data if you use PartitionMagic!) so DOS does see at least one partition on the HDD!

This will be my next, and probably last try, tomorrow.


Quote:

Why would FAT32 on the external HDD be a *deal breaker* for you?

I don't have anything against FAT32, but I should have known that was important before formatting one tera of bytes  ;D


Quote:

So, you are able to put a small Ghost image on a flash drive, do an image integrity check, and restore that image--all on the system where the external USB HDD will not work?!

Well, I didn't really save images on it, but Ghost was able to read directory and files, that's impossible with the Lacie. I'll also try this tomorrow.


Quote:

That would tend to point the finger at the external HDD compatibility!!!  It's not uncommon for folks to have a particular external HDD brand not work--and another does!

:-/

I'll keep trying also to get the firewire working, at least in this case the bios should be out of the equation, maybe!
Thanks again for the input!

Hello again,
your USB drive has to be formated as FAt32 .
try this floppy choose USB1.1 from menu
http://www.postbox.wanadoo.co.uk/bootdrivers.exe
you need to down load it to your desk top
then have a empty formated floppy disk handy,
and then double click on the icon to make a bootable floppy.
boot with that floppy
choose USB1.1 from menu
it loads all the drivers under the sun and if you do not have that hardware it complains by beeping.
(so do not panic)any way at the end it installs say usb1.1 drivers and your cd/rewriter as Q: and R:
your USB drive will be C: if your operating system is XPorWin2000 (ie NTFS)
your USB drive has to be formated as FAt32 .

bbct

Maybe we have been looking at the wrong problem!!!


Quote:

My system (Asus P5B/Intel P965/Intel Core 2 Duo/2 GB RAM) has two other SATA hard disks (each with some NTFS/Linux/FAT32 partitions) and one SATA DVD-RW.

Maybe compatible access is being hindered by the SATA controller and not the USB controller!

See this thread in our other forum:  BartPE does not see internal SATA (AHCI)

Even though you tried the *-fni* switch--that may not have worked on your system.  Maybe you have to change your BIOS SATA setting from *AHCI* to one of the following various names--*compatibility mode*, *native mode*, *SATA Mode*, *combination mode*--basically something other than *AHCI* mode!

You've mentioned that you can access and verify an image on the USB HDD, but get errors when you try other procedures--maybe it's this setting preventing successful communications rather than the USB drivers!

Let us know if this helps!

I think I've found the problem, but first let me thank:

ben_mott
I dloaded your boot disk, but it didn't worked. Indeed the drivers included are mostly those provided by Ghost, which I already tried (BTW if someone more naive than me is reading, remember: sometimes the same driver must be loaded more than once for being installed; for example for me this happens with aspiehci.sys on the P5b, and with oakcdrom.sys on the Thinkpad).

NightOwl
The SATA/IDE issue was a clever idea. My bios has "SATA configuration" with the following options: enhanced (default), compatible (said to be used with W98/WinME), disabled. "SATA emulation" was already on IDE, not AHCI. Therefore I tried "disable" but the internal HDs were (of course) undetected by Ghost. Then I selected "compatible", the name sounded promising and the disk flashed as being accessed when Ghost started (with complete usb bios support enabled), but... the result was as before: I can do a local>check>disk operation (note: not an image integrity check, I probably was not clear in my previous posts, sorry, English is not my language) but nothing more. If I try to check/retrieve an image present on the disk, Ghost shows an empty "look in" window, if I try to save an image on it, Ghost returns an error 622 (cannot create image).

Then tried again the Panasonic/Ghost usb drivers, this time with "SATA configuration" on "compatible", (and usb legacy support disabled), but the result were those already posted. Freezes or overflow error.

Then I borrowed a different usb disk (TEAC 120Gb) from a colleague and... Voilà, Ghost worked perfectly with default bios (usb support/legacy enabled and SATA configuration on enhanced) and no dos drivers! And it is a NTFS disk!

Well, I started to look at my Lacie with suspect. So I checked the documentation but found nothing interesting, apart the obvious recommendation (it is USB/Firewire) to use Windows XP/2000/Vista. Then I read something curious on the product box: "built-in raid 0 for extreme firewire 800 speed: no configuration"! Checked the company site: "The LaCie Big Disk Extreme+ provides enormous capacity and a transparent, built-in RAID 0 array with no configuration for fast FireWire 800 speed".

So, apart the misleading documentation (it seems like raid 0 is active only with firewire 800), I think that my problem is that there is some form of hardware/software raid embedded in the disk controller (of which there is no trace in the product manual) that prevents the correct use under dos. Indeed there should be two disk in the case which work in raid 0.

I wrote to Lacie asking for help, but I imagine the reply: "we told you before: dos is not supported".

I think I'm at a dead end but if somebody has a different idea...

I've just realized that the raid problem must not be unsourmontable, given that the bios of the Thinkpad works perfectly with the disk (I completely forgot that Ghost works with the Thinkpad). Maybe  the problem is not the raid.
I'm completely lost...

Hello, I have a similar problem to yours. I have asus p5bd and trying to get dos to see my usb. It's a external usb with a 80gb ide drive inside nothing fancy. Dos sees the drive but comes up with unable to mount file system. It's ntfs and i can access it fiine in xp. I think our problem to do with the p5b. Have you tried messing with the usb settings in the bios theres a few. I will try that. I am trying a wide number of usb boot disks. Tiny info on web on this. I don't believe you have to use fat32. If it work right it should see any filing system. Loading ntfs4dos lets you see a partititon in dos. It might be worth trying to backup any data and reformatting the drive again. I keep trying more boot disks.

You could try making a BartPE disk and running ghost from that. That would solve it.

i now suspect your drive has a bad mbr. when you delete and format a partititon most partition s/w wont put a new mbr on it. even if it does it still bad because theres corruption in extended mbr so you need to wipe the first 63 sectors of the drive with a mbr util then reboot and then create a partition. backup your data before you do on this drive as it wipe it. so that is why your usb drivers wont mount its filesystem. the partition table corrupt. this was my problem which i now solved. formatting your drive to fat32 is bollocks its fine as ntfs.

markymoo,

thanks for your contribution. Indeed I tried all bios settings possible, both in the USB section and in the SATA section (as suggested by NightOwl). I thinks also that problem is not the file system, because I was able to use Ghost with a different USB NTFS disk (see my post #8 above). At least, it is not *only* the file system, but probably the combination of BIOS/file system/hardware of the disk. The bios must have some responsability, because the same disk does work in another computer with a different bios (see my post #1); but the hardware of the Lacie is also involved because the p5b bios does work with another usb ntfs disk (Teac)!

I tried NTFS4DOS: it reports the directories present on the disk, but cannot access them ("cd" command causes "invalid directory"). It also wrongly reports the capacity of the disk.

AS for BartPE, I think that it can work only with the ghost32 version of the program and not with the ghost 2003 dos executable. Please, correct if I'm wrong.

I'm leaning to reformat the disk making small partitions. You might probably be correct about the bad mbr. I remember that I stopped the first format operation because it was late (it took hours to format 1 TB). Could you suggest me an mbr wiping utility (working under Xp)?

I forgot to note that Ghost never showed the message about identifying the new disk, even if it lists the disk in the "look in" window (but cannot operate on it). BTW does Ghost *write* something on the disk during the new disk identification procedure?

bbct


Quote:

I forgot to note that Ghost never showed the message about identifying the new disk, even if it lists the disk in the "look in" window (but cannot operate on it). BTW does Ghost *write* something on the disk during the new disk identification procedure?

If Ghost 2003 *sees* a new HDD that it has not previously *marked*, then you will get a pop-up screen during the initial loading asking permission to *mark* the HDD--you have to select whether to allow the *marking* or not.

Once *marked* (writes some code to the last sector (#62) of the boot region--old style boot region=sector 0 thru 62, i.e. total of 63 sectors), Ghost 2003 will not pop-up that request again.

Hello again!

I resolved on repartitioning/reformatting the Lacie. I'm experimenting with different partition schemes and file system, as you know it takes time, so I'll report when I have some results.

BTW, could anybody suggest me the best/easiest/quickest method to wipe all info (MBR, MFT and so on) from the disk to start with a fresh hardware? I don't need to securely wipe all data, only those that may influence the interaction between disk hardware, bios motherboard and operating system

NightOwl:

thank you for the clarification about Ghost marking method. Do you know what are the consequences in usual Ghost operations (cloning/imaging) if one declines to mark the disk when requested?

Hi bbct , I am back here is the necessary util to wipe your mbr fully. It works in windows. Wiping the first 63 sectors.

http://mbrwizard.com/

The command you need to do from a cmd box is this. First you need to list the drive to make sure you wipe the right drive.

MBRWiz /List

Wipe the entire first head on the first disk. Replace 0 to the drive you need to wipe.

MBRWiz /Wipe=HEAD /Disk=0

Then just recreate a partition with any s/w you use.

I had a external usb and i wiped with lots of partition software and even wiped the MBR but it still didnt mount files to see the drive. I examined the MBR and in the extended part was remains of an old Boot Manager like Grub that booted a hidden fat16 partition for dos utils.  It only when i wiped the entire MBR that it was good again. So a lesson learnt.

bbct


Quote:

thank you for the clarification about Ghost marking method. Do you know what are the consequences in usual Ghost operations (cloning/imaging) if one declines to mark the disk when requested?

In the DOS version of Ghost 2003, everything works fine--you just receive that request each time you load Ghost--and because of that, you can not use the *automation* command line features of DOS Ghost because there is no way to suppress or by-pass that nag screen.

If you were using the Window's Ghost interface--you could not proceed with any of the Ghost procedures--Windows Ghost 2003 simply forces you to allow the marking!

I have never found letting Ghost *mark* the drive to be a problem.

(By the way, Ghost also performs a second writing to a HDD that you perform a cloning or restore process to--called *fingerprinting*--it's a brief summary stating the most recent  procedure performed, and when it was performed--How to determine whether Ghost wrote to a disk or partition

It is also stored in sector 62 of the boot region.  This data is written by Ghost by default without any user request or intervention.  If you want to see what information is present, after booting to DOS, run Ghost with this command line:

Ghost -finger

But, you can suppress this behavior by starting Ghost with this switch (rather obscure and not well documented switch):  *-Fprnt=N*

ghost -fprnt=n


Quote:

BTW, could anybody suggest me the best/easiest/quickest method to wipe all info (MBR, MFT and so on) from the disk to start with a fresh hardware?

I second markymoo's recommendation for MBRWizard!

markymoo and NightOwl: thanks for directing me to MBRWizard.

I used it with mixed results:

*MBRWiz /wipe /mbr...* was successful, but

*MBRWiz /wipe /head...* reported an "Error 12: invalid entry in boot record" or something similar.

However, I've just created a primary 200 GB, fat32 partition on the disk (with Gparted, from Linux System Rescue CD), let's see if it works...

bbct


Quote:

I used it with mixed results: *MBRWiz /wipe /mbr...* was successful, but *MBRWiz /wipe /head...* reported an "Error 12: invalid entry in boot record" or something similar.

I have found that the documentation for MBRWizard is sometimes *muddled*--it's not entirely clear if a command is for the DOS version and/or for the Windows version!

MBRWiz /wipe /mbr will of wiped sector 0 thats not enough.

you should do this then

MBRWiz /Disk=0  /Wipe=2

0 being the number of your right drive.

i give the correct syntax for windows.

NightOwl and markymoo

thank you for the feedback!

Here are some results:

- wiped MBR of the Lacie
- made 200 Gb FAT32 partition (remaining space unpartitioned; used GParted)
- Ghost (with bios usb support) reports a new disk, marked it
- checked "look in" window: Ghost sees the Lacie and assigns a dos letter to it
- saved and checked successfully image of a small fat32 partition (about 4 GB, but only 370 Mb of data on it) :)
- tried to save an image of my WinXP partition (NTFS, 30 Gb, 8 Gb of data), got Error 29089 "Write to image file failed" at 36% :(
- reboot, tried again, got same error at 93% >:(

- added an extended NTFS 200 GB partition (used Gparted)
- reboot, Ghost (with bios usb support) starts but crashes before the welcome screen (Ghost blue start screen overwritten by lines of garbled colours)
- deleted extended NTFS partition
- reboot, Ghost starts normally
- tried again to save image of Xp partition on the FAT32 partition, got almost immediately error 29089 (Ghost error reports 0% completed)

- wiped again MBR of the Lacie (thanks markymoo!)
- made 1 Tb NFTS partition (used Gparted)
- Ghost (with bios usb support) reports a new disk, marked it
- Ghost reports error 27014 "insufficient memory available" (Ghost error "Failed to allocate 1024 bytes of conventional memory. DOS error: memory control block destroyed (0x0007)"; Program call stack shows that execution is stopped after "LfoDeviceCommand::StartDriveEnumeration" and before "getDrives")
- modified config/autoexec (added device=himem and dos=high, removed driver for sata CD/DVD and mouse)
- reboot, Ghost starts
- checked "look in" window: Ghost sees the Lacie and reports it as NTFS volume
- Ghost freezes when Lacie selected as target of partition>image or check>image in the "look in" window
- tried -fni, no changes

I got a partial success with only one FAT32 partition, however in the case of a backup program, a partial success is like a total failure.

Googled error 29089: it seems like a Ghost 2002 error which was unable to work with usb disk, but Ghost 2003 should have resoved it.

I think I should give up...

something sounds suspect if you got failure at 36% and at 93% and not necessary the drive. isn't there a switch on back of lacie drives to change the speed of the firewire to default? if i remember rightly.

try this next. it will take a while. :)

MBRWiz /Disk=0  /WipeDisk=1

0 being the drive number

i pm'ed you on an alternative solution.

bbct


Quote:

I think I should give up...

If the hardware is not compatible with the software...well, then you're going to get a lot of lumps on your head banging it against a wall...  ;) !

But, you seem to have already determined that with alternative hardware, things work fine:


Quote:

Then I borrowed a different usb disk (TEAC 120Gb) from a colleague and... Voilà, Ghost worked perfectly with default bios (usb support/legacy enabled and SATA configuration on enhanced) and no dos drivers! And it is a NTFS disk!

Maybe that very large sized USB HDD is not supported in DOS--at least on your system.

markymoo,

I'm using the usb interface. I can't get Firewire working under dos: the aspi1394.sys does recognizes the Lacie and install itself, but Ghost crashes on start-up. BTW the Lacie has both firewire 400 and 800 interfaces, but my PCI adapter is only 800. I'll try to wipe again the disk, but I don't think this is the real problem.

NightOwl,

indeed it is frustrating to have a peripheral which works prefectly with one hardware (Thinkpad) and not with other (Asus P5B). I tried the Lacie also with my older PC, an Asus P4P800, here the problem is even worst: the pc hangs on boot when the external disk is found by the bios!

Do you have any idea about Ghost error 29089?

Well, at last I think I've found a trick to circumvent my desktop (Asus P5B) bios inability to access the Lacie via usb under Ghost.

This was my reasoning:

1) Thinkpad/Ghost > Lacie
2) desktop > TCP/IP peer-to-peer > Thinkpad
3) desktop > TCP/IP peer-to-peer > Thinkpad > Lacie

and it works!

I made two TCP/IP network Ghost boot disks, linked the desktop to the Thinkpad with a crossover ethernet cable and was able to image a desktop partition to the Lacie, which is connected to the Thinkpad via usb.

I successfully imaged/verified both one small FAT32 partition and one large NTFS partition to the Lacie (NTFS).

Now I have two questions:

- if I want to verify an image just saved in one of the slave drives, I must establish a new peer-to-peer connection (select master/slave), even if Ghost has not been closed. In other words, Ghost seems to close the connection between master and slave each time it carries out an operation. Is this normal behaviour?

- I would like to establish a Ghost TCP/IP peer-to-peer connection over our departmental lan. Our server has a DHCP service (Windows Server 2003). I selected the "get IP address from DHCP" option in Ghost boot wizard, but when I try to establish a connection Ghost says "Unable to start TCP/IP, Can't find DHCP server, Possible network setup problem (error 19913)". The NIC driver should be OK because it works in the case of a direct connection with the crossover cable. Maybe it needs to be configured in the case of a lan connection?

Thanks fo any help

(Admin, if I'm going OT please let me know, I'll start a new thread).

bbct

Interesting work around to your problem!  I think I'd try to get a compatible USB HDD...but your effort shows good trouble shooting resolving skills!


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Ghost seems to close the connection between master and slave each time it carries out an operation. Is this normal behaviour?

I have not used networking often enough to answer that question--but, I suspect it may be.  One possible work around is to use the *-script* switch along with a script file:


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-script Allows you to specify a series of commands (one per line) that Norton Ghost will execute in sequential order. For example: ghost -script=script.txt Following is an example of script.txt: -clone,mode=create,src=2,dst=c:\drv2.gho -chkimg,c:\drv2.gho -clone,mode=create,src=2,dst=c:\part2.gho -chkimg,c:\part2.gho

This might allow Ghost to perform sequential steps without going back to the opening screen--but maybe not--would have to try to see!


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when I try to establish a connection Ghost says "Unable to start TCP/IP, Can't find DHCP server, Possible network setup problem (error 19913)"

I had a similar error problem which took me over a year to finally find why I was having the problem--and my problem may not apply to you--but it turned out that unless I physically powered down the system--and then re-booted from a *cold* start--my BIOS and NIC would not properly reset and connect and get a new IP from the router.

My usual way to re-boot to DOS was/is to re-start from Windows--and the NIC card was retaining the resource settings from Windows--and the DOS settings did not match those--and so the NIC never communicated with the router to get the automatic IP assignment!  Easy enough to try to see if it makes a difference for you!  Maybe you already power down?!

[quote author=bbct link=1194451981/15#17 date=1195056748]markymoo and NightOwl: thanks for directing me to MBRWizard.

I used it with mixed results:

*MBRWiz /wipe /mbr...* was successful, but

*MBRWiz /wipe /head...* reported an "Error 12: invalid entry in boot record" or something similar.

For clarification, you wiped the MBR with the first MBRwiz command, therefore no valid MBR still remained on the disk for further operations.  The error from the second command was simply stating this.

Regards,
Alex

NightOwl,

even with a cold reboot, the network boot disk simply created with Ghost boot wizard does not work, unless the computers are directly connected and IP addresses given in wattcp.cfg. BTW I discovered that most recent NIC are capable of crossover detection http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethernet_crossover_cable, so a crossover cable is not required in my case (Realtek RTL8168/8111 of Asus P5B and Intel PRO/1000 of the Thinkpad).

At last I was able to use Ghost over lan with DHCP using  the Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk. I've not yet figured out how this boot disk works, but I would like to, in order to create a slimmed down version (I think it loads a ramdisk...).
Your suggestion to cold boot is a good one and should be usual practice when testing hardware configurations, as I learnt early in my experiments with the USB bios settings! However I noticed that after closing a network dos session, Xp takes a little longer to login in our lan, even if I cold reboot.


alexbohner,


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For clarification, you wiped the MBR with the first MBRwiz command, therefore no valid MBR still remained on the disk for further operations.  The error from the second command was simply stating this.

thank you, this explains also why the second time I wiped the re-formatted disk, this time only with the "MBRWiz /wipe /head" command, I did'n get that error.

bbct


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unless the computers are directly connected and IP addresses given in wattcp.cfg

So, when you created the boot disk, you specified the IP addresses for each boot disk.  So, the IP address you chose is specific to that boot disk, and Ghost assigns it to the NIC during loading--does that sound accurate?


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At last I was able to use Ghost over lan with DHCP using  the Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk.

Well, that strongly suggests that it's a setting or driver problem that hasn't been set correctly by the boot wizard--you could try to use the F8 key during boot and initial loading of the *Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk* so you can select *Step-by-Step* execution of the boot files command lines.  Should be able to see what driver is loaded and what command line is used--don't know if it would help--but it lets you see what's happening in *slow motion*!

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So, when you created the boot disk, you specified the IP addresses for each boot disk.  So, the IP address you chose is specific to that boot disk, and Ghost assigns it to the NIC during loading--does that sound accurate?

Yes


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you could try to use the F8 key during boot and initial loading .... it lets you see what's happening in *slow motion*!

Good idea, as usual! I'll report next week, bye