Symptom
The master boot record on affected systems is comprised of 4 sectors, as opposed to the single sector expected by Norton Ghost. Since the boot is dependent on coding contained in all 4 sectors, the system hangs when it attempts to boot to the incomplete master boot record. A "signature failure" error message may also be displayed.
Affected configurations
This symptom apples to any NetVista, ThinkCentre and ThinkPad system using the WinPE Rescue and Recovery partition; as opposed to the PARTIES partition used on NetVista, ThinkCentre and ThinkPad systems prior to 2004.
Solution
The Ghost documentation provides the solution. Use the -IB switch when invoking Ghost from the command line or within a batch file. This should be done on both the image creation. The command line syntax is, C:\> GHOST -IB
A complete list of Ghost command line switches is displayed by typing GHOST ? and pressing the Enter key at the command prompt. For further information, contact Symantec technical support.
Additional information
If you need to Ghost an entire hard drive, including a hidden partition, use the following method:
1.
Enter BIOS, go to Security, and set the predesktop area to "disabled" to make the hidden partition visible on the system with the source drive.
2.
Run Symantec Ghost with the -IB switch when you create the image (example: C:\> GHOST -IB)
3.
After the image is created, make the predesktop area visible on the target system by disabling it.
4.
Restore the image created in step 2. No special switches are needed for this step.
5.
Reset the predesktop area to "normal", the system may be booted normally to the operating system or to the predesktop area by pressing the Access IBM key during POST.
Note: Source drive and target drive must be the same size.