yaby, nico, remer

Question--are these problems happening when booting to the recovery environment Ghost 9.x recovery CD, is there a SATA HDD involved?

I think you have to load SATA drivers using F6 during the boot process to the recovery environment because the 'WinXP lite' interface (? WinXP PE?), which I think is similar to the WinXP install interface, does not support all the various SATA controllers, and you have to add those during boot.

I'd be curious to know if this has anything to do with this error!

Same Problem when creating an image  with verify, looks like it is related to the back up device having the worng format. Ghost can only write images large than 2/4 GB on NTFS file systems, otherwise you must break it into pieces.

From:
http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT/powerquest.nsf/643c9edb8e8f93b788256ee00056...

The text:
Error: "The internal structure of the PQI file is invalid or not supported" when creating, restoring, or browsing an image

Situation:
When you attempt to create, restore, or browse the contents of an image, you see the error message "The internal structure of the PQI file is invalid or not supported."

Solution:
There are three situations which can cause this message to appear, each of which has a different cause. Read the section that relates to the situation in which you see the error message.

The error appears when creating an image or when verifying it with Backup Image Browser
If the error appears while creating an image, there are two possibilities:

WARNING: Unless you can successfully verify an image, do not assume it is valid. Be sure that the image file is valid before performing any operations on the original drive.

     The image is being written directly to CD or DVD, and the option to verify the image is selected
     In this case, the process of creating the CD or DVD may be interfering with the verification process. When creating an image directly to CD or DVD, deselect the option to verify the image during the creation process, then verify the image after it is created by using the Backup Image Browser.

     For additional information, "Check the integrity of a backup image using the Backup Image Browser" in the Technical Information section near the end of this document.

     The image is corrupted
     There are numerous other factors that can cause problems during the imaging process, which can lead to a corrupted image. If you continue to see the error message when creating an image, try the following:
         o Do one of the following on the source and destination partitions:
               + In Windows 9x/Me, run ScanDisk.
                 For instructions on running ScanDisk, read the document Checking for disk errors using ScanDisk.
               + In Windows NT/2000/XP, run CHKDSK /F
                 For instructions on running CHKDSK, read the document How to run Microsoft CHKDSK from the command line.
         o Use a defragmentation utility to defragment both the source and destination drives.
           See "Run Disk Defragmenter" in the Technical Information section near the end of this document.
         o Split images are slightly more likely to become corrupted. If you are creating the image on a FAT or FAT32 partition, or any other location that may require that the image be split into multiple segments, try creating the image on an NTFS partition.
           See "FAT and NTFS file system limitations" in the References section near the end of this document.
         o Another application running in the background is interfering with the imaging process. Close any unnecessary applications before performing an imaging task.



The error appears when the image is restored
Other than the possibility of an image actually being corrupted, there are a couple of other situations that may cause this problem:

     Restoring from CD or DVD writer
     If you see this error message when restoring an image from a CD or DVD writer, try using a read-only CD or DVD drive to read the backup image instead. Another possibility is to copy the contents of multiple CD or DVD sets to a single location before restoring the image.

     Note: Keep in mind the size limit of different file systems when copying image files from DVD. An image that fills an entire DVD cannot be copied to a FAT16 or FAT32 partition.
     Sonic DLA is installed on your computer
     It has been reported that Sonic DLA can prevent CD images from being read properly. To resolve the problem, disable or uninstall Sonic DLA.



Technical Information:
Check the integrity of a backup image using the Backup Image Browser
You can use Verify Backup Image anytime after a backup is created to determine whether a backup image file is valid or corrupted. Backup Image Browser checks to see that all of the files in the backup image are available for you to open, the internal data structures in the backup image file match the data that is available, and the backup image file can be uncompressed and create the expected amount of data.

     To check the integrity of a backup image
        1. In the tree pane of the Backup Image Browser, select the backup image file.
        2. On the menu bar, click File > Verify Backup Image.
        3. When the check is complete, click OK.



Run Disk Defragmenter
Disk Defragmenter is a Windows utility that organizes the way files are stored on the hard drive. Defragmenting your hard drive on a regular basis can lead to better overall system performance. For more information, see the Technical Information section below.

Note: If you have Norton System Works or Norton Utilities on your computer, you can run Norton Speed Disk, which will optimize the file system. You can access Speed Disk from the Start Menu or from the Norton SystemWorks/Norton Utilities program.

     To run Disk Defragmenter
        1. Click Start > Programs > Accessories > System Tools > Disk Defragmenter.
        2. Select the drives that you want to scan. You can select either a single drive or all hard drives.
        3. Click OK (Windows 98/Me) or Defragment (Windows 2000/XP) to begin the defragmentation process.

Depending on the size of the hard drive, the amount of fragmentation, and the speed of the computer, this process may take several hours. In some cases, you may want to run Disk Defragmenter overnight.



References:
FAT and NTFS file system limitations
The size of any image file you create is limited by the file system you are saving the image file to, regardless of the size of the partition being imaged. The following limitations apply when creating image files. Any image files that exceed these limits will be split into multiple segments.

     File System      File size limit
     FAT16      2 GB
     FAT32      4 GB
     NTFS      Limited by size of volume only.

I found this. Most of the points have been discussed.



EA39070A
If you are using Veritas DLA you may encounter this error indicating that the
internal structure of the v2i file is invalid or unsupported.

Despite this error, the backup image on the disk is still valid. To correct this
issue, you can use a regular CD or DVD drive to read the backup image or you
can remove Veritas DLA from the computer so the CD can be read properly.

This error can also occur for one of the following reasons:

* If the image file is damaged or corrupted.
Damage can occur when you create a backup image over a network and
there is significant packet loss during the creation of the backup image file.
Symantec recommends that you verify images after they are created to
ensure their integrity.
Create a new backup image file to a different location, or create a new image
with a different file name to the same location.

* The image file is fine, but there may be a conflict with spyware detection
software (such as Pest Control or Spybot) causing the backup image file to
become corrupt or appear to be corrupted.
While using the product or Backup Image Browser, disable all spyware
detection software.

* If you copy a backup image file from one FireWire drive to another FireWire
drive while connected to a FireWire expansion card that uses a Via chipset
(such as the Kouwell card).
To work around this issue, replace your Via-based FireWire expansion card
with a card that uses a non-Via chipset (such as the Adaptec 4300
Fireconnect, which uses a TI chipset).

Alfred, could you outline what led to this strange situation?

Chris, note that Ghost 9.0 only supports "hardware RAID levels 0 (stripe sets) and 5 (stripe sets with parity)" (see the Symantec Knowledge Base Document ID 2004024963607262).

As a point of clarification, are you using one of these two RAID levels?

Quote:
Just kidding.  For a while there I was convinced that with a set of Norton Ghost 2003 boot disks, I could perform "disk-to-disk" Clones and "disk-to-image"/"image-to-disk" Backup/Restore procedures even with Ghost 9.0 embedded and active on the Source/Destination HDD.  Although I never did try it, I have been baptized with CRC errors while horsing around with two different Ghost 2003 sources - and wound up having to zero-fill and reformat the HDD in order to restore its Ghost 2003 capability.  I fear that using Ghost 2003 boot disks on a HDD hosting Ghost 9.0 would run the risk of doing the same.

Quote:


Chris, I gather you created an image while the SATA drive was disconnected and the image verified OK. Now that the SATA drive has been reconnected, does the image still verify?