Hi All

What with the release of Windows 7 in the next few weeks, I am having the lovely task of trying to take successful ghost images.

I am able to make the image using Ghost 8, however when the image is restored to the same machine I receive the error of inaccessible boot device 0x0000000e

I have a feeling that this is similar to Vista where the BCD needed to be edited prior to taking the image.

Can anyone help me with the correct commands to use ?

The installation of Windows 7 is a basic vanilla install.
It is the release version from the MSVL site.

Thanks in advance for your help.

Regards
Gav

Gav,

I tried to reproduce your results but my Win7 booted normally. I must be lucky.

I think a BootIt NG BCD Edit would enable your Win7 to boot. It works when Ghost 2003 fails to restore a Vista image correctly.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=318

Hi Brian,

Thanks for the reply.
I'll take a look at this tool.

I need to successfully image Windows 7, without the need for intervention post deployment.

The images are used as test platforms for software to each machine is regularly 'ghosted'.
The testers are capable of ghosting the images up but I want to avoid another process for them.

What copy of Ghost are you using and did you enable any particular switches ?

I made my image by selecting 'local disk to image'

It is possible to boot from the Win 7 DVD and carry out the repair, but as I say we want to eliminate the extra process.

Thanks

gavinh wrote on Aug 13^th, 2009 at 9:41am:

I need to successfully image Windows 7, without the need for intervention post deployment.

Gav, I understand. These lines were popular before I first tried Vista and I've never used them. At an Administrator Command Prompt enter....

bcdedit /set {default} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot <ENTER>
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device boot <ENTER>


Quote:

What copy of Ghost are you using and did you enable any particular switches ? I made my image by selecting 'local disk to image'

Ghost 8.2, from Windows and DOS. No switches.
I used 'local partition to image'


gavinh wrote on Aug 13^th, 2009 at 9:41am:

It is possible to boot from the Win 7 DVD and carry out the repair,

Yes, but Dan Goodell says that BING BCD Edit works in the cases when Vista DVD fails. BCD Edit is much faster to use than the Vista DVD.

I'll have to try creating the image with 'partition to image' and see what results I get.

I'll check what revision of Ghost I am using. I know its 8 but not sure what 'point' revision.

Thanks for your help Brian.
If anyone else can add anything please do.

Thanks
Gav

I've used Ghost 2003 to image/restore Win7. No problems. My hardware must be kind to imaging software. I've never had a failed restore.

Hi Brian,

When you say you created your Image by 'partition to image'
Did you select both partitions (Installation + Recovery partition) or just the Installation data.

I'm just trying some different methods now to see if I can get a working method.

Thanks

Gav,

I just selected the Win7 OS partition for the image. C: drive.

It was on a test computer with about 6 different OS.

I just tried making the image by 'partition to image'
Upon restoring the image I get a non bootable machine.

In the PE  environment I can see that the data is mounted as C:

I tried running BCDEDIT from C:\Windows\System32 but it fails with the following :

'Boot configuration store cannot be opened, Cannot find message text for message number. 0X%1 in the message file for %2'

Gav,

Want to try Image for DOS? There is a one month trial. It should work every time. Unlike Ghost 8, it is certified for Win7.

I've been using IFD and IFW for the last 2 years.

http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-dos-ss.htm

I can't easily move away from Ghost as I have about 50 Pc's with numerous images setup in the company.

The good thing about Ghost and BartPE is the networking support as all the images are stored on a server. Moving away from this would be a logistical nightmare.

I have just ghosted back up one of my images I made and had the same inaccessible boot device.
After restarting in BartPE i was able to edit the BCD and get it to boot into windows.

If only I could do this prior to making the image like in Vista..


Thinking about this logically

If there is something out there that would do this without the need of an OS much like BartPE that isn't Ghost we could use that for the Win 7 images.
I need to have network support as all the images are stored on a server.

gavinh wrote on Aug 14^th, 2009 at 6:30am:

I can't easily move away from Ghost as I have about 50 Pc's with numerous images setup in the company.

Have you tried Ghost 11.5?

No I haven't. Is it any better and can it still be used as a bootable CD with Networking ?

The PC's need to be ghosted without traces of additional software so the method of using a bootable CD prior to an OS is the best method for our situation.

I guess its still early and people haven't had a chance to play with Ghost and Win 7 properly yet.

I'm guessing they must have made some changes to the BCD in this revision but not sure what has changed to cause this not to work any more.

gavinh wrote on Aug 17^th, 2009 at 2:46am:

No I haven't.

Neither have I.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1219791089

I have downloaded a trial version of 'Ghost solution suite 2.5' from the Symantec website to trial the support of Windows 7.

I am able to create the 'WinPE boot disk' with enough drivers to enable network support, and can create the image to a network share which is exactly what I need to do. The problem comes when I try to restore the image file that was created.
The WinPE CD and Ghost says it can only restore an image created by the trial version but it doesn't attempt to do the restore.
Am I doing something wrong ?

I just want to do bare metal backups and restores, I don't wish to use all the other functionality bundled in with the suite.

Try asking your question in the Ghost Solution Suite forum.

http://www.symantec.com/connect/endpoint-management-virtualization/forums/ghost-solution-suite-0

Please let us know the answer.

If i am correct, Ghost 8 doesnt support restore of Vista/Win 7 systems. It is not a reliable way to recover. With Ghost 11, it brought vista support. Since vista and win7 uses similar boot setup Ghost 11 would help in proper restoration.
There are some threads indicating that also on the forum.

It has to do with some disk signature restoration which is different in XP and Vista.

Windows 7 is really (Vista+SP1+SP2)with user interface
set low by default in control pannel.
if the disc is the same and you recover ghost image it boots ok if you install a new HDD and use ghost image then it would not boot.
so boot in with a windows 7 boot disk either installation CD
or the on you made as an option in recovery and back up dialog box
and then choose repair boot as in Vista
this does not work if you are daul booting.
Ben

Hi Guys

I have managed to test using Ghost Solution Suite and can confirm Backup and Restore with Windows 7 Professional.

Ghost 8 does work if you make the edits to the BCD data but that is a step which I don't wish to take on every restore procedure.

Thanks all for your help, and hope this information helps others too.

Regards
Gav [smiley=dankk2.gif]

Hi Gav,
I am trying to use ghost v8 with Windows 7 and but I have to boot to the OS DVD to repair the install.  I dont have any issues with Vista. Can you tell me what edits I need to make to the BCD to get it to work.  I tried the ones that I did for Vista but they dont help, maybe I am missing one? (With Vista I made the BCD edits before I make the image, so I dont have to do it after, hope I can do that with Windows 7)

Thanks
Kevin


gavinh wrote on Aug 28^th, 2009 at 3:07am:

Hi Guys I have managed to test using Ghost Solution Suite and can confirm Backup and Restore with Windows 7 Professional. Ghost 8 does work if you make the edits to the BCD data but that is a step which I don't wish to take on every restore procedure. Thanks all for your help, and hope this information helps others too. Regards Gav [smiley=dankk2.gif]

Hi Kevin

I found the following BCD commands worked with Windows 7.

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=C:
bcdedit /set {default} device partition=C:
bcdedit /set {default} osdevice partition=C:

(The c: information is variable and depends on what is mounted at the time of making these changes)

However this is post deployment of the image compared to Windows Vista whereby you could set this information prior to taking an image.

To get this to work I had to boot back into BartPE after deploying the image and getting the failure message. Load the command prompt from BartPE.
Navigate to the system32 directory and enter the above information.

It may be easier or quicker to run the repair from the Win7 DVD.
I however managed to get the sign off for upgrading my Ghost licenses and shouldn't have to do this any more.

I think ghost 8 doesnt support vista/win7 restoration. the topic is put in the important topics category
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1170184062

If you are able to restore/backup using ghost 8 consider yourself lucky.

Ghost 11 is able to restore/backup vista properly though ghost 11.5 is officially certified vista compatible. I read on forum, (thing Nigel posted) saying there was some prob in liveupdate of ghost solution in v2.0 (ghost 11) due to which it wasnt vista certified. This was resolved in ghost solution v2.5 (ghost 11.5).

With win7, there is additional recovery partition involved. On a fresh disk, the setup by default creates a 100 MB partition, whereas in a existing parition environment it doesnt. I am not sure even ghost 11.5 take that in consideration.

A possible conflicting case i can think of is:
I have this recovery+Win7 partition. I backup the Win7 partition. Now i try to restore on a different computer with same hardware using this image. Here the BCD information is stored in recovery partition (which i didnt copy), hence after recovery my system may not boot.

If you do a Disk to Image backup this should work as it would copy the recovery partition too.