Have you guys noticed that the forum software somehow "lost" 10 or 15 thousand page-views from this thread?

Back on reply #105, I remarked that the thread had over 15,000 page-views:

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=10954...

.. yet now, it says "only" 4700.

I have seen this happen on other threads, too.

But this thread, over on the "Lethal" Rad board, says ~43K .. so I'm not sure what the problem is.

Long as we don't lose actually posts, I guess it's not a major problem. But I *am* curious to know exactly how many page-views this thread has had.

Hi,

I am having trouble getting the Boot disk to work properly.  Let me explain the situation and hardware/software.

Hardware:  Dell laptop, USB floppy,  USB Western Digital      Passport HD.  Note: Laptop C: is NTFS, and WD is FAT32.

Software :  Ghost 2003, Dos Boot disk from Ghost 2003, Dos Boot disk by Nightowl

Objective :  Boot from floppy,  and Ghost Laptop HD                  partition to USB HD.

Yes, I am aware that I can run Ghost from Win - however, the current laptop partition setup (i.e.,  1- Dell Utility, 2-C:, 3: Dell estore) results in "No space in MBR" for Virtual partition.  At this time, don't wish to delete the Dell partitions.  Also, I know you won't be able to see the NTFS partitions in DOS unless you are using the NTFSDOS driver - however, the NTFS partitions should be visible in Ghost.

I will list what I have attempted and the resulting problems:

a.)  Generate Boot disk with USB support from Ghost.  USB HD found, but when I run Ghost, the laptop HD is not visible,  i.e., not found.  I don't know the reason.
b.)  Modify boot disk to not load usb drivers.  As expected, USB  HD not found,  BUT now laptop HD seen in Ghost.  Perhaps USB driver is causing a conflict.  And according to posts on  this site, the Ghost USB driver has limitations.
c.)  Tried the Boot disk (i.e., USBaspi.sys, DI1000dd.sys) procedure given by Nightowl.  The driver is loaded but the WD is not found and the process never proceeds any further.  Note, I used an MS-DOS disk generated by Win98 for the system files.
d.)   Based on further posts on the site, thought that I might be  using an old USBaspi.sys that does not recognized the WD USB HD.  So I changed it for ver 2.2 - the driver loads up - initializes controllers, and the begins scanning for USB devices and again hangs.
     
I am somewhat at a loss on how to solve the problem.  Does anyone have any ideas/suggestions.  I would appreciate it if someone could point me in the right direction.

Thanks.

Will_Rickards wrote on Nov 29^th, 2005 at 12:36pm:


Upgraded my bios and found that now the usb keyboard and mouse options had legacy next to them.  They were enabled anyway so scratch the bios as the problem.
Then I booted with the CD and pushed F8 to do step by step.
If I don't load the panasonic usb drivers, the keyboard and mouse work.
If I do, they don't. So it is definitely the driver. It might be an option like only use OHCI or EHCI or something. 

Also another interesting thing.
While I was able to format this 160GB drive as FAT32 in an external enclosure with mkdosfs for windows, and was able to write to it with ghost, and verified the images with ghost. A day later all I got was gibberish when doing a dir command and it said the FAT table was corrupt. All with no writing to the drive being done?!? So my backups are well gone. Not sure whether it is the greater than 137GB thing or the enclosure chipset or what.

It works fine formatted NTFS over firewire connected to my main machine so back it goes. Which means now I don't need the panasonic drivers, I need the firewire device drivers. Anybody want to create a ghost 2003 boot floppy disk with those and tell me what files/commands are needed in config .sys/autoexec.bat?

I'm out of CD-Rs so I won't be able to test a new boot cd.
I'm thinking about trying to make my USB flash drive bootable and trying that as it is rewritable.

Other Forum Post

Will_Rickards

This may solve your USB keyboard/mouse problem:

USB driver for DOS = USBASPI.SYS

Quoting regarding various switches for the Panasonic driver:

Quote:


If your system did not support your keyboard and mouse in DOS (legacy support), Norton's Ghost Boot Wizard for the *Std Ghost Boot Disk*, on the first option screen lets one select *Peer-to-Peer>>USB Support*--others have reported that this driver will allow access to USB mouse and keyboard in DOS.

The driver names are *ohci.exe* and *uhci.exe* and are found in the *C:\Documents and Settings\All Users\Application Data\Symantec\Ghost\Template\common* sub-directory on my system.

In the *Boot Wizard*, you can choose to load both, or just one or the other, by using the *Advanced...* button.

If using these drivers outside of the boot wizard, you load them in *config.sys* with the following syntax:

device=ohci.exe
device=uhci.exe

and the files would have to be added to the root directory of your boot disk.

But, selecting this option in the Boot Wizard *greys out the option of using *External Storage Options* where you get your USB support for the external HDD--so apparently the Ghost USB DOS driver for external HDD will not function.

But, you can load the Panasonic USB DOS driver or *mass storage devices--which is different from USB mouse or keyboard functions--after the above USB driver using the */norst* switch and you may now have both USB mouse/keyboard support plus the USB external HDD support.  (I say *may*--because I don't have USB mice or keyboards to test this out--and various systems may respond differently!)

Quote:

See here (reply # 8 ):

Adding USB to Ghost Boot CD

Report back with the results of your efforts--it would be informative if you tried the Ghost *Peer-to-Peer* driver and the Panasonic driver with the */norst* switch--if this combination allows for USB mouse and keyboard functionally plus external USB HDD access! (You would have to *disable* legacey USB support in the BIOS to try this.)

But, knowing if the */norst* switch works if the BIOS is giving legacy USB support to the USB mouse and keyboard would also be of interest.

I have Ghost app on disk by itself but Ghost doesn't start automatically & when type "ghost" at A: prompt get "bad file name or command". I have the panasonic drivers floppies (I think correctly setup) but they used to automatically check for drives & assign letters, etc & DID recognize my WD ext. HDD but now it just gets me to A: prompt & "duh" - I don't know where to go from there.....

I'm not terribly knowledgable on Ghost or DOS so are there other commands to run Ghost & to utilize the drivers?

I used these floppies a few times months ago & they worked(that is, automatically checked for drives & assigned letters, etc & DID recognize my WD ext. HDD) so not sure if I messed them up somehow or what & forgot in what order to use them.....Win98 boot, then get Ghost going, THEN put drivers disk in??

(BTW they were generously supplied to me by El_Pescador.)

Thanks........I took ghost.exe out of the folder called ghost & it seems to be starting ghost ok now (though originally had no mouse functioning --- added mouse.com, etc. & I think THAT floppy is working correctly.

As to problem #2 - w/o the Panasonic USB Drivers disk working, ghost doesn't recognize the ext. HDD where images would be/are saved to or recovered from.

I HAVE used it successfully before, it "did it's thing" automatically....said "scanning for usb drives" (or drivers?), etc & then ghost would show the ext HDD as the last drive. Can't figure out how or what command is missing or needed for it to load/scan usb devices as it should.....
Any ideas???

Didn't mean to bug you.      It seemed easier & less likely I might mess it up more.
Long story short, I now have a working 2 disk Ghost created set of floppies.

My 2 disk set of Panasonic Usb Drivers however does not work as it had previously, i.e. - insert it, it loads/looks for USB drives, etc. & then Ghost recognizes the WD ext. HDD.

Tried to use it as I had previously w/ no luck. I may have altered it subsequently per instructions on pg. 1 of this post to get it to work but I've done so much it is all a blur to me at this point.....NOT sure WHY it worked automatically before & does not now....

- on the Ghost created disk the MSDOS.SYS is 0 bytes.
- on the Panasonic Usb Driver disk MSDOS.SYS is 6 bytes.
is this as it should be? obviously i am clueless