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Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems (Read 160634 times)
Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #15 - Nov 22nd, 2005 at 7:18pm
 
I did some tests with the Ghost 10 RE.

My HD partitions are C, D, E, F, N and P. These drive letters are the same in Windows and the RE. When I connect my USB external HD Windows assigns G and H to the two partitions. G and H are seen in the RE as well. Now it gets interesting.

With the external HD absent I plugged in a USB card reader. Drive letters assigned were G, H, I and J. In the RE the card reader drive letters were I, J, K and L. There was no G or H. The slave CD drive was M.

Rebooted to Windows and the card reader was again G, H, I and J. I plugged in the USB external HD and it was assigned K and L.

Booted to the RE and the card reader was still I, J, K and L but the external HD wasn’t seen at all. There was no G or H. CD drive was O.

Booted to Windows and the card reader drive letters were G, H, I and J and the external HD was K and L. As before.

I removed the card reader, rebooted and the USB external HD was still K and L.

Booted to RE and the USB external HD wasn’t seen at all. CD drive was K.

Booted to Windows and the USB external HD was still K and L. Removed the USB external HD and shut down computer. Booted to Windows and connected the USB external HD which was still K and L.

Booted to RE and the USB external HD was still not seen. CD drive was K. I tried a different USB slot with the same result.

Booted to Ghost 9 RE and the drive letters were all over the place, as expected, but the USB external HD was seen.

Booted to Windows and in Disk Management I changed K and L back to G and H, the original USB external HD drive letters before the card reader was plugged in.

Booted to Ghost 10 RE and the USB external HD was seen as G and H.

In summary the Ghost 10 RE has a MAJOR problem. The card reader broke the drive letter assignment for the USB external HD and if I had wanted to restore an image from the USB external HD to a corrupted WinXP partition it would have been impossible with Ghost 10 RE.

These findings need to be confirmed.
 
 
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John.
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #16 - Nov 22nd, 2005 at 7:31pm
 
Wow, what a test.

My understanding is that an assigned drive letter is present in the hard drive.  I'm not sure if it's in the first sector, or some place in the NTFS record.  But, if it is present, all hell can break loose.

If the hard drive has never had an explicity drive letter assigned, Ghost 10 CD Recovery Enviornment seems to work fine.  But if it HAS, as you point out, beware.

I even had my internal IDE logical partitions not be completely recognized when I had my external HD powered on using drive letter z: during the CD boot.  If powered off, the logical drives in the extended partition were recognized correctly.

I think if one could "patch" or remove that drive assignment, everything would work.

However, the BIGGER problem is that this is really a Symantec software bug, and NOT just a documentation problem.

No one is going to be constantly testing his recovery CD to make sure it still works.  Re-assigning drive letters for USB key devices, etc etc are common.

Symantec needs to fix the bug.  One can't wait for a hardware disaster and then try to boot the RE CD to find out it is "not in compliance".

 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #17 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 12:09am
 
Brian

Hmmm...interesting!  My brain is *bursting* trying to follow the sequence of events--and my eyes are watering starring at the monitor wonder *What!*.

(I just noticed--brain--brian!  Cheesy )

Fixing Windows 2000/XP Drive Letters


WinXP remembers drive letters by storing the partition ID in the registry.  Ghost's Recovery Disk is booting from a CD and does not have a *memory* of the drive letter assignments--it creates a *temp* registry, so it would have to re-detect and assign drive letters on each boot--unless.....

Ghost 2003 asks to *ID* any new HDD that is finds that isn't *marked* when it loads.  I wonder if Ghost 10 is placing some kind of unique ID on the HDD's it's finding--but USB has to screw things up, because your card reader can't retain an ID unless you put memory sticks in it and leave them there!  

Also, if a HDD is not left hooked up to the system, WinXP *may* consider the partitions *abandoned* and may re-assign drive letters to newly seen partitions.

Would be interesting if *Kawecki's Trick* would cause Ghost 10's Recovery Environment to re-detect and re-assign drive letters if applied after you have created the loss of recognizing the USB external HDD:

Kawecki's Trick
 

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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John.
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #18 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 12:29am
 
NightOwl wrote on Nov 23rd, 2005 at 12:09am:
WinXP remembers drive letters by storing the partition ID in the registry.  Ghost's Recovery Disk is booting from a CD and does not have a *memory* of the drive letter assignments--it creates a *temp* registry, so it would have to re-detect and assign drive letters on each boot--unless.....


The Ghost 10 bug must be that it reads the DiskID (as mentioned in the link) and can't handle a situation where the drive letter conflicts with one that Ghost 10 has already used for itself.

I have one external HD which I have never hard-assigned a drive letter.  That one always works in Ghost 10.

The other external HD I had hard-assigned it to z: and that one never worked with Ghost 10 Recovery CD boot until I hard-assigned it to k: which evidently doesn't conflict with Ghost 10 (all my other drive letters for usb keys and usb drives are lower).

I spent several hours with Symantec "live chat" support, then weeks and weeks of trying to convince them it wasn't MY problem.  After I finally solved it for them and told them, the best I have gotten back so far is "...I'll send the info to the development team to include in a knowledge base article"--of course that does nothing to fix the problem.

(sorry for the soapbox...I'd just like to talk to someone knowledgeable occasionally in tech support instead of being filtered by some level 1 1/2 person sending my emails to someone else.)

 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #19 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 12:48am
 
It's a good soapbox. I can't see a resolution other than Symantec issuing a CD that works. Like a car recall.
 
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #20 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 2:05am
 
NightOwl, thanks for your kind words. I'd be interested in what Kawecki's Trick does in this situation but I'm drive lettered out.

Good work award to Ghost4me for providing the explanation of this Recovery Environment anomaly.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #21 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 5:45am
 
Rad checking in. We have identified a bug with the Ghost 10 Recovery CD? Can somebody provide short concise description? Should the guide be updated to include a link to this thread?

R.
 
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John.
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #22 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 11:56am
 
Brian wrote on Nov 23rd, 2005 at 12:48am:
It's a good soapbox. I can't see a resolution other than Symantec issuing a CD that works. Like a car recall.


Has anyone else opened a problem report with Symantec/Ghost 10? 

They kept inferring "you're the only one having this problem..." and they haven't really acknowledged it's a software bug, just they will "look" at publishing a knowledge base article.  So I'm not sure if they have accepted that they have a problem yet (they need to go to a 12 step program and THIS is the first step...accepting  Smiley  )
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #23 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 2:01pm
 
Ghost4me and Brian

I had to go back and read more carefully the previous posts--I had forgotten about Ghost4me's original issue when I saw Brian's test results--the two issues may or may not be the same issue--certainly related in that they both involve USB external HDD's--but, the actual issues may be different.

Ghost4me's problem appears to be a conflict of drive letter assignments:

From what you have reported, it sure looks like Ghost 10 is somehow *marking* the external USB HDD's with a marker to hold it's drive letter assignment when booting using the *Recovery Disk's* *Recovery Environment*.

*Marking* the HDD's so the Recovery Environment uses the same drive letter assignment would have to be taking place initially from within the WinXP's Ghost 10.x interface.

What I can't fathom, is how can Symantec create a Recovery Environment that specifies certain drive letters for it's boot up and functioning--and not check the drive letter assignments in WinXP when *marking* the HDD's with their future *Recovery Environment* drive letter assignments for conflicts?!

Whereas, Brian's problem seems to be related to Ghost 10's *Recovery Environment* loosing track of drive letter assignments when different USB devices are switched and changed--becoming so confused that it is unable to correctly *see* the HDD at all!

Ghost4me--this is an interesting observation:

Quote:
I have one external HD which I have never hard-assigned a drive letter.  That one always works in Ghost 10.

What exactly is the difference between you specifying the HDD drive letter vs WinXP specifying the HDD drive letter assignments--the HDD has specified drive letters assigned in Windows regardless of whether it's changed manually by the user or not--there must be something *different* about how a drive letter is *remembered* if the user assigns the drive letter vs the OS assigns the drive letter--and Ghost 10.x must handle that information differently--based on your above observation!
 

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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Rad
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #24 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 2:02pm
 
Re: "
they need to go to a 12 step program and
..."

that was worth a good laugh.

software manufacturers, it's been my experience, are experts in denial.
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #25 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 3:16pm
 
NightOwl, this quote from Ghost4me's url suggests Kawecki's Trick might work, although deleting the C: drive is a radical way to change the partition table.

Quote:
I too have a problem with Ghost 10 recovery CD not seeing drives. I have tried booting the CD on two different systems and it fails on both of them, whereas Ghost 9.0 works fine. I have found that if I choose 'View partitions' in the Utilities menu all the drives are shown with no problems. It's the tree-view that is the problem - it doesn't show all the drives.

However, If I boot from a floppy (remember them?) and use fdisk or pqmagic to delete the C: drive partition I can then boot from the Ghost 10 CD and all drives are shown and I can browse for my recovery points and restore the system.
 
 
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John.
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #26 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 6:36pm
 
NightOwl wrote on Nov 23rd, 2005 at 2:01pm:
From what you have reported, it sure looks like Ghost 10 is somehow *marking* the external USB HDD's with a marker to hold it's drive letter assignment when booting using the *Recovery Disk's* *Recovery Environment*.

What exactly is the difference between you specifying the HDD drive letter vs WinXP specifying the HDD drive letter assignments--the HDD has specified drive letters assigned in Windows regardless of whether it's changed manually by the user or not--there must be something *different* about how a drive letter is *remembered* if the user assigns the drive letter vs the OS assigns the drive letter--and Ghost 10.x must handle that information differently--based on your above observation!


I'm no expert, but from what I have read, Windows XP stores the hard-coded drive letter in the DiskID field of the mbr--if the user did that by using the disk manager assign drive letter option.

When the Ghost 10 Recovery CD environment is established, it is in essence a Windows XP boot from the cd.  Ghost 10 discovers that a hard drive has the letter z: and HICKUPS because Ghost plans to use that one.

The reason I never had problems with my other external HD is that I had NEVER ever assigned it a drive letter manually--I just let xp pick the next available, which in my case was j:

When I booted Ghost 10 RE CD, I remember that it wasn't j: anymore but some other letter, but at least I could open the backup images.

Search Google for mbr DiskID and fixmbr.

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/b...

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/windows/xp/all/proddocs/en-us/b...

1. Boot to the Recovery Console
2. Map command to get device id
3. fixmbr /device... to reset/clear mbr

Of course all this is speculation and could be dangerous.

My own approach was just to use the XP disk manager reset my z: external HD to k: which was low in the alphabet.

Bottom line:  we shouldn't have to be doing any of this because Ghost 10 should work around drive letters like Ghost 9 did.  They should fix their software!
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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brad bortner
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #27 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 11:45pm
 
I am having exactly the same problem. Ghost 9 saw my external usb drive just fine. Ghost 10 does not. I wrote tech support a week ago. No response. If htey don't answer by Monday, I'm going to return it to Symantec for a refund and reinstall ghost 9 which works just fine.
 
 
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John.
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #28 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 11:53pm
 
Quote:
I am having exactly the same problem. Ghost 9 saw my external usb drive just fine. Ghost 10 does not. I wrote tech support a week ago. No response. If htey don't answer by Monday, I'm going to return it to Symantec for a refund and reinstall ghost 9 which works just fine.


Brad, the simpliest work around that seemed to work for me is this, in Windows XP:

1. Right click My Computer, then select Manage
2. Select Disk Management
3. Highlight your external USB disk drive, right click for properties and select "Change Drive Letter and Paths"
4. Change it to a low letter, such as e: or f: depending on what you have already used.
5. ok, etc.

Of course if you have programs installed on your external USB, their shortcuts and paths will have to be modified.

Please post back and let us know if that takes care of it, and what if anything Symantec says.  We all need a software fix from them.
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Brian
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Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems
Reply #29 - Nov 23rd, 2005 at 11:55pm
 
Brad,

Can you tell us a little about your external HD? Which drive letter? Does it always have the same drive letter? Is it attached all the time?
 
 
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