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Cloning partitions with Ghost 9 (Read 249717 times)
Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #15 - Jun 5th, 2005 at 1:56am
 
I'm glad I don't use the term "clone" anymore Dan.
 
 
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Dan Goodell
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #16 - Jun 5th, 2005 at 2:25am
 
"I'm glad I don't use the term "clone" anymore Dan."


I don't mind if people interchange 'clone' and 'copy'--in the case of Ghost they generically mean the same thing.  In fact, if someone says they "copied their XP partition to the new disk", I always have to wonder if they mean they drag-and-dropped the files or did a
"copy *.*"
.  It may not always be literally accurate, but I like to use the term 'clone' when talking about a tool like Ghost.
 
 
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Victor B. Gonzalez
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #17 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 7:51pm
 
I have some drama with Ghost baby momma 9. I am trying to clomage my C:/ to my D:/ but am told D:/ is far too small... My C:/ is 60.0 Gigabyte whereas my D:/ is only 4.00 GIG. Don't laugh...

Truth of the matter is the data on C:/ is really only 3.20 GIG. When I do a high compression clomage it's a little over 2.00 GIG. If I try system recovery to restore the image to the D:/ it just won't happen... Forgot the error code... If I try to copy from partitions (C > D) while in Windows, Ghost complains the destination is too small...

I've just resorted to manually restoring files from the Ghost browser direct to D:/. I predict this will cause problems but am really just experimenting.

I remember finding something on the Symantec site "how to force an image to go into a partition *if* Ghost complains it's too small". Yadayada, point was if you knew the partition was big enough but Ghost didn't see it that way you can OVERRIDE Ghost like this...

Ghost.exe -or

Problem is... With Ghost 9 I don't seem to have ghost.exe... I tried putting that switch on other executables but to no avail...

Anybody have any idea why Ghost isn't ghost anymore?

I am on Windows XP Professional and am trying to achieve a dual boot system with two copies of XP Professional. The reason why I would like two copies of the same exact OS is simple. Sometimes system files get corrupt or just go missing and XP is unbootable... I was hoping I could then boot into the second partition to save the first because the second would contain a full working copy of XP... Ghost is just playing me...

Any help is much appreciated!
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #18 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 8:20pm
 
Victor,

For Copy Drive the destination partition needs to be the same size or larger than the source partition.

For a restore process it should work but I see that it doesn't. I suspect that your C: drive is defragmented with some data extending beyond the 4GB mark. I've seen this explanation for Acronis True Image and at least it sounds logical. Can you look at the defrag graph and see if this is likely. You will need a commercial defrag prog to shift the data back as the Windows defrag prog isn't too efficient at moving data to the left.

Do you have partitioning software to increase the size of your D: drive? What does the defrag graph look like?

You don't really need to do it this way because if your Windows XP does become corrupt you can just restore your image to the C: drive.
 
 
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Victor B. Gonzalez
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #19 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 8:51pm
 
Man... I started on Drive C: (68GIG not 60) and got everything perfect. Then I tried cloning to the 4G when I should have done it in reverse... I also did try to clone to the 6G but no go...

I don't have a commercial defragment utility but I did defrag right before beginning the cloning process so this way I could start with an already defragged image...

It's a little difficult checking the status of the images dragmentation as I've already used the disk quite heavily... Unless a report from the last defrag was saved somewhere I don't know about...

Here is something interesting... I went into master.sv2i file just to see if I could see anything unusual or something that I could probably hack at... Here is what the file's contents looked like...

Code:
<SDO clsid="{E097FFA2-58F0-4EDC-8489-4A4BD6230F26}"><Volume1 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">-1</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8">D:\XP2W4685.v2i</ImageFile><Size vt="21">71847784448</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">0</IsLogical><Size vt="21">71847788544</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">63</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume1><Volume2 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile><Size vt="21">4194856960</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical><Size vt="21">4194860544</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">140327838</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume2><Volume3 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}"><VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType><IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden><IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive><ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile><Size vt="21">6292306944</Size><Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}"><DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber><IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical><Size vt="21">6292306944</Size><OffsetOnMedia vt="21">148520988</OffsetOnMedia></Segment1></Volume3></SDO> 



I noticed the size of the original partition 71847784448 is in there in kilobyte... that equals my partitions size of 68,519.3867G...

I will try to mess around with it but will most likely resort to setting up for the perfect image with a smaller drive...

The reason why I am trying to insist on 3 partitions, two of them with XP Professional is because I plan on putting Ubuntu Linux on the 3rd partition and use GRUB to boot up... If for some reason the first primary partition fails (because it has happened so many times already) I can either A: boot into the second Windows installation to try and save it (using tools such as nero, etc at native speeds) or B: Boot into Linux and burn what I can from Windows or C: Use System Recovery...

I hope I am not headed in a mindless direction... Thanks for the feedback... Does the pasted code of the sv2i file make any sense to you? I am about to mess with it. Thanks!
 
 
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Victor B. Gonzalez
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #20 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 9:04pm
 
Here I just thought I post that code again but this time formatted so that it makes more sense...

Code:
<SDO clsid="{E097FFA2-58F0-4EDC-8489-4A4BD6230F26}">

<Volume1 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}">
<VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType>
<IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden>
<IsActive vt="11">-1</IsActive>
<ImageFile vt="8">D:\XP2W4685.v2i</ImageFile>
<Size vt="21">71847784448</Size>
<Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}">
<DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber>
<IsLogical vt="11">0</IsLogical>
<Size vt="21">71847788544</Size>
<OffsetOnMedia vt="21">63</OffsetOnMedia>
</Segment1></Volume1>

<Volume2 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}">
<VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType>
<IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden>
<IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive>
<ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile>
<Size vt="21">4194856960</Size>
<Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}">
<DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber>
<IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical>
<Size vt="21">4194860544</Size>
<OffsetOnMedia vt="21">140327838</OffsetOnMedia>
</Segment1></Volume2>

<Volume3 vt="13" clsid="{C85BC36B-53ED-4760-A388-DE72B0A04119}">
<VolumeType vt="8">Simple</VolumeType>
<IsHidden vt="11">0</IsHidden>
<IsActive vt="11">0</IsActive>
<ImageFile vt="8"></ImageFile>
<Size vt="21">6292306944</Size>
<Segment1 vt="13" clsid="{C9D92A04-7744-4697-A02A-A0AAEB01A9AD}">
<DeviceNumber vt="19">0</DeviceNumber>
<IsLogical vt="11">-1</IsLogical>
<Size vt="21">6292306944</Size>
<OffsetOnMedia vt="21">148520988</OffsetOnMedia>
</Segment1></Volume3>

</SDO>


Tell me I can hack this... When I tried opening the file with Ghost it said it could only be used in the recovery environment... I will check...
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #21 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 9:22pm
 
Victor, that code means nothing to me.

I'd only use one WinXP partition. You could image this partition daily (incrementals) to another partition or preferably another HD. Then if Windows fails you can restore the image and be up and running in 5 to 10 minutes. Why make it complicated? Or am I missing something?

If you have a second WinXP partition are you planning to update it daily? A lot of work.
 
 
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Victor B. Gonzalez
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #22 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 10:08pm
 
I believe you're right... My theory was quite simple... If Windows (A) went down and became unbootable Windows (B) could be up in 5 to 10 seconds... Instead of booting from a restore CD or DVD at a very slow read and write speed I could boot up from the hard disk and read and write at blazing speeds. Another thing about my pc, is it only has one bay for CD/DVD... If I needed to boot up and burn a backup, I might as well just dream about it. Another thing about incremental backups is everything between the backups is lost...

Basically what I mean is any given hour of the day I have work and email on the PC which cannot be afforded lost. If I set incremental backups to take place every 24 hours but the pc goes down in the 23rd hour I lost 23x's my work, etc... Whether it was 1x or 23x it is very frustrating... Just multiply x by frustration and you probably get the picture... I was just hoping my theory would help with this problem... For some reason and it is completely unpredictable as to when it will happen I will one day boot up and can't boot into Windows... Some file is missing or corrupt... I hate XP for this very reason...

Trust me, Microsoft itself offers a remedy in which they clearly state will work only *50%* of the time... I tried the remedy probably more than 5 times and not once did I succeed in getting back into Windows... For me it was a 500% failure rate... At times Ghost and Norton Go Back could not even save what I was forced to lose... Ghost is awesome but to an extent which still makes it limited to me... Unless I misunderstand it...

Anyhow, I think at the moment I will dedicate the 4 gigs to Ghost incremental backups... Thanks!
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #23 - Sep 5th, 2005 at 10:35pm
 
Victor, backup to the same HD can be dangerous. What happens if the HD fails? If you can't afford to lose one hour of data then you need another HD, internal or external. You need to look at data backup in addition to imaging. Second Copy (http://www.centered.com/download.html) can backup your data (email, favorites, wab, documents, pictures etc.) every few minutes if you like. Automatically. Then you can backup WinXP with an daily image.

Or, instead of data backup, you could do hourly Ghost incrementals and delete them every second day.

4 GB is too small for your situation. You need to keep a few images, not just one.
 
 
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Victor B. Gonzalez
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #24 - Sep 9th, 2005 at 6:43pm
 
You're right Brian! I agree! I do have Nero which shipped with a backup program and planned on using it. Also, I just wanted Ghost to create a Scratch Recovery Disc*. Would you believe in my over 8 years of working on computers most if not all my unbootable experiences resulting in lost work stemmed from malfunctioning software on XP and not a hard disk failure?

I didn't want to leave this thread unanswered so I thought I report back with my findings. Having two copies of XP on the same disk at the same time is not a good idea. If one goes down, it will bring the other with it. I found this out after a quick test...

Instead what I've resulted to was the following... Install only one copy of XP and make a 2G partition to house the swap file. If the main Windows does go down, restore a slipstreamed (optional) version of XP into the swap file's partition... This is only advisable if XP is unbootable because of software related problems. Doing this over a hardware failure may yield catastrophic results. I haven't fully tested this theory yet but believe it should work right out of the box...

Brian, do you have a walkthrough on how to put the Ghost backup images directly onto the Norton Recovery Disc so when time comes to restore a backup you do not have to swap out the disc? If not, I'll be glad to write one up covering my steps and post it to these forums. Thanks!

* Scratch Recovery Disc: My term for an in house OEM type recovery CD meant to restore the OS and applications specific to the user and there settings. No personal information is to be found on a SRD.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #25 - Sep 10th, 2005 at 1:43am
 
And I agree with you Victor. Most restores are done to correct a software problem, not for HD failure.

You could add your image to the Ghost Recovery CD but I don't think it's worth the effort. Make an .iso of the CD with UltraISO, inject the Ghost 9 backup image,  save the new .iso and burn to a DVD.

I don't follow your planning on what to do if WinXP goes down due to a software problem. I'd just restore an image to that WinXP partition.

 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #26 - Sep 19th, 2005 at 2:54pm
 
Hi I need some help with cloning using Ghost 9.0 (newbie here)

I have a 200GB hdd with partitions
C:30
D:50
E:30
F:79

If I get a 250hdd, using ghost 9.0 do I need to copy each partition one by one, each time booting windows, or can I do it without booting into the OS? Also, if all the partitions are copied onto the new drive, which was not partitioned previously, what would that leave the rest 50GB? would that just be unallocated space which I could use to make a new drive?

Or can I, say, copy C, D and E as they are, then when I am copying F, pick the resize drive with space option and make rest of the disk drive F?

Please help.
 
 
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Tomas
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #27 - Sep 19th, 2005 at 3:01pm
 
Hi.

I'm not sure about your questions, but I don't think you have to reboot each time. I think you have to do each partition individually, and I think Ghost will expand the partitions to use all the space or give you the option to do this.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #28 - Sep 19th, 2005 at 5:21pm
 
darnayer,

I'm a little confused. What are you planning to do with your 250 GB HD? Leave it in the computer as a second HD, replace the 200 GB HD with the 250 GB HD, store it in the cupboard as a copy of the 200 GB HD, etc.
 
 
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Re: Cloning partitions with Ghost 9
Reply #29 - Sep 19th, 2005 at 10:40pm
 
Tomas and Brian:

thanks for your replies. I am using the 250GB hdd to replace my 200GB in the same computer due to the fact that my 200GB is showing early signs of dying, so I want to replace it as fast as possible. Since I've never used ghost before, I want to make sure whether I need to reboot each time after every partition i clone. I hope my disk wouldnt die on me in the clone process.
 
 
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