Using a PC-DOS boot CD with (updated NG 2003, ver 793), there is a message asking whether NG 2003 should mark the disk drives as this would make the process of rendering images easier for Ghost.
I opted not to & selected the 'Continue without marking drives' option, as wasn't sure what the marking by Ghost would imply for the system.

Any ideas on what this is? Or whether there are any adverse consequences of having the HDD's (1 IDE & 1 SATA, both detected by NG 2003) 'marked' by Ghost?

PS:
I could successfully image the IDE partition to the SATA Hard Disk, with not to having them 'marked'.

The marking is primarily for the Windows system; it encodes a basically random GUID on each of the disks to ensure that it can correctly match up the drive letters used in Windows (where the main backup wizard is) with those visible in the DOS code. We were (understandably, I hope) very very cautious with the matching code in Ghost 2002/2003 since they were consumer backup products with a Windows GUI.

The Ghost Enterprise management console for the same basic code line - v7.x - needed to do the same kind of drive matching and did it exactly the same way, but being a corporate product it didn't ask, it just went ahead and did it. For Ghost 8.x and later (and now in Ghost Solution Suite) we did a much more elaborate system which didn't need marking, but by then Symantec had purchased PowerQuest and put us under the ex-PowerQuest management, who canceled genuine Ghost completely and put their product out under our brandname. so there was never a consumer version that didn't ask.

[ Some versions of the corporate product included a utility for auditing manual Ghost usage which could be run in logon scripts and scanned machines for this particular fingerprint and wrote a report to a network share - we actually developed that specifically at the request of several large corporate customers who wanted to be able to meter their license use very accurately. ]

The message in the consumer version served a dual purpose; full disclosure, and also how we remind folks that a single copy of Ghost 2003 is licensed for one and only one computer, full stop, and that you need to buy the corporate version for imaging more than one machine. We wanted people cheating the license system and trying to do mass deployment using a single consumer license to be nagged quite a bit about that.

Almost totally off topic:

I reinstalled my system a few weeks ago and during the procedure, I created several Ghost (2003) Images. I lured myself into trying Nero 7 on my old BOAC (1GHz/512MB) but during the installation, DirectX had to be updated and I let it go ahead. It took "for ever" to complete and I realized that Nero 7 was too much for my BOAC. I restarted from the Ghost Boot Disks (floppies) to roll back the system and was prompted to mark one or more of the disks for usage with Ghost. All disks had been seen and marked by Ghost and I was quite startled. I have found no explanation as to why this happened but I lean towards the updating of DirectX.

Nigel,
do you have a clue?

Christer

Either you trust Ghost, or you don't.  If you don't then you shouldn't be using it.  Use something else.

I've been using Ghost in one version or another since ~1997 and I trust it explicitly. (100%)  If it says it wants to mark a drive, I just let it.
Doing that has never served me wrong.

When I first met up with Ghost, oh so many years ago now, I thought for sure it was written my little Grey Guys from "Out There" somewhere. ::)
Ghost was just so "Out of this world" compared to the other software of the day.

I feel so honored to finally meet one of the authors.

This forum ROCKS!

The Shadow  8-)

PS:  I have found that the DOS boot disk made with Windows ME, is much more useful than a boot disk with PC-Dos on it.
When windows ME formats a floppy disk, it also installs CD drivers.  I've found that useful as well.

Christer wrote on Jul 21^st, 2008 at 11:09am:

do you have a clue?

Some theories, but honestly there's not enough information to go on to really tell which might hold water. The way Ghost picks the sector to contain the UUID might have made it choose differently (which I think is the most likely, given the way some BIOSes behave) or else the fingerprint sector could have been overwritten by something are generally it though.

In particular, the location of the Ghost fingerprint sector depends on what's already on the disk due to all the completely insane complications that arise from INT13->LARGE->LBA geometry type madness. You'd never see any problems with the Windows GUI going to the virtual partition, but a standalone DOS boot disk might conceivably decide differently where the fingerprint sector ought to be based on what the BIOS tells it and what's in the partition table.

Modern BIOSes and even some Windows device drivers do some really strange things with their fake INT13 geometries. As in, completely insane. See http://support.microsoft.com/?id=931760 - some machines seem to look at the partition table at some point and decide based on what they see to the partition end sectors in the MBR as defining the fake INT13 geometry information they should use (which on some machines can end up as persistent settings in NVRAM!!!!). Bad juju ensues, as the machine or device manufacturer's trying to be too "clever" in ways that defy common sense.

The disk matching used in Ghost 8.0 and above is different; we use a large bag of potential disk identifiers (volume labels, hardware serial numbers and the like) and marshal all that potentially identifying information down to the DOS program which tries to match them all in quite a complex decision procedure. It's hugely more complex for us, but in practice it's been more than reliable enough to let us ditch the UUIDs.

Unfortunately, of course, by then we were under ex-PowerQuest management and genuine Ghost was completely cancelled outright as of Ghost 8.2 (completely canceled, both consumer and corporate; the story of how the product is still alive despite that is, alas, probably not yet safe to tell) before we could release a consumer product using the different system that didn't need to do the marking.

Thanks Nigel,
I'll have to read that again to fully understand it.

Interesting, though, that Ghost chooses the sector to use for marking depending on what's already on the disk and that it can be overwritten. If I remember correctly, people on here have identified the sector to wipe if, for some reson, one would like to get rid of the marking. As I understand it, it's always the same sector or often enough the same to be perceived as "always".

... :-? ...Christer ... :o ...

NightOwl always mentioned LBA-62.

It's not fixed. It depends on the classic INT13 geometry presented by the BIOS and the content of the partition table (and as we are increasingly seeing, defective BIOSes tend to choose the classic INT13 geometry based on partition table content too). For LBA systems it tends to end up in that location; other systems, other places.

Nigel,
thanks for clarifying!

Christer

It there any way around this prompt?  I used Ghost 2003 to image a machine and told it not to put a signature on the drive.  Now I'm trying to create an automated restore thumb drive and it's completely automated except for that prompt.  I tried the -QUIET switch but it still prompts and the -BLIND switch causes an exception fault.  The command line I have in the Autoexec.bat is very simple and works great, except for that prompt.  Is there any hidden command line switches to tell it not to mark the drives?  My line in Autoexec.bat is thus:

GHOST.EXE -CLONE,Mode=LOAD,SRC=C:\Final.GHO,DST=2 -SURE

Thanks.  Any help would be appreciated.

BTW, I also have Ghost Enterprise 7.0, but it refuses to work with the image that was made using 2003, so that's a bust.  Does anybody know what the earliest Enterprise version is that will work with images made using 2003 consumer?  I'm at the point of reimaging the drive using 2003, then imaging it using Enterprise 7.0, and using Enterprise 7.0 in the batch.

BTW, I'm an admin and have licensed versions of most of the older Ghost versions just in case you were wondering...

PorkRollNJ wrote on Jul 30^th, 2008 at 6:37pm:

It there any way around this prompt?

Absolutely none. It is not legal to use Ghost 2003 with more than one PC, and this prompt is not removable precisely to remind people of this fact. We made this work this way specifically to stop illegal automated use of Ghost 2003 by companies.


PorkRollNJ wrote on Jul 30^th, 2008 at 6:45pm:

Does anybody know what the earliest Enterprise version is that will work with images made using 2003 consumer?

Norton Ghost 2002 was released in between 7.0 and 7.5; Ghost 2003 was released after 7.5, from similar code, and internally identifies the image file format as "7.6" as a result.

Ghost Enterprise 8.0 and above was released after Ghost 2003 from a code line that had been in parallel development with it and had more extensive design changes. However, since all versions are by back-compatible with image formats to Ghost 3.0, any version of corporate genuine Ghost from 8.0 onwards (including 8.2 or later when Ghost Enterprise 8.2 was rebranded as Ghost Solution Suite 1.0) will restore a Ghost 2003 image.

The current version of corporate Ghost is in Ghost Solution Suite 2.5.

One of the developers here uploaded the ManageFusion presentation on the new items in GSS2.5 over GSS2.0 which may give you a small sense of how the product has evolved in the 5 or so years since you last upgraded it.

Thanks for the reply.  I see I need a version of Ghost Enterprise 8 or higher to work with my consumer Ghost 2003 image.  What Ghost Enterprise versions, starting with version 8, are still based on DOS?  The reason I ask is that at work, we use Enterprise 7 on a USB thumb drive and it takes all of 20 seconds to boot the computer and start Ghosting.  I'm not too interested in a WindowsPE based solution that takes 10 minutes to boot off a CD/DVD if I can do what I need in 20 seconds.  (I bought a copy of Norton Save and Restore that comes with Ghost 8.2 for this one VIP incident I'm involved in, but that Ghost version refuses to run from DOS, only WinPE.)  At this point, I'm willing to update the Enterprise version at work since it will not only get me out of this predicament, but will allow us to write images to an NTFS volume, which has been a stumbling block in the past.

PorkRollNJ wrote on Aug 8^th, 2008 at 3:29pm:

What Ghost Enterprise versions, starting with version 8, are still based on DOS?

Ghost.exe for DOS still exists in GSS2.5 and we have no plans to remove it from the next release either either for standalone Ghost or for the managed environment.

We do have plenty of customers for whom boot time is critical (particularly computer manufacturers) and so the DOS-based Ghost won't be going away.


PorkRollNJ wrote on Aug 8^th, 2008 at 3:29pm:

I'm not too interested in a WindowsPE based solution that takes 10 minutes to boot off a CD/DVD

Windows PE 2.0 is nowhere near that slow. Windows PE 1.x was that slow, but 2.x boots much, much faster. The point of having WinPE (and making it the default in the management environment) is that it has great driver support out of the box, and for most people we'd rather give them something that works and save frustration that way.

Some customers, in fact, get enough performance benefit out of the better drivers and capabilities of Windows PE during clones that the imaging process overall completes faster in Windows PE 2.0 than in DOS. The larger the images, the more likely that is. Some styles of use don't work this way (e.g. manufacturing, where the images tend to be smaller)

What exactly is this "media pack" that HP is advertising?  Is this a license for one PC or is this the full Solution Suite with one license?
http://h30094.www3.hp.com/product.asp?sku=2780780&extended=1
or this one?
http://www.keenzo.com/showproduct.asp?M=SYMANTEC&ID=624304&ref=GB
If I can buy just one license to use for this VIPs machine that is driving me crazy, I'll get it now out of my own pocket and budget for the volume license for work later.

Media packs have NO LICENSES AT ALL. They are simply an alternative to electronic distribution of the install set, but they may not be used legally without separately purchasing client licenses to cover every machine you use Ghost with, as per the EULA.

You must (and always have been required to) purchase licenses for every PC you use Ghost with in any way, shape or form; for one-shot Ghosting there are special VAR and manufacturing licenses that let Ghost be used once with a machine (those are super cheap, but you need to purchase them in reasonable volume) - those cover the basic Ghost tools only and are not available for the management console system.

Or, you can purchase the multiple-use licenses which cover the entire toolchain including the central management console, which start just under USD40 per seat but drop rapidly as volume increases (and there are upgrade, educational and corporate discount programs which can mean that keeping on the latest version as new versions come out can bring the price per set down near to that of the single-use license).

OK, I'm going to profess ignorance here.  Ghost Enterprise 7 was purchased as a suite before I worked here and all I've been doing is buying additional licenses for it.  I'm completely ignorant of Symantec's license policy regarding Ghost Enterprise and so far I haven't had to look into it.

The models I'm used to with Enterprise class software is either buying an all encompassing, very expensive site license or buying a site license and having to buy individual supplemental licenses.  From what I've looked at, Ghost Enterprise simply has a per-machine license.  Is there an initial fee to begin using the software in addition to the individual machine licenses?  If not, is there any way to buy a single license so I can get this thing out the door to my client?  I can always investigate bulk licenses later but right now I'm already overdue with this thing.  I tried looking at Symantec's site and their fee for licenses is reasonable, but they only sell in 5 packs or more and right now I just need one.

PorkRollNJ wrote on Aug 8^th, 2008 at 9:40pm:

Is there an initial fee to begin using the software in addition to the individual machine licenses?If not, is there any way to buy a single license so I can get this thing out the door to my client?

No other setup fee, it's purely based on client licenses - the server componentry is not licensed separately and is covered by the clients being licensed - and there is a minimum of 5 client licenses per sale see here for more - that's through the Symantec on-line store, there may be partners or resellers may have slightly better prices (I really don't know for sure since I'm not based in the US).