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Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE (Read 122949 times)
John.
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #60 - Apr 10th, 2006 at 5:26pm
 
NightOwl
Quote:
You made your BartPE from a WinXP that had your USB drive letter assigned as K:\, but when you booted to the BartPE--your BartPE assigned it the *next available* drive letter E:\--I assume this means that the drive letters in BartPE are not *inherited* from the WinXP system's Registry that you used to create the BartPE, nor does BartPE *read* that registry key for *MountedDevices* in the active WinXP OS Registry during boot--but simply mounts and assigns drive letters as they are *seen* during the booting of BartPE.

That's my interpretation.  BartPE was built and burned from a Windows XP Professional slipstreamed SP2 startup cd which I made some time ago. That and anything it pulls from my live XP system.

The problem is that we are conjecturing as to the difference between the PE built from the Windows XP installation CD vs. the PE offered to vendors from Microsoft.

I would have expected BartPE to have contained the registry entries of my existing XP Pro system.  Evidently, it doesn't and just builds a minimal PE setup environment.

Quote:
Is the WinPE that is being used to create the BartPE from a WinXP installation disk?  

Yes

Quote:
I believe that Ghost 10 RE is built on a newer version of WinPE--perhaps v2.x--which is being developed for the upcoming Windows Vista release--and the older installation CD for WinXP was based on the v1.x--and Ghost 9 RE used that older version too--so we may be comparing *apples to oranges*!

I agree about apples and oranges.

Quote:
What I was trying to say is that WinPE is a starting point--a foundation for other companies (developers) who want to license WinPE from Microsoft to then customize to their liking--once a company *customizes* it to their specifications--I no longer think the finger points at WinPE, per say, but at the company that has modified it.
So, you don't think Symantec has customized Ghost 10 RE to work to their specifications--and specifically to read the *MountedDevices* registry of the active OS, if present?  

I don't think it is customized, but I don't know.  As I mentioned I do know that Symantec has multiple versions of the Ghost 10 RE on their ftp server.  From what I saw, the various versions were the SAME Ghost 10 program, but different RE configurations targeted at different motherboards, hard drive controllers and other hardware.  But same Ghost 10 program.

NightOwl:
Quote:
I'm still confused about these previous comments:

Quote:
Quote:The Ghost 10 inability to see the usb drive is the same results I had with BartPE.  BartPE honored the MountedDevices registry entry.  WinPE is the culprit, not the application.  
When did you experience not seeing your USB HDD in BartPE--what was the setup?


I saw that is my test case #2 (no ide drives attached):
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display;num=11441...

NightOwl:
Quote:
Under what circumstances does BartPE inherit the drive letter that's assigned in the WinXP OS--your response indicated that it was not?!

"So in that case since my USB drive (whose DiskID signature didn't match anything in the BartPE MountedDevices entry), BartPE honored the MountedDevices entry and assigned the next available non-used, which was e:.  If there were an entry in the MountedDevices BartPE entry that matched my USB drive, then I assume it would get K: again."

My response (in quotes above) is that depending upon the version of BartPE, and XP upon which it's built, and xp startup cd, then *IF* BartPE pulls in the MountedDevices entries from the live XP system, it would honor them.

My case #2 showed BartPE and WinPE behaving the same regarding the IDE drives.  Not sure why in that case.

Obviously, still some mysteries here . . .  but glad to acknowledge and accept all points of view.  Thanks.



 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Brian
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #61 - Apr 10th, 2006 at 6:46pm
 
Pleonasm wrote on Apr 9th, 2006 at 3:08pm:
ERD Commander 2005 is a set of tools on a boot CD that claims to be able to edit the registry of a PC. 


I've taken up an offer to play with this. Regedit does show the WinXP registry unlike the BartPE Regedit. Drive letters are assigned sequentially, like Ghost 9.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #62 - Apr 10th, 2006 at 10:02pm
 
Brian

Where did you get a copy of *ERD Commander 2005*--even the 7-day temporary license download is $499.00--or should I not ask  Lips Sealed ?!
 

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: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #63 - Apr 11th, 2006 at 1:59am
 
$$$$. I tried it on a friend's computer. Most of what I saw is already on ReatogoXPE.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #64 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 2:17am
 
I had to try this. Using my second WinXP partition I deleted the subkeys from MountedDevices and rebooted. As expected my drive letters were now sequential. I restored an image to this partition, booted to ReatogoXPE and deleted the subkeys using Registry Editor PE. Rebooted and the drive letters were now sequential.

It's not so hard even though I had misgivings a few days ago.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #65 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 8:47am
 
Brian

Thanks for reporting the results of your experiment on editing the WinXP Registry using *Registry Editor PE* on the *ReatogoXPE*.  This adds to our collective knowledge base regarding the issue of *missing drive letters* in the Ghost 10 RE.

This is a *way out there* question--but you have lots of experience with BartPE, and maybe visit some forums where things like this may be discussed.

Have you seen any discussion about the fact that WinPE is out in more than one version--I think Microsoft has introduced v2.x last summer (2005) and that may be what's on the Ghost 10 Recovery Disk vs v1.x that's probably on the Ghost 9 Recovery Disk.

1.  Is there any evidence that the newer WinPE is being shipped on more recent WinXP installation CD's? 

2.  Can the new version of WinPE be used to create the current BartPE?

3.  Here's the way out part--when BartPE needs the WinXP CD to build the BartPE CD--is it using the WinXP CD to just load the 4 sector boot image, the *Microsoft Corporation.img*? 

Is that boot image the *WinPE*--and everything else on the installation CD in the data portion is the *customization* of the WinPE environment?

Could one substitute the Ghost Recovery Disk for the WinXP installation disk so as to build the BartPE that now is using the WinPE v2.x?
 

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: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #66 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:08am
 
NightOwl wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 8:47am:
"... Could one substitute the Ghost Recovery Disk for the WinXP installation disk so as to build the BartPE that now is using the WinPE v2.x ?..."

A fascinating notion, indeed !!!

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Pleonasm
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #67 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 11:06am
 
NightOwl asked (in Reply #34), “Would it be *hard* to explain to someone how to navigate to the *MountedDevices* key values so they can be deleted?”

Saving the following text to a registration entries file (e.g.,
ClearMountedDevices.REG
) and double-clicking the file ought to clear the registry key automatically by first deleting the key and then recreating it.  (Lines 2 and 4 in the file are blank and are required.)
    REGEDIT4

    [-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]

    [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]
NightOwl, are you willing to give this a test?
 

ple • o • nasm n. “The use of more words than are required to express an idea”
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #68 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 5:13pm
 
Readers of this thread may be interested in reviewing these two Microsoft articles to learn more about Windows PE:Now, in the spirit of “creative thinking,” here is a hunch based upon the following two Microsoft articles:Taken together, these two articles appear to suggest that (1) the startup process of WinPE (in the file STARTNET.CMD) can be modified, akin to a DOS AUTOEXEC.BAT; (2) the DISKPART utility may be invoked during the WinPE startup process; and (3) that DISKPART may be used to assign drive letters to partitions.  If a modified STARTNET.CMD file can be injected into a Ghost 10 recovery environment ISO file and then burned to a CD, might that be a way to control and customize the drive letter assignments?

Also of interest may be this:  BartPE StartNet Plug-In
 

ple • o • nasm n. “The use of more words than are required to express an idea”
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #69 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:13pm
 
NightOwl wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 8:47am:
Have you seen any discussion about the fact that WinPE is out in more than one version--


I saw that comment in this forum so we are probably referring to the same post. I don't know if it's true.

Quote:
when BartPE needs the WinXP CD to build the BartPE CD


The BartPE download is around 5 MB. It needs a WinXP CD to build the final product which is around 300 MB so a lot of Microsoft files are taken from the CD. There is only one BartPE. Reatogo has a licence from Bart to use his software. I've built a BartPE CD utilizing the XPE plugin but it wasn't a patch on Reatogo's version. It's interesting to read Bart's comments on his  initial attempts at creating a PE.

Quote:
Hi, my name is Bart Lagerweij. I've been creating DOS based boot disks and bootable CD-Roms from Dos 3.x (not sure what year) until 2002. I have created the: Corporate Modboot, Network bootdisk, CD-Rom bootdisk, a hardware independent Dos CD-Rom driver eltorito.sys and lots of other tools needed to boot a PC the way I want it to.

As you can read above I've stopped doing that in 2002. Why? I saw a Windows PE (WinPE) bootable CD-Rom (from Microsoft) in action and I got very, very curious. I knew then as I know now, that in time PE-based solutions will be every PC technicians best friend.
Goodbye to all the good and bad dos-based NTFS utilities! Now we can boot from a CD-Rom and have full read/write access to NTFS volumes!

Here are a few things that are possible with PE and are not possible with any type of dos-based boot disk, even when using network support and ntfsdos:

    * Accessing very large (>2TB) NTFS volumes or accessing volumes that are not seen by the BIOS, like some fibre channel disks.
    * Very reliable scanning and cleaning of viruses on NTFS volumes using a "clean boot".
    * Active Directory support.
    * Have remote control over other machines, using vnc or remote desktop.


While I was already thinking about what great things this could do, I noticed the end-user license agreement for Microsoft software that is included with Windows Preinstallation Environment (Windows PE) 1.2 (eula.txt). In section "1. ELIGIBILITY." it states the following:
..."You may only install and use the SOFTWARE PRODUCT if you are an active Microsoft Software Assurance Member ("SAM") for the systems product pool or servers product pool, if you currently have license coverage for Microsoft Windows operating system (OS) Upgrades via a Campus Agreement or School Agreement, or if you are a current or former participant in the Windows XP Joint Development Program, Windows XP Rapid Adoption Program, Windows .NET Server Joint Development Program, or Windows .NET Server Rapid Adoption Program. If you do not meet one or more of the requirements listed above, you may not install or use this SOFTWARE PRODUCT and you must terminate the installation of this SOFTWARE PRODUCT immediately"...

Oops, that does not include me. As a matter a fact that does not include most of us! This was very disappointing. But then I started thinking, how difficult can it be to build something similar to Windows PE from a Windows XP installation CD-Rom? A quick file compare looked like most of the needed files are on the Windows XP CD-Rom. Only because I thought building this would be easy, I started coding my own builder program. Had I known how hard it would be, I would probably never have started programming PE Builder.
This first version (v1.0.0) of PE Builder was released on April 28, 2003. Yes, version 1 was a very simple, very static, very bad and copyright violating program. And the (very friendly) people at Microsoft had every right to kick my butt. But I learned from it and in May 2003 I started on a second version. In July (three months later) v2 was ready.
Version 2 did not have the problems that version 1 had. The version 2 build engine had its own registry hive builder which was not easy to program and took about 50% of my research and coding time. It also was dynamic enough that it could build from Windows XP and Server 2003. In v2.0.1 I added a small but very powerful menu program called nu2menu, which was written by my buddy Henk de Jong. The latest 2 version (v2.0.2b) even used a new ISO filesystem called "ISO-9660:1999 (version 2)" instead of the Joliet extensions. Some non-English versions of Windows XP had filenames longer than the maximum allowed length for Joliet filenames (103 chars). I had to patch the ISO building program (mkisofs.exe) so that the Windows NT bootstrap and setup loader would boot properly. The file and directory names can now be up to 207 characters. But again this version had something bad. When comparing some INF files they looked too much like the Windows PE builder from Microsoft.

I had to change the entire INF file layout to use its own format. And on Sep 1, 2003 (almost 6 months after starting) version 3 was ready. After adding plugin support, PE Builder got very popular. People from all over the world are writing their own plugins to add the program they like and use.


Quote:
Could one substitute the Ghost Recovery Disk for the WinXP installation disk so as to build the BartPE that now is using the WinPE v2.x?

After reading Bart's comments, no.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #70 - Apr 13th, 2006 at 9:32pm
 
Pleonasm wrote on Apr 13th, 2006 at 11:06am:
REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]


Pleo, brilliant. It works. I ran the reg file and when I looked in MountedDevices all keys were gone. I rebooted and the keys had been recreated and the HD drive letters were sequential.
At least this averts asking someone to navigate the registry.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #71 - Apr 14th, 2006 at 12:42am
 
Pleonasm

Quote:
REGEDIT4

[-HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]

[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices]

NightOwl, are you willing to give this a test?

Looks like Brian beat me to it--but, in post #34, I was actually referring to editing the Registry while using BartPE or ReatogoXPE--I was not thinking about an easier way than RegEdit if able to boot and use a *healthy* WinXP--but your addition is a nice touch!
 

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: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #72 - Apr 14th, 2006 at 1:53am
 
NightOwl,

http://regeditpe.sourceforge.net/

When I first saw this page I thought they were demonstrating an example registry edit and I wondered what I should click. But you just click everything shown on this page, exactly. I read too much into it.

Then edit _REMOTE_SYSTEM\System\MountedDevices (or just look if you are learning).

After you have run the program once, it's obvious. But as John mentioned, you have a long way to go if you don't know how to build a ReatogoXPE CD.
 
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #73 - Apr 14th, 2006 at 8:00am
 
Brian wrote on Apr 14th, 2006 at 1:53am:
After you have run the program once, it's obvious. But as John mentioned, you have a long way to go if you don't know how to build a ReatogoXPE CD.


The main reason I moved choices D and E to the bottom of the Simple solutions: USB2/Firewire drives & Ghost 10 Cookbook was because of the complexities and knowledge required to first build a BartPE or ReatogoXPE cd.  If you have a damaged or corrupt operating system, chances are you can't build a BartPE cd.

I've created and used them both.  BartPE was the first "troubleshooting boot cd" that I ever found; it's been around for quite awhile, and it's saved my b*tt several times. 

BartPE is a little more difficult to understand how to add your plugins to.  ReatogoXPE has a simpler pick-and-choose approach.  They are both great tools for an PC tech person, but neither is for a novice, either to build or use.
 

Ghost4me  Ghost 9, 10, 12, 14, 15.  Windows XP, Vista, Windows 7
 
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Re: Missing External HDD's in Ghost 10's RE
Reply #74 - Dec 9th, 2006 at 6:10pm
 
Great topic! Smiley Thanks to everyone that contibuted. I'm new to this forum and I just saw this topic today. I would have loved to have taken part back in April. Please forgive me for butting in at this late date.

Fisrt, I'll try to shed some light on some of the unanswered question about WinPE and how Symantec is using it to run the Ghost 10 RE. Second, I'll offer a method of modifying the Ghost 10 CD to allow you to edit the remote registry directly from the Ghost 10 RE.

Both Ghost 9 and Ghost 10 run on  WinPE 1.0. (I'll call it 1.0, but I don't know the exact numbers Micosoft uses). The Ghost 9 RE was built using WinPE based on WinXP/SP1. The system drive (that's the drive you boot the CD from) gets assigned a drive letter sequentially after all the volumes on the hard drives in the system. The Ghost 10 RE was built using WinPE 1.0 based on WinXP/SP2. The system drive is hard coded as the X: by SP2. WinPE 2.0 (introduced with Vista) uses a totally different boot stucture. BTW, Microsoft is now giving WinPE 2.0 out for free in the Windows Automated Installation Kit if you want to play with it.

Symantec is allowed to modify WinPE to run as they wish. The default shell in WinPE is the command prompt, but it is set up so that OEM's can easily subsistute their own custom shell. Symantec has provided a GUI shell that runs the RE programs they also provided. Based on NightOwls work, I can say that Symantec has obviously modified the way drive letters are assigned in the Ghost 10 RE. Standard WinPE and BartPE  do not do this.

Now for the constuctive part of this post. Would you like to have the ability to edit the remote registry and truely explore the drives in the system directly from the Ghost 10 RE? Follow these steps and you can:

1. Start with my guide on how to add drivers to the RE posted here http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=ghost9_10;action=display;num=116....

2. In step 6 also enable the A43 File Managment Utility.

3. Now go to the copy of your Ghost 10 CD on your hard drive. Navigate to the I386\Shell\Utilities folder. Now choose one of the utilities you can live without. Let's say PTEDIT32.EXE. Rename it to something like PTEDIT32.EXE.ORG so you can put it back later if you wish. Now copy "CMD.EXE" from I386\System32 to the Utilities folder. Rename "CMD.EXE" in the Utilities folder to "PTEDIT32.EXE".  I think you get the picture. We are going to trick Ghost into running a command prompt when we go to the Utilities menu and click Edit the Parttion Table.

4. Now continue on with steps 7 and on in the add drivers guide.

When you boot the modified CD it will act just like the Ghost 10 RE you have been used to using. Except, now when you click Utilities/Edit Parttion Table you will be brought to a real command prompt. Now you are actually in the default WinPE shell. To edit the remote registry enter "regedit". The registry editor will open. Highligt the HKey_Local_Machine key. Now go to the File menu and choose Load Hive. In the window that opens click the drop down menu for the Look in box. Choose the drive letter of the system you wish to edit the registry. Let's assume it is the C:. Now navigate to C:\Windows\System32\confg. In the config folder choose "system" and click the Open button. In the next window name the hive "REMOTE_SYSTEM" and click the OK button. Now you can go to HKLM\REMOTE_SYSTEM\MountedDevices and remove what you want. Next, highlight the HKLM\REMOTE_SYSTEM key in the left hand pane. Then go to the File menu and choose Unload Hive. Now you are done, you can close the registry editor. You will have to reboot directly back to the Ghost 10 RE and all your missing drive should show up thanks to NightOwl.

Edited 12/10/06:
You could add more plugins (this is limited to plugins that do not include registry entries) when you build the CD. You will also need to enable the Nu2Menu plugin or you will get build errors. Hmm, the Registry Editor PE plugin comes to mind. Once you are in the Ghost 10 RE at our freind the real command promt. You can enter "cd X:\Programs\A43". Then enter A43.exe. Now you can browse to X:\Programs\RegisterEditorPE and double click RegistryEditorPE.exe to start the program. Using A43, you can browse all your hard drives with the ability to add, delete or edit files as you wish.

Enjoy.

 
 
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