Just wanted to let you guys know that the latest Ghost 11.0.2 corporate DOS executable is incompatible with the USBASPI.SYS driver...i.e. the Ghost program will stall at initialization and not display the splash screen...

You probably know this already, from the 19 pages contained here, but this is the single biggest thread on the entire forum. (I did a search sorted by file-size, and it came upas #1, with nothing else even half as big.) It has a file-size of ~350-KB. (100-KB is big thread.) If it continues to grow, perhaps starting a "Part II" might be a good idea.

Update:
I can not get the Panasonic USB 2.0 driver to work with my current Windows installation. When I try to create in image of my laptop hard drive it hangs at "Adding MFT Files...". Using the BIOS USB support the same operation doesn't fail. I restored the factory installation and this installation I can use the Panasonic USB 2.0 driver to create an image from.

So it seems that Panasonic driver is a bit sensitive to what is on the disk. The factory installation is made up of two partitions, one small diagnostic partition and one big NTFS partition. The Windows installation that failed had one more NTFS partition. I can access the USB drive fine in DOS and Ghost can create directories on it so I think the problem lies in reading data from the source disk. But how come it doesn't work with the Panasonic driver? It shouldn't be involved when reading from an IDE or SATA drive anyway, should it?

Anyway, I might get away with using the BIOS USB support. Initially I assumed it would just be USB 1.1 speed but then I read on this forum that new computers sometimes support USB 2.0 speed through BIOS and I decided to give it a try. I get around 450 MB/min when creating a Ghost image using the BIOS USB support so it must be USB 2.0, right? The Panasonic driver gives me twice the speed so it would be nice to get it working but at least I have an acceptable workaround.

/Kollo

Edit (Update 2):
I tried some more with the Panasonic  driver and I got another problem: It caused Ghost to fail to restore a partition from an image file in a case where the BIOS USB "driver" worked without problems. The problem was that Ghost hanged after restoring approximately 90% of the image.

This problem was solved by using himem.sys and loading DOS in upper memory in config.sys as indicated in the guide in this thread:
Device=himem.sys
Dos=high,umb
Initially I had these commented out because they didn't seem to be necessary. But it seems that they indeed are necessary in some cases. I guess I could try loading the USB drivers in upper memory also if I run into more problems.

I haven't got the "Adding MFT files" hang after I restored another ghost image on my computer so I don't know if that problem would have been solved by using himem.sys or if it is another problem. I will post an update if I run into that problem again.

/Kollo

piikea

(Edited by Nightowl 12/10/2010 to correct links to Panasonic USB DOS driver versions)

Quote:

Maybe, but if you read the following--it's not that Ghost doesn't *recognize* the HDD, it's that it reports the wrong size and shows a negative number!

Ghost 2003 Destination Drive Size Limits?--see Dan Goodell's Reply #3!

So, my bet is that there is some incompatibility of the Panasonic USB DOS driver and the USB controller for your 1 TB PATA External USB HDD.

Did the HDD come inside a USB Enclosure--or did you add it to an enclosure--or is it an external adaptor to attach a HDD to to make it available to attach to a USB port?  What are the model numbers of the HDD and the USB enclosure?

What version of the Panasonic USB driver are you using?  The most recent version I'm aware of is  v2.27 , size=39,729, dated 10/22/2008

Also found this link from this post for v2.27:  Re: Bootable CD starts ghost, then hangs with USB device plugged in, reply #6

Quote:


Here's v2.20, size=39,179, dated 11/07/2004

If you are not using one of those versions, give them a try and report back if one of them helped!

It is a WD 1TB Caviar HDD I put in an Eagle e series 3.5" SATA to USB enclosure.

I believe showed up as:
ASPI Manager for USB Mass Storage  V. 2.06
I switched it for the newer version in your link which I believe showed V. 2.20 - however when tried running/using it it gave following error:

DI1000 ASPI DISK Driver Ver 2.00
Available ID = 0
Your program caused a divide overflow error.
If problem persists contact your program vendor.

I tried it again & got same error.

Oddly, when I tried again with my original (V. 2.06??) it usually recognizes ALL my drives. Now it just shows my 2 CD-ROM drives, the A: drive, D: (2nd internal) HHD and the 80GB ext HDD which has always worked w/ it for years.

Not a major issue since at least it does still recognizes one of my ext HDD's but ideally I could get it to also "see correctly" the 1TB ext HHD.

I switched to V. 2.27 but got the same error.  I read elsewhere someone w/ a similar situation saying they required aspidisk.sys for their 1 TB ext HDD to be recognized.  I have searched for where to download it unsuccessfully. Many places discuss it but never where to get it!

Trying that (for me) is alot simpler than messing w/ my BIOS which I haven't much experience in doing. Providing I can find the needed driver instead.

piikea wrote on Dec 13^th, 2010 at 1:18am:


That someone is me.  I'm a member here too although I haven't posted in a while. I still plan to post my experiences with various DOS drivers on my Ghost boot disk sometime but haven't had the time or energy. Plus there have been additional technical developments. But anyway, I believe a subsequent poster in that other forum answered your question where to get the file, but yes it was the only driver that allowed access to a 1TB external USB HDD. All of the other drivers failed with "divide overflow" being the most common error as I recall.

EDIT: Upon further review, I believe I got the exact same error that piikea cited. Unfortunately I don't have the specific link to get the file but it was from Adaptec. And I came across references somewhere that said it was an alternative to DI1000DD.SYS and NJ32DISK.SYS.