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Erase DiskID on external USB drive (Read 53711 times)
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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #15 - Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:22pm
 
Ghost4me.John

Quote:
So, is sector 62 the Ghost 2003 equivalent of DiskID for Windows XP/Ghost 10?

No, I do not think so.  The disk ID is there regardless of Ghost 2003 and Sector 62 usage.

WinXP uses that disk ID to identify a specific HDD and partition so it can match assigned drive letters to the correct partition, if I understand things correctly.

No one is really sure, that I've seen, but Ghost 2003 *marking* of the HDD in Sector 62 seems related to Ghost 2003's usage of a *virtual partition* when you use Ghost 2003 from its Windows interface.  You set up the Ghost 2003 procedure in Windows, you then re-boot to the *virtual partition* where Ghost does its thing, and then re-boot back to Windows when it's done.

But maybe I'm confusing things, being as I do not have Ghost 10:

Could someone clarify this--if you assign your USB external HDD, say the drive letter Q:\ when in WinXP--and you have some unassigned drive letters before letter Q, when you boot with the Ghost 10 Recover Disk--will your USB HDD still have the drive letter Q:\ in the Recovery Environment?


The reason I ask, the only place that knows you have assigned the USB HDD the letter Q:\, is in the WinXP registry.  When you boot to the Recovery Environment--a generic registry is loaded that's on the boot CD--and the drive letter Q:\ for the USB should not be known by the boot CD!
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #16 - Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:38pm
 
Quote:
The reason I ask, the only place that knows you have assigned the USB HDD the letter Q:\, is in the WinXP registry.
I think it's embedded in the DiskID signature, but I could be wrong.  I will test with Q and let you know.
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #17 - Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:40pm
 
NightOwl wrote on Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:22pm:
Could someone clarify this--if you assign your USB external HDD, say the drive letter Q:\ when in WinXP--and you have some unassigned drive letters before letter Q, when you boot with the Ghost 10 Recover Disk--will your USB HDD still have the drive letter Q:\ in the Recovery Environment?


Yes, it will be Q:\. Drive letters in the Ghost 10 RE are the same as the drive letters seen in Windows, for all hard drive partitions. Optical drives are different. The situation in Ghost 9 and BartPE is different. The drive letters start at C and progress sequentially so they may be quite different from their Windows drive letter.
 
 
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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #18 - Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:52pm
 
Quote:
Could someone clarify this--if you assign your USB external HDD, say the drive letter Q:\ when in WinXP--and you have some unassigned drive letters before letter Q, when you boot with the Ghost 10 Recover Disk--will your USB HDD still have the drive letter Q:\ in the Recovery Environment?

Brian is right.  I just tested again.  In Windows XP, I changed the USB HDD from k: which I previously had it assigned to, to q: which you requested.  Then I shut down, and booted from the Ghost 10 RE cd.  The USB HDD was recognized and it had the drive letter of Q: .  I had no problem browsing the contents of q: .  And then I shut down and restarted Windows XP.  It was still q: and I then just now used Disk Manager to change it back to k:
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #19 - Feb 26th, 2006 at 7:56pm
 
Quote:
The situation in Ghost 9 and BartPE is different.

Brian, I believe that we discovered that Ghost 9 uses a completely different Windows XP Pre-Environment than the one Symantec adopted for Ghost 10.  The Ghost 9 did NOT pay any attention to DiskID.

That's the reason no one had all these Recovery CD problems until Ghost 10 came out.  Of course G9 cd didn't have all the latest drivers but it worked 100% of the time for me.  

Hopefully Ghost 11 will have all this straightened out.
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #20 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 1:17am
 
Ghost4me.John and Brian

Ghost 10 is somehow registering the drive letter assignments of the USB drives on the HDD's (but apparently not in Sector 62), and apparently is supposed to pick that up when it boots to the Recovery Environment--but that appears to be where the *bug* is--the memory of which drive letter to use can get *muddled* by the plugging in of different mass memory devices such as USB card readers and probably other USB HDD's.

Ghost 9 did not try to *remember* external drive letter assignments--it simply assigned the next available drive letter during each boot when it *discovered* an external USB device that needed a drive letter.

I'm sure Symantec did this in an attempt to make the Recovery Environment *appear* the same as when you boot to WinXP--the external USB HDD has the same drive letter assignment.

But, obviously, Symantec did not do a very good job of making this *feature* very robust, and able to handle the fact that people keep plugging and unplugging various USB devices over time!  Ghost 10 gets confused--and then refuses to even *see* the USB HDD!

When you delete the *disk ID* from the external USB HDD, now Ghost 10 handles the USB HDD as a *new* USB device and assigns the next available drive letter like Ghost 9 does because you have *erased* Ghost 10's memory of the drive letter--it has to re-discover the external HDD and give it a new drive letter.

Symantec is obviously using the Disk ID to associate the external USB HDD's partition with a drive letter based on Ghost4me.John's result that *zeroing out* the Disk ID forces Ghost 10 to *re-assign* rather than *remember* the drive letter assignment--but I wonder where Ghost 10 is storing that drive letter association with the Disk ID? ? ?
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #21 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 9:15am
 
Here's the crux and history of the Windows Pre-Environment problem (s):

XPAddict wrote on Dec 4th, 2005 at 4:59pm:
I have read this entire thread with some interest, and... have the answer to part of the puzzle:

Symantec switched from a proprietary boot environment to a Windows PE based solution.  The "hard-coded" drive letters X: & Z: come from WinPE NOT Ghost 10.  These drive letters; X: for the bootable PE media (whether CD, ISO, etc.) & Z: Ramdrive are part of the enhancements of Windows PE 2005 which became available to OEM's in early 2005.

Inability to recognize certain USB drives when attached to a hub or inserted AFTER boot is also WinPE issues.  Specific storage subsystem driver support may also be related to the underlying WinPE environment, as it can be built off of a Server 2003 SP1 source (with Windows PE 2005) instead of XP SP2 media.

In the corporate environment, it is a regular occurence to update your Windows PE based solutions with latest drivers for NIC's & storage media; something that Symantec is apparently not interested in doing.

I may have to go out & buy a copy of Norton Ghost 10 just to get my hands on the ISO for the recovery environment & investigate inside of UltraISO & see how it is laid out.

Hope this helps!


My own opinion is that Symantec dropped its proprietary pre-environment that it shipped with Ghost 9 in favor of the Microsoft pre-environment that it shipped with Ghost 10.  The whole fallout that occurred with drive letters and DiskID just wasn't anticipated or known to them.  Erasing the DiskID field merely lets the current pre-environment proceed without any conflict.

This whole discussion and problem could have been a two week only discussion if Symantec had a responsive level 2 or level 3 support mechanism.  Or if the next version Microsoft pre-environment would just ignore DiskID.

Just my (2 cents and a soap box) opinions . . .
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #22 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 9:48am
 
Ghost4me.John

Quoting XPAddict:

Quote:
Symantec switched from a proprietary boot environment to a Windows PE based solution.  The "hard-coded" drive letters X: & Z: come from WinPE NOT Ghost 10.  These drive letters; X: for the bootable PE media (whether CD, ISO, etc.) & Z: Ramdrive are part of the enhancements of Windows PE 2005
which became available to OEM's in early 2005
.


WinPE apparently has changed over time!  Prior to *early 2005* WinPE did not use those reserved drive letters X: and Z:--so Ghost 9.x was using the *pre-2005* WinPE--now, Ghost 10 is using the *post-early 2005* WinPE.

Brian said in reply # 17 above:

Quote:
The situation in Ghost 9 and BartPE is different. The drive letters start at C and progress sequentially so they may be quite different from their Windows drive letter.

So, here's a whole new set of questions!!!  If Microsoft's WinPE has changed, will it start showing up on WinXP installation CD's, and if you build a BartPE with that installation CD, will you now have those *reserved* drive letters X: and Z: on your BartPE?

I can understand how having reserved drive letters in Ghost 10's WinPE could cause conflicts--that's one issue--but there appears to be a second issue with Ghost 10's attempt to *remember* external HDD drive letters:

Re: Ghost 10 Recovery CD problems


Apparently, you can give Ghost 10 a *nervous breakdown* when it's trying to remember USB HDD drive letter assignments if you switch USB mass storage devices too much!  (And that's where your solution above of zeroing out the Disk ID provides a *fix* to allow access to the USB HDD again!)

So, there's a second issue.

I wonder, the *new* WinPE that has reserved drive letters X: and Z:--does it try to remember external USB HDD drive letter assignments--or is that a Symantec created issue?
 

No question is stupid...but, possibly the answers are  Wink !
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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #23 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 9:52am
 
Ghost4me.John and Brian

Here's a new question--what if your USB HDD has more than one partition--does zeroing out the Disk ID in Sector 0 cause all the partitions to be reassigned drive letters?
 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #24 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 12:12pm
 
NightOwl wrote on Feb 27th, 2006 at 9:48am:
I wonder, the *new* WinPE that has reserved drive letters X: and Z:--does it try to remember external USB HDD drive letter assignments--or is that a Symantec created issue?

I can't find my url reference for this right now, but I wrote down that the 3 reserved drive letters under WinPE are:

z: ms-ramdrive
s: cd-rom
x: nortonghost 10.0

So, don't hard assign any of those letters for USB devices, as I understand it.

Also, FYI on WinPE:
Windows Preinstallation Environment Overview
http://www.microsoft.com/whdc/system/winpreinst/WindowsPE_over.mspx


 

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Re: Erase DiskID on external USB drive
Reply #25 - Feb 27th, 2006 at 12:18pm
 
Ghost4me.John

Quote:
I wonder, the *new* WinPE that has reserved drive letters X: and Z:--does it try to remember external USB HDD drive letter assignments--or is that a Symantec created issue?

The question is actually regarding Microsoft's WinPE--the newer version that has been released to OEM's--does that WinPE remember USB drive letter assignments--as opposed to the Ghost 10 version in use by Symantec on the Ghost 10 Recovery Disk.

 

No question is stupid...but, possibly the answers are  Wink !
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