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Cloning partitions with Ghost 9 (Read 249696 times)
NightOwl-
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #90 - Apr 10th, 2006 at 10:26pm
 
DoctorDan

When you use Ghost 2003, and clone *Partition to Partition*, the master boot record remains intact (as it should, because you indicated there are other partitions with data), but your WinXP uses the disk id plus sector starting points to tell the boot files where to find the ongoing boot partition, etc.

If you use *Kawecki's Trick* from this web page on the former Win2000 HDD with your now WinXP OS on it, you might be set to go:

Fixing Windows 2000/XP Drive Letters


Make sure you use the correct version of *fdisk*!

*Method #2 might also work if you use it just before booting to DOS and cloning the WinXP to the former Win2000 HDD.
 

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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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #91 - Apr 10th, 2006 at 10:27pm
 
Brian

I see you beat me to the punch  Wink !
 

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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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #92 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 11:15am
 
Thanks guys.  I printed Brian’s response last night and went to bed thinking it would be 5 minute fix first thing in the morning.  I scrounged through my old diskettes and actually found a Win 98 boot disk, unfortunately from the year 2002 when I first installed it.  I popped in the diskette and voila, I learned that NTLDR means “dead in the water.”  I couldn’t go any further.  I tried to reinstall Win 98 on a spare hard disk so I could make a fresh recovery diskette. I must have had a Windows 95 to 98 upgrade CD instead of the full blown version, because I could not boot or install the 98 version at all on a freshly formatted disk. Hours later…

Talk about frustration. 

So without any hope of getting the correct recovery diskette, I might try doing a full clone using Ghost 2003 and hope for the best that only data gets copied instead of blank sectors.  “Gozinta” doesn’t work when it is a 300 gig “going into” a 120 gig.

Any suggestions if this will work or for a work-around? 

I have two 120 gig hard disks, one of which has my master data, so in effect I have a spare 120 gig to experiment with.  The Windows XP on the 300 gig works fine.  I transferred all of my data files from the 120 to the 300, so everything is functional at this time.  It’s just that I do not have an ongoing, simple backup procedure that works.  Of course, I want a method that will allow me to swap hard disks and continue.

I thought (sometimes a dangerous undertaking) that it was going to be a simple matter of cloning the new XP C: partition on the 300 gig over to the 120 gig C: partition.  Evidently, it is not that simple.

So, “I did not pass go and did not collect $200” in this game.  I feel like I am in jail at the moment waiting for my next roll of the dice. 

As I implied earlier, my ultimate goal is to make a fully functional clone via USB backups so I don’t have to remove covers and cables.

If anyone has a game plan that will work, I will be forever grateful. 

Thanks,

DoctorDan
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #93 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 3:19pm
 
DoctorDan,

It's certainly a challenge. I need some information. How large is the C drive on your 300 GB HD and how much data does it contain? Has it been defragged with Perfect Disk or Diskeeper so that all the data is on the "left"?

A philosophical question. Could you live with images as backups instead of clones?

Win98 boot disc    http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #94 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 6:24pm
 
Catching up on suggestions.

Brian, I went to the suggested web-site to download the bootdisk.  Either I missed something or something is missing.  I downloaded the bootSE98.exe  file to a diskette hoping there would be some sys files on it. I got the NTLDR error.  OK, no sys files so the only way I could fix that was to format a diskette with the boot files from XP.  Done.  I copied the contents to the diskette and tried to re-boot.  I was given another dead in the water error message about not being able to boot in Windows or DOS, I can’t remember which.   Back to the penalty box.

I used Windows to defrag.  I was amazed that it needed defragging at all because all I did was load programs and a few data files.  The disk is only a week old in terms of time from formatting.  I try to keep program and data files separate as much as possible, so the programs take up the most space.

Finally, the stats on the 300 gig.

CapacityFree%freeused
C:NTFS97.6 GB83.985%~15%
D:84.164.5765
E:DVD
F:CD
G:48.839.2880%
H:48.848.7799%

The C: drive on the 120 gig disk has plenty of room.  
I don’t like the fact that the CD/DVD drives are “in the middle.” But there was no way around that.

Finally, my next door neighbor and tape drive guru at IBM has always twisted my arm about backing up and having a fully operational, independent clone that I could pop in case of a disaster.  For a long time I poo-poohed him about having the CD’s and all I needed to back up was the data.  He convinced me otherwise and begrudgingly I took his advice.  He saved my bacon at least three times with non-recoverable software faults.  I call him and thank him for his advice every time a disaster occurs.  So, I want a fully operational backup, not an image.  As you can see, I am having a week’s worth of grief with a fully functional computer.  My wife keeps telling me that computers,  “Are not ready for prime time yet.”  I believe her.  

I believe there is an answer out there somewhere, I/we just haven’t stumbled on it yet.  

And... thank you for your promopt attention and diagnostic prowess.


DoctorDan
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #95 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 6:39pm
 
DoctorDan,

So the C drive is around 98 GB and contains around 15 GB of data. That should go onto a 120 GB HD easily.

Humour me. Do it this way....

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=11175...
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #96 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 6:47pm
 
Quote:
  I downloaded the bootSE98.exe  file to a diskette hoping there would be some sys files on it. I got the NTLDR error.  OK, no sys files


After downloading the boot98se.exe to your HD, did you double click on the file and let Windows write to the floppy?
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #97 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 7:00pm
 
No, I just copied the file to the diskette not anticipating that it might be a compressed file. 

I'll go back to the drawing board and re-do that last step.

Hang loose.


DoctorDan
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #98 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 7:38pm
 
Success. 

Thank you .  I just didn't realize that the rescue diskette was ZIPPED. 

I have a few more questions.  So, I will go off-line to compose them and probably re-post later.


DoctorDan



 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #99 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 7:44pm
 
Quote:
Success. 

Does that mean fdisk /mbr worked and you now have the 120 GB HD booted up?
 
 
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DoctorDan
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #100 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 8:39pm
 
Sho' nuf. 

It looks just like the big one except for the e-mail traffic that I missed during the last week. 

Doctor Dan
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #101 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 9:34pm
 
Now for the difficult questions.

I know that Ghost 2003 does not support USB, therefore I cannot use it.  Besides that, I’d have to get under the covers and fool with the cables and jumpers etc. which is what I am trying to avoid.

The Ghost 9 booklet of instructions illustrate the Ghost 2003 procedure of hardwiring the second drive onto the flat cable as a slave and booting from the CD.  In essence, it is a newer version of 2003.  No change here except that the diskette is gone.   Still under the covers and fooling with cables.

My external USB enclosure Acomdata requires the drive to be set as master.  Their engineer said it was OK because the USB master is not in conflict with the IDE master.

So, it appears that I’ll have to:
change the BIOS boot sequence to start with the Ghost 9 CD,
connect and power up the external USB drive. 
Power up the main unit next and cross my fingers that Ghost 9 behaves as expected. 

This is where I get nervous because once the system is powered up, will the USB drive letters get re-assigned because of their plug and play design or will they remain static? If Ghost does what I expect it to, the drive letters will remain the same.  However, if the boot changes my external “C:” drive to the next higher available drive letter, I am in trouble.  I see the fdisk /mbr routine becoming part of the process.  Not good.

Is there any unique sequence of events that I need to perform to achieve my goal of cloning from the 300 gig internal to the 120 external via USB connector with Ghost 9.0?  My goal is to have a fully functional external drive after cloning without having to remove covers or fooling with cables.

I am sure there are others who are following this thread because a lot of good can come from it if and when the procedure works. 

Thanks,

Doctor Dan

 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #102 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 10:57pm
 
I'd like NightOwl to add some thoughts to this thread. I've never cloned to a USB external HD before so I don't know the problems. I would like you to read the thread below about cloning and images. I think you are on the wrong track. Let us know if you really want to avoid images but I think they are the way to go for backup. Especially reply #7.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=11329...

You can change E and F to Y and Z (or whatever) in Disk Management and then change G and H to E and F if they are just data partitions.
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #103 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 11:19am
 
I’ve been off digesting all of the good information about partitioning etc.  As you can tell, my experience is with fully functional clone hardware.  This “image thing” is unfamiliar to me, and therefore somewhat foreboding without knowing a little more about the mechanics and recovery methods. 

Can you point me in the direction of a good tutorial to walk me through the process?  I got the feeling that when I read the Ghost 9.0 instruction book, it was like being handed a dictionary and told, “All of the words for the greatest selling novel are inside, all you have to do is put the right words together, good luck.” 

I need that overview and more specifically, the HOW TO process.

Thanks,

Doctor Dan
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #104 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 8:49pm
 
DoctorDan,

Good answer. You need to be convinced that it's right for you.

http://ghost.radified.com/

http://partition.radified.com/

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/index.htm#partsigs

http://www.goodells.net/multiboot/notes.htm#13

To summarise, images are for backup, clones are for changing to a new HD. In fact I use images for the latter and have only cloned for testing purposes. For example, your image will be around 8 GB so it takes up 8 GB of space on your external HD as opposed to 100 GB for your clone. So instead of one clone you can have multiple images if you desire. With Ghost 9/10 I do a baseline image weekly and incremental images daily. I delete images when they are 3 to 4 weeks old but I burn a baseline image to DVD every few months for long term storage. You can't do any of this with clones. To restore an image from your external HD to an internal HD takes 5-10 minutes and you are up and running. To swap in a cloned HD might only take a few minutes but what if it doesn't boot and you have to look for a floppy?

To restore the OS partition.. (for Ghost 9)

Boot to the Ghost CD
Set the Time Zone
Advanced Recovery Tasks
System Restore
dot in Restore drives          ,Next
dot in Single drive            ,Next
Browse to your image file      ,Next
Select a destination           ,Next
tick Verify backup
tick Check for file system errors after restore
tick Resize drive to fill unallocated space (Y or N) Will be greyed out if partition is correct size
tick Set drive active (for booting OS)
tick Restore original disk signatures
tick Restore MBR (for new HD's)
Next
tick Reboot after finish
Finish

Check computer clock after OS boots. May be out by an hour or two.
 
 
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