So I've been working on this problem for a week now with Ghost 12......I have 3 PC's, one I use as a file server which runs XP, and the other (2) which run Vista. The Vista machines are new Dell's that  are pretty much top of the line. The server is a decent P4 @ 2ghz with a 1gb of RAM. I've been trying to backup my Vista machines to my file server. One is now working but the other keeps giving me the error "network drive no longer available". I have tried everything, user rights (both vista machines have admin rights on the file server), uninstall / reinstall, the works......and for the life of me I cannot get the one vista machine to backup to the file server. The drive on the file server is mapped as a network drive on the vista machine.
The part that kills me is the other Vista machine works great, and its pretty much the same PC as the one that doesn't work.

I've put alot of late nights into this issue and I'm totally out of ideas, any advice would be greatly appreciated!

I had a similar problem with a small local peer to peer network.  The problem turned out to be a network traffic error which was a false error triggered by Norton AntiVirus (worm detection) on the "server" pc.  It was flagging the network backup traffic as an attack.

As a test, disable firewall and antivirus on the server.  Also try running it manually and see if it starts up and then fails or fails part way through.

Each pc is running Ghost 12?

yes each PC is running the ghost 12, but for some reason the backup works on one of the PC's. thats a good suggestion though and I'll try when I get home later. I'll post back once I try it.

Thank you for the quick response!

forgot to mention..............I have run it manually and noticed it always stops at 5%......when i check the folder on the server nothing was even created, so maybe antivirus is blocking......that would kill me though because I run Symantec 360! It should know better!

johnyghost wrote on Jan 21^st, 2008 at 12:02pm:

yes each PC is running the ghost 12, but for some reason the backup works on one of the PC's. thats a good suggestion though and I'll try when I get home later. I'll post back once I try it.

Also, check the permissions on the server folder.  Make sure "everyone" is explicitly granted full access.

so I tried your suggest, shut-off firewall and anti-virus software on both the server and user PC and got the same error. I have attached the error for reference. I did get something to work.......I got the vista machine to backup to the other vista machine....go figure, but I cant get it to backup to the server. this is killing me! any thoughts?

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Besides the antivirus/worm detection which I experienced before--you should checkout everything that is network related.  Because ghost backups write large blocks, and constant i/o, they really stress a network.  Make sure nothing else is using the network, check the nic properties, make sure they are full duplex, or experiment with setting the network i/o nics to half duplex and see if that helps.  Make sure cabling and switch are running full duplex.

Look in the system event log for each of the problem pc's and see if you see any xp or network errors that give you a clue.

Also for searching:
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=ebab03f1

also chkdsk x: /r on server and any other pc's (replace x with drive letter)