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General Failure Writing Drive A:\ (Read 11772 times)

rogermbolton

Ex Member

General Failure Writing Drive A:\
Aug 21^st, 2006 at 4:09am

Good day Gurus.
I have followed the steps to make a Bootable Ghost CD – DvD http://nightowl.radified.com/bootcd/started.html and came across two Problems, The first is no big deal, I found the Mouse.com file is too big to fit on the Floppy disk when using Win Image, so you need to search the net and I found one that was 37kbs instead of the 50kbs as per your link.
The 2nd problem is that you get a “General Failure Writing Drive A:\” when you boot off the Ghost Bootable CD, you need to select F:\ Fail to proceed.
How can you fix this error please?

May thankx

Roger

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NightOwl

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Re: General Failure Writing Drive A:\
Reply #1 - Aug 21^st, 2006 at 9:55am

rogermbolton

Quote:

I found the Mouse.com file is too big to fit on the Floppy disk when using Win Image,

If making the boot CD/DVD using the the resources I reference--it all fits when I create the 1.44 boot image--but you have to be using Ghost 2003--and not Ghost 8.xx.

Are you adding any other files?

Quote:

The 2nd problem is that you get a “General Failure Writing Drive A:\” when you boot off the Ghost Bootable CD,

When in the boot process or using Ghost do you get that error? A program is trying to write a file (error log file if coming from Ghost) to the A:\ drive--but when booting from optical media--the A:\ drive is virtualized and one is not able to *write* to it!--and this makes Ghost exit from it's GUI to the A:\ prompt with the error message regarding *writing to the A:\ drive*.

Eliminate the Ghost error condition, and no *error log file* need be created, and then the program will not terminate to that A:\ prompt error message.

If you have a HDD that can be accessed by DOS (i.e. has a FAT16 or FAT32 partition), and you know it's correct drive letter when in DOS and using Ghost--you can start Ghost with a command line switch that redirects that error log file to an alternate location than the A:\ drive. So, if you have a FAT partition that is assigned E:\ in DOS, the following command line to start Ghost should send the error log file to E:\--

ghost.exe -afile=E:\ghosterr.txt

I personally have not tried this--so can't be sure if it works--if you try it--would appreciate a report back if you now get an error file sent to the FAT partition you selected in the Ghost command line!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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rogermbolton

Ex Member

Re: General Failure Writing Drive A:\
Reply #2 - Aug 22^nd, 2006 at 2:47am

Many thankx for your rapid reply.
It seems the error is before the ghost .exe command....
I used the Mouse.zip and not the mouse.com, when you unzip the Mouse.zip it extracts to 56kbs but that’s no biggie, as far as the Write to A:\Drive These are the Boot Steps

Starting Windows 98
This devise driver is provided by Oak Technology, Inc..
….
….
Device Name:Nightowl
Transfer Mode:Programmed I/O
Number of Devices:1

A:\>path=a@\;x:\
A:\Mouse.com
General failure writing to drive a
Abort, Retry, Fail?_

F

Microsoft ® Mouse Driver Version 8.20
Copyright © Microsoft Corp. 1983-1992
Copyright © ICM Corp. 1992-1993
Mouse Driver Installed

A:\>mscdex /d:nightowl /l:x /m:16 /v
MSCDEX Version 2.25
Copyright © Microsoft Corp. 1986-1995. All Rights Reserved
Drivex:\ - Driver Nightowl unit 0
459760 bytes free memory
0bytes expanded memory
13030bytes code
2122bytes static DATA
33278bytes dynamic data
48688bytes used
A:\>ghost.exe

AUTOEXEC.BAT
path=a:\;x:\
mouse.com
mscdex.exe /d:nightowl /l:x /m:16 /v
ghost.exe

CONFIG.SYS
device=oakcdrom.sys /d:nightowl
lastdrive=z

Files on Floppy are:
AUTOEXEC.BAT
COMMAND.COM
CONFIG.SYS
ghost.exe
IO.SYS
MOUSE.COM
MSCDEX.EXE
MSDOS.SYS
OAKCDROM.SYS

Using Norton 2003
Using Winimage created a New Bootdisk as per your instructions, and then created the CD using Nero.
It’s not a huge problem, more of an irritation. I build machines for friends and then create for them a Restore DvD, when non IT people are confronted with errors they panic.

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NightOwl

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Re: General Failure Writing Drive A:\
Reply #3 - Aug 22^nd, 2006 at 9:11am

rogermbolton

Not all *mouse* DOS programs are the same!--thus the varying sizes of their *.exe* or *.com* programs.

Quote:

A:\Mouse.com
General failure writing to drive a
Abort, Retry, Fail?_

Ah---jumped the gun on it being a Ghost error!

Your mouse program wants to create and write a *mouse.ini* file to the *floppy drive* the first time it runs. When your program tries to access the drive, it can not and you're getting that error.

Usually, the mouse prgram does not actually need anything in the *mouse.ini* file--the default settings seem to work fine--but it's been programed to create that *.ini* file and save it for future boots--back in the DOS days, I think you could program a variety of options to control how mouse program loaded and how the mouse responded in DOS.

The *mouse.com* program I suggested does not try to write that *mouse.ini* during boot!

If you want to use the mouse program you have, it can be fixed easily--open *Notepad*, type in the following:

[mouse]
MouseType=PS2

And then *Save As...* *mouse.ini*. Include that with the other boot files along with your mouse program--the error should be solved.

Or, use the *mouse.com* program I suggested in the Guide!

Report back with the results of your efforts!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

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