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jrkrogh

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Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Sep 13^th, 2004 at 6:17pm

Took a full system backup (image). Generated 11 cd's with a spanned image. Decided to try and restore a few files/folders just for practice. Started image browser and fed in the 1st cd. Window came up saying load the last cd. I did and then a warning said I had 11 cds for the image, and to continue there would likely be alot of disk swaps. I told it to go ahead. It asked for the first cd again, processed about 10 seconds, then asked for the last cd, and so on. I kept it up for about 15 minutes and had'nt even got 1% to completion. I called Symantic tech support . There only response was to follow the steps I was following to their conclusion..even if that meant some next month and wearing out 3 cd drives . Am I to understand Ghost can't deal with a spanned backup image on removeable storage with respect to individual file/folder restores? Or am I overlooking something? I did ask if I could
copy all the cds to a single folder on my HD and point the browesr to it..tech support echoed an emphatic no.

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Pepe

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #1 - Sep 13^th, 2004 at 7:19pm

I don't know the answer to your question, but I know that 11 CDs suck. If any one of them goes bad, you could be in a world of hurt. With the proces of hard drives so cheap, you would do better to pick up one of them and create your image there.

I'm sure someone else will be able to answer your real question. I heard that it's no problem copying your CDs to a hard drive, and doing it that way.

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Christer

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #2 - Sep 13^th, 2004 at 7:57pm

Hi jrkrogh!

This is a guess but the image is of a system on NTFS , right?

The Master File Table has one entry for each file on the computer. If the file is smaller than 2 kb (not sure about the exact size but a few kb), it is entirely contained within the MFT entry. If not, only the MFT pointers are within the MFT and the rest of the file elsewhere.

So, for most of the files, Ghost has to read in two places. The MFT is read and next, a portion of the file which is located elsewhere. In Your case, in with the CD containing the MFT and Ghost puts a bit of it in RAM, in with the CD containing the files referenced to in the portion of the MFT which is currently in RAM and Ghost reads the files, in with the CD containing the MFT ...... Shocked

...... well, You get the picture.

I agree with Pepe that it should be possible to copy the files to the HDD, at least if they were created to a different partition and then burned to CDs. With an Image created directly to CDs, I don't know. Maybe Ghost expects them to be on CDs and can't read them from the HDD.

Christer

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand

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jrkrogh

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #3 - Sep 13^th, 2004 at 8:19pm

Hi Christer

What you said makes since to me. When I worked for IBM, one of the large accounts used ArcServe for backup/recovery. I got used to it and just didn't think (not the first time) that Ghost wouldn't behave the same way. It would seem that Pepes suggestion of getting another hard drive to hold the image may have some merit. I would like to start using incrementals (prefer differentials but Ghost doesn't offer them)
and as such, one incrmental goes belly up and so goes the whole backup. Anyway, I bought this for the image backup functionality so I can't whine too much about the not-so-friendly individual file/folder backup. Thank you (and Pepe) for the replies.

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El_Pescador

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #4 - Sep 13^th, 2004 at 9:30pm

Quote:

... It would seem that Pepes suggestion of getting another hard drive to hold the image may have some merit...

jrkrogh

Just picked up a 120GB Seagate Barrracuda ATA HDD (ST3120026A-RK) this PM from Best Buy. It is available through Saturday for $59.99 after mail-in rebates ($109.99 less $40 MIR from Seagate less $10 MIR from Best Buy). The minor catch is that you have to pay sales taxes on the regular price of $109.99 at a brick-and-mortar store.

El Pescador

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NightOwl-

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #5 - Sep 14^th, 2004 at 1:42am

jrkrogh

Same thing happen on Ghost 2003 also.

And the same warning pops up when you open spanned image files on a hard drive saying that there will be a lot of access between files and do you want to continue. On the hard drive it's not as big a problem as on an optical drive where you have to swap disks, but the excessive file access does slow you down. Also, if you create the image directly onto the hard drive, you will have far fewer spanned files than the direct to CD, because the file size will be 2 GB's and not 650-700 MB's each.

One helpful suggestion--if you have two optical drives--for example a optical writer and a dvd-rom--you can put your first cd disk of the spanned set in the writer to start the process and place the last cd disk in the dvd-rom drive when Ghost Explorer asks for it and point Ghost Explorer to it there.

Now Ghost Explorer will read back and forth between the two optical drives until it asks for a new disk. I've done that with two spanned disks and it worked fairly quickly to load the image--but I've not done it with 11 disks--so I don't know what will happen there!

No question is stupid...but, possibly the answers are Wink

!
(This is an old *NightOwl* user account--not in current use. Current account is NightOwl without a dash at the end.)

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Pleonasm

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #6 - Sep 14^th, 2004 at 1:48pm

Dear "jrkrogh":

(1) I'm curious -- how long did Ghost 9.0 take to write the 11 CDs?

(2) Using Drive Image 7 (the foundation upon which Ghost 9.0 was constructed), I have had no difficulty creating an image backup to an external hard disk (and specifying a split file size of 2048Mb), copying the files to DVDs, and then testing the restore of individual files. It does work; however, the utility also prompts for several of the discs along the way. (In my case, I can backup my entire PC onto two DVDs, so the disc swap is not an issue.) Therefore, I can't see why the reverse process would not function: Copy the 11 files from CD to your hard disk, and then selectively restore whatever files you want.

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jrkrogh

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #7 - Sep 14^th, 2004 at 1:49pm

All good ideas. Thanks! I have decided to get an external hard drive, but first have to get a USB 2/Fireware card (always something...like fixing something in a house..you fix it but discover there are 10 other things needing fixing in the process..sigh.) As for my 11 cds, I have a spare 80G hard dirve for my pc in case the one in my pc turns into a bookend.
I think I will install it as a second (slave) drive in my PC. Then
do an Image restore to it from the CDs. Finally I can then get
at any of the previously backed up data. But the real solution will be to get the external drive. I'm hoping that I can find one
thats hot swappable , 4 drives with Rad, so if a drive goes out
I can just plug another one in with no down time or loss. Then again, I'm hoping to win the megabucks slot to pay for it.

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jrkrogh

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #8 - Sep 14^th, 2004 at 2:05pm

Pleonasm

Must have just missed you. I asked Tech Support about
copying all the cd's to a single folder on my hard drive, and then pointing the image browser there. They were very
adamnet about saying not to do that. I don't know the "why".
Maybe something to do with the version (9). Now allows
for incrementals, the DOD bootdisk is no longer needed, etc.
But thinking about it, I could copy the 1st and last cd to a folder and give it a test. If it doesn't work no big deal (alot different than coping 11 cds and finding out it doesn't work)

The original backup took about 3 1/2 hours.

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El_Pescador

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Re: Ghost 9 - restore from spanned backup
Reply #9 - Sep 14^th, 2004 at 4:06pm

Quote:

... All good ideas. Thanks! I have decided to get an external hard drive, but first have to get a USB 2/Fireware card...
jrkrogh

IMPORTANT: Make sure your USB 2.0/FireWire PCI adapter card is based on NEC USB 2.0 Host Controller Chip. You may have trouble performing Norton Ghost 2003 operations otherwise.

I have a very strong preference for mounting internal HDDs in external enclosure kits as opposed to purpose-built external drives. Should circumstances warrant, the HDD can always be removed from the USB 2.0 enclosure kit and physically put in place of the source HDD. I doubt such would be the case with the Maxtor OneTouch, the LaCie HDD, et cetera.

Check out the threads below for info on external HDD enclosure kits and NEC USB 2.0 Enhanced Host Controller incompatibilities:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=10941...

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=10938...

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