Hi

I carefully reviewed your discussion thread about enabling external hard disks attached to USB PCMCIA cards however the solutions presented are not completely applicable to my particular problem.

I have a Compaq Laptop Presario 1200 which does not have an onboard Ethernet port and came with a Surecom EP-428x PCMCIA card for LAN connectivity.  This machine ran fine for years with Windows software until it was killed off by the bloatware so it go another lease of life running Linux.  Having upgraded the memory to max out at 400 MB it runs well under Linux and a wireless PCMCIA card runs stablily at 108 MB.  The problem is I cannot use my Ghost 11 solution suite to image this device as all the boot disks I have created will not recognise the Surecom NIC.  I got through a lot of disks.

Here is what I have tried to date.

I have made a PC and MS DOS Ghost disk using the Ghost "Make Network Boot Disk" utility and added the PCMCIA enabler files RTPCI.EXE and RTBIOS.COM and used the latest Surecom EP 428x NDIS2 driver making a new Ghost boot disk template for the Surecom.  My initial problem was that I was not exactly sure how to call the cardbus enabler files but looking at so many Config.sys and Autoexec.bat files on your site gave me some indication.

When I boot with the boot disk I seem to get very close as it recognises the NIC reporting “Ethernet Devices Detected but immediately after I get the message Surecom EP 428x card not found, serious internal error.  It suggests trying a different IRQ switch so I have added to the RTPCI.EXE /MD000 I11 and various other combinations with no joy.

Your post is limited to USB 2.0 PCMCIA cards however there must be a lot of PCMCIA NIC’s around that can work with Ghost.  I can see such a boot disk as being very useful as you would be able to use to connect any laptop with a PCMCIA slot in it however no one has posted that I could find a solution to this issue.

I found a post that included “you can't use standard ghost boot disk as loading RTPCI.EXE and RTBIOS.COM through config.sys will crash the PC. Instead one should use something like netbootdisk by easily appending these two files to floppy and autoexec.bat.  I would be interested to know in more detail the structure of the Config.sys and Autobat files I should use and what switches (if any) I should use.  My Config.sys file was able to load RTPCI.EXE but it appeared that RTBIOS.COM crashed the system.  Does anyone know what order I should use these files?

:'(

@ TonyR

I'm not personally experienced with your problem, but perhaps these resources will help:

Google Search:  Ghost compatibility with PCMCIA devices

Installing MSDOS Networking (IPX, NDIS-2, LAN Manager) on a legacy-free PC Card (PCMCIA) Device - SONY VAIO PictureBook PCG-C1XE

Symantec FAQ:  Ghost compatibility with PCMCIA devices

Thank you for the links.  Link 1 & 3 are essentially the same - "Ghost compatibility with PCMCIA devices" where symantec say they support PCMCIA devices if they work in DOS however mine certaily does work in DOS however Ghost support have not helped me get it working.  The article itself could have included some sample config sys files and advised some switches to the enabler.exe file but it is very unhelpful and inadequate.

Having paid for a corporate verion of Ghost 11 I  have never got the full value out of the solution due to this poor support.  If your boot disk does not give you network connectivity you essentially cannot use Ghost Cast Server so it is not acceptable for Symantec to wash their hands in the way they do.

I will let you know how I go with the excellent instructions in the Faughnan article.

Many Thanks

  :)

@ TonyR

If you have the corporate version 11.x of Ghost, you might try the Corporate Symantec forum for possible solutions:

Symantec Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) support forum

Hi

I tried to work through the Faughnan article however as it is written for a Linksys that uses an Enabler program and I am using a Surecom EP 428x that uses RTPCI.EXE as the cardbus enabler so I cannot apply the advice to my situation.  I get back to the same problem that I need to know what parameters to pass to the enabler to get it to bind. It is so frustrating to not be able to boot DOS to see the network on a perfectly functioning NIC with the correct NDIS driver.  The card light even lights with the message Ethernet device detected  only to immediately fail.

Another thing I cant understand is how as soon as PC DOS loads the very 1st thing reported is No Surecom device detected even before the enabler files have been run.  The referenced article from Faughnan seems to suggest that my Config file and the order I an calling the RTPCI.EXE file is correct so it should work but doesn't.

No matter what imaging solution I use I will have the same problem as they all work in DOS mode which is so difficult to bind to the network.  There is a real lack of generic advice out there about how PCMCIA enablers work and at what stage of the boot these programs should kick in despite the critical nature that have to any imaging solution.

:(

@ TonyR


Quote:

Another thing I cant understand is how as soon as PC DOS loads the very 1st thing reported is No Surecom device detected even before the enabler files have been run.

As soon as DOS begins to load, press F8--this should bring up a boot menu that allows you to select a *step-by-step* confirmation of each command line of the boot files--i.e. *config.sys* and *autoexec.bat*.  This can help with troubleshooting to see which command is responsible for which error message during boot!


Quote:

There is a real lack of generic advice out there about how PCMCIA enablers work and at what stage of the boot these programs should kick in despite the critical nature that have to any imaging solution

Not an uncommon problem with networking issues!

But, that reminded me--maybe someone else has already dealt with your problem--and solved it!  There are a number of *universal* network boot disks available--if your NIC is already included, you may be able to use that boot disk for your imaging!  They even have ways to add NICs to them, I think.  And, if your NIC is present on that boot disk--you might be able to find the driver and the technique being used to load that particular driver--have to look at the various boot files and *.ini* files, etc. to find all the various references to your NIC:

TeleData Consulting FREE Universal Network/CD Boot Disk

Homepage--Universal TCP/IP Network Bootdisk

Bart's Network Boot Disk

The website of these boot disks often have additional information on using them with Ghost for network use!

(Potentially helpful hint:  I had a problem using DOS networking--I discovered that unless I powered down completely before re-booting, the Plug-n-Play settings from Windows would not reset when *warm re-booting* to DOS--the DOS driver could not find the NIC!  The BIOS was pointing to IRQ and I/0 ranges that it creates during boot, but the NIC's chip was retaining the Window's settings--and they don't always match!

So, always power down completely before attempting to boot for DOS networking!)

Hi

Very helpful and useful advices provided, thanks a million.

I tried the netbootdisk.com your 2nd reference line without success but not the others which I will try.  Techdata promiss full PCMCIA support so it is worth a test.  I posted on the Norton Ghost site with no response.  I obtained a evaluation copy of Image for Linix from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/image-for-linux.htm which booted me into a Linux environment that could see my PCMCIA card as a Realtec 8139 (like Ubuntu 8.05 & 9.10 does) and I could see my local network and I could mount my Windows shares.  I was also able to see USB flash drives which was also a significent challenge with Ghost.  To pardon the pun I will give Ghost the flick "booting" it out of my software solution suite and come to terms with the fact, what a terrible investment it has been for me.  The silence from their Ghost forum speaks volumes about their support offering.  I have further testing of the Image for Linux image integrity however so far I cannot fault the solution.

I will report back shortly on your other kind suggestions in case I can feed back something of help to other reviewers.

@ TonyR


TonyR wrote on Feb 1^st, 2010 at 12:09am:

evaluation copy of Image for Linix

I'm very keen on IFL. You can hot plug your USB devices. IFL accesses them without using the BIOS. I've done numerous images and restores over the IFL network and some time ago I was doing images and restores over my wireless network. Wireless restores are fun but quite impractical in view of the slow network speed.

Whenever I restore images to the kids' computers, I restore over the network as the images are stored on my computer. Restore speed is comparable to restoring from a USB external HD.

I have batch files which I run from my computer and these initiate an IFW backup on the kids' computers and the images are written to my HD. I can run IFW backup on each of their computers at the same time, with 3 backups being written to my HD simultaneously.

@ TonyR

Thanks for your feed back!

More and more, TeraByte's products are showing themselves to be the best retail product for imaging solutions for current systems (and older systems, too  ;) ).  And, I suspect that they offer a significant usefulness for the Corporate crowd as well.  I don't know if they offer a similar function to the Ghost Console Server.  They continue to expand their usefulness and their FAQs offer great insight into many issues associated with creating and restoring images to various system setups.


Quote:

I posted on the Norton Ghost site with no response.

That's just sad.  If they don't support us--should we continue to support them?

@ Brian


Quote:

Whenever I restore images to the kids' computers, I restore over the network as the images are stored on my computer. Restore speed is comparable to restoring from a USB external HD.

My USB speed with Ghost in DOS is approx. 400 MB/min..  I've seen reports of speeds at about double that (approx. 800-900 MB/min.) depending on the system.  So, a wide range! 

If memory serves, I haven't used networking with Ghost for a long time, but the speed over my network was more comparable to saving an image to optical media--around 100 MB/min..  So, I wasn't very impressed, and don't use it!

Can you give an approx. speed that we can compare with?

@ NightOwl

IFW on my computer will create an image at 20 MB/sec, writing to a second internal HD. When I write an image from my computer to one of the kids' computers I get 17 MB/sec as this is the maximum network speed for their old hardware. Their computers can only create images at 8 MB/sec to a second internal HD and this is the network speed seen when writing the image to my computer. If the image is written to their HD first and then sent over the network, I see 17 MB/sec. In practice I don't do this. The image is written direct to my computer.

@ NightOwl

Using an IFL boot disk, an image from my computer to a USB external HD ran at 16 MB/sec.

@ NightOwl

I hope you aren't getting sick of numbers.

Using No Compression, IFW on my computer will create an image at 77 MB/sec, writing to a second internal HD.
The image is created in 43% of the time of the Standard Compression time. The compressed image was 60% the size of the non-compressed image.

@ Brian


Quote:

I hope you aren't getting sick of numbers.

No, not at all--keep them coming!

It might be the software, but I suspect it's more your hardware--I want a system like Brian has!  What do you have?????

Using IFW:                                                 Ghost Equivalent:       My speeds:

Internal HDD=20 MB/sec                             1200 MB/Min             700 MB/Min

Network speed=17 MB/sec                          1020 MB/Min             100 MB/Min

Kid's Internal HDD=8 MB/sec                           480 MB/Min

No Compression=77 MB/sec                         4620 MB/Min

Using IFL:

To External USB HDD=16 MB/sec                    960 MB/Min             400 MB/Min

@ NightOwl


NightOwl wrote on Feb 7^th, 2010 at 9:27pm:

What do you have?????

Nothing fancy. An almost 3 year old Dell 9150. Pentium D processor, 2 GB RAM. I think its fast HDs are most important. Two 640 GB SATA 2 Western Digital. I bought these early last year. HDTune transfer rates of 110 MB/sec which correlates fairly well with actual measurements.

@ Brian


Quote:

I think its fast HDs are most important

I saw this on a friend's computer--put in a newer HDD and the Ghost DOS procedure jumped by 33%!!!

Pentium D

What CPU clock speed--range 2.66 GHz to 3.73 GHz?

What Front Side Bus (FSB) speed--range 533 MT/s to 1066 MT/s?


Hmmm.....not familiar with *MT/s* units!?  megatransfer (MT) refer to a number of data transfers (or operations)