Recently I restored a Ghost 2003 image from external USB drive using Ghost boot CD to a Dell laptop, and it stated upon completion "Restore completed with errors..."  It said something about checking image integrity, but that was done when the image was created.  Everything on the Dell seems to work normally after the image restore completed, but I wonder whether images that pass integrity check might degrade over time and whether I should create a new image.  Has anybody experienced similar behavior or know what may have happened?

@ Tator


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Has anybody experienced similar behavior or know what may have happened?

Long time ago I had a similar error message--but, I can not remember the exact issue now!  If I recall correctly, it wasn't a *critical* error.

It looks like you ran this Ghost procedure from the Windows Ghost Interface.

If *yes*, you could try to check the log file for the procedure:

Open Ghost interface > View Log.  Choose the appropriate Task > Time and Date, and then click the *View Log* button--does it show any error messages?

To answer other questions:


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I wonder whether images that pass integrity check might degrade over time

That could happen, but it's not the most likely expected issue unless the USB HDD is somehow failing and causing disk read/write errors.

You can always run another *Integrity Check* on that image file to see if it passes okay.


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whether I should create a new image

Updated images are usually a good idea if you want a current backup!

Tator,
Making a Ghost backup should never be a 'once in a lifetime' experience.  That should be a part of a regular PC maintenance routine. 
For instance, at least once EVERY week, I do a massive cleanup on my own C: drive and then run a Ghost "Partition To Image" backup, to a separate hard drive. 

I did a Ghost backup just yesterday and then I realized that I had failed to move several movies off of my C: drive before doing the backup, so, I did my moves, my cleanup and then ran Ghost again, after eliminating almost 8 gig's of stuff from my Ghost backup image file(s). 

If Ghost posts an error, it will write that info to an error file.  But, if being run from a CD, it can't write the error report to the CD, like it would if being run from a flash drive or floppy disk. 

Just a thought......

OC

Both the image creation and image restore were done from Ghost boot CD because I've had occasional problems when running Ghost from Windows resulting in failure to start Ghost upon restart during the image creation process as well as inability to boot Windows afterwards.  To correct this problem I had to boot to Ghost boot CD and restore a previously created image.  The laptop has no floppy drive, and I'm unsure whether the Dell Inspiron 6000 BIOS supports boot to USB.  I have a boot USB flash drive I could use if BIOS supports boot to USB.

I do regular image backups on my systems, but this laptop belongs to a friend who doesn't even though I've told her how important it is.  The friend was actually considering buying another laptop until this Dell's horribly sluggish performance was fixed by the Ghost image restore from the image I had created for her.

@ Tator

Nightowl wrote in reply #1 above:


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It looks like you ran this Ghost procedure from the Windows Ghost Interface.

But, in the original posting:


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I restored a Ghost 2003 image from external USB drive using Ghost boot CD to a Dell laptop

My bad!  I blanked out on that one!  Of course you used a boot CD and not the Windows Ghost interface!

If you have a partition on the system you're working on that isn't part of the restore process that is a FAT based file system (i.e. a second partition that's not the OS partition, and you are simply doing a OS partition restore, or there is a second HDD on the system), or if the image source is on a HDD that has a FAT based file system (i.e. your external USB HDD), you can tell Ghost to write any error txt file to that FAT partition using a Ghost *switch* when loading the Ghost program.  If your boot CD automatically runs Ghost for you, you should be able to *Exit* Ghost, and then restart Ghost from the resulting DOS prompt with the appropriate *switch* telling Ghost where to save the error text file to--you have to know ahead of time what DOS drive letter that FAT partition has been assigned, so you can tell Ghost where to find and use it.  If you have already started Ghost, you can see what partitions are assigned drive letters in the DOS Ghost interface before *Exiting* to the DOS prompt.

The *switch* is *-afile=filename* where *filename* has the path and name of the new error file to create.  So, if your external USB HDD is FAT and has been assigned the drive letter *X* in DOS, then you could restart Ghost with this command at the DOS prompt:


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ghost.exe -afile=x:\err.txt

This should re-direct the Ghost *Ghosterr.txt* file to the X:\ external HDD with the name *err.txt*.

Or, if you have a second partition that is not the OS partition and is not being overwritten by the restore process, and it's FAT and assigned the DOS drive letter *D* when in DOS, then this command line to restart Ghost at the command prompt:


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ghost.exe -afile=D:\err.txt

I see that you are talking about a laptop without a floppy drive--but if you were using a system with a floppy drive and you have booted from a bootable optical drive, the boot process uses the drive A: for the bootable optical drive boot files, but the floppy drive is still available as drive *B:\*.  So, if you put a floppy disk in the floppy drive, and restart Ghost at the DOS prompt, you could use this:


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ghost.exe -afile=B:\err.txt

And now the error file will be written to the floppy disk!