I was used to using good old Ghost 2003 and then ended up buying Norton Systemworks 2006 Premier, which has (to me) an unknown version of Ghost contained therein.  It allows two Ghost-like functions:  "Backup" and "Copy Entire Disk."  Both of these are in the GUI, and there is no DOS option that I can find.

I have one drive that is loaded with everything that I want, and I would like to keep it pristine.  I have labeled that drive "Master".  Therefore, I want to Ghost it to another drive, this one labeled "Copy."  The Copy drive would be my working drive that I could "fix" anytime by blowing out a clean image from the Master drive.  Both are internal SATA drives, and I am running XP.
   
I chose "Copy Entire Disk" (which sounded like the traditional Ghost process to me) from the Master drive to the Copy drive.  I chose to make the Copy drive bootable but did not copy over the MBR because my drives are formatted FAT32 (to allow for some Linux stuff).  I got a successful dialog box from Ghost and detached the Master drive.  I turned the machine back on, and it will not not boot entirely; I get the Windows splash screen, it goes to the XP splash screen, and then it just hangs.

When I reattached the Master drive, I get a successful boot.  I entered Windows Disk Management to try to rename the Copy drive as drive C: or, alternately, the Master drive (which Windows labels "SYSTEM") as drive D:, but that is not an option. 

So then I went ahead and chose "Backup."  I set my first restore point, backed up the Master drive to the Copy drive, and got three files:
     C_drive001.v2i (which is about 3GB)
     C_drivei001.iv2i (1MB)
     and a recovery disk file (teeny)

To relate this back to something I know, are these files the image files that I used to restore from when using the DOS version of Ghost (you know, choose restore from image, point to the DVD drive, and walk away)? If I choose "Restore" in this version of Ghost's options, will it lay a clean image of my Master drive down on the Master drive based on the information in these files?  And why the heck didn't "Copy Entire Disk" work?

Normally I would just experiment and find out, but I spent a good two hours setting up the Master drive the way I want it, and I really don't want to screw it up by blowing a funky image back onto it.  Nor do I want to buy another hard drive just to play.

Any advice, information, or commiseration would be appreciated.  Thanks, and happy holidays! 

Beth

Wow, Brian, thanks for your reply.  I'm still hung up, though.

I read your posts about Using Ghost 10-Using Copy My Hard Drive and followed your hints.  I wiped my "copy" drive using GDISK so it was totally unallocated, unformatted, etc.  With both drives attached to the mobo, I ran the "Copy My Hard Drive" (yup, you were right) command from C: to \: (because it didn't have a drive letter).  I chose primary partition and set disk to boot.  The clone was successful according to Ghost, but there was a note that something was "vetoed" by a process and that anything past sector 1024 may not be visible (so how in the heck is this a success?).  I then checked Windows Disk Management; as expected, no drive letter was assigned to the "copy" drive.  I named it D:\ and made sure it was basic, active, etc.

I detached the "master" drive and rebooted.  I got past the Windows splash screen to the XP logon screen.  When I clicked on my username, I got the "looking up your user settings" note.  It's trying to get further, gets to the blank purple screen that sits behind my desktop (which is a custom setting), and hangs with no icons.

So I tried everything again but this time chose not only primary partition and set disk to boot but also assigned drive letter D: in the Ghost dropdown box itself.  Blah blah blah, no love. 

It's not a question of jumpering because these are SATA drives.  If both drives are attached, the "master" drive is seen as "system" and the "copy" drive is seen as "active" in Disk Management.  This seems similar to your predicament in your Ghost 10 post of June 1, 2006, at 12:24AM ("The old HD kept its C drive letter even though it wasn't the System drive.").  Does this sound right to you? You corrected your problem using fdisk /mbr, and I am unfamiliar with this command.  Do you think it might apply?  Perhaps in my first attempt I shouldn't have named the "copy" drive D: in Disk Management when the "master" drive could see what I was doing.

Thanks so much for your help on this!

Beth

Beth, how large are your HDs and how much used space do you have on your C: drive? Do you have partitioning software? Apart from the Windows defragger do you have Diskeeper or Perfect Disk?

This gives me some ideas for phase 2 if the current phase doesn't work.

To C Man:  I use Systemworks 2003 at work and love it.  When I bought myself a new computer a couple of months ago, I bought Systemworks 2006 for use at home, thinking it would be as user-friendly.  Surprise!

To Brian:  Check THIS out.  So while I was typing my last post to you, I left my computer hanging on the post-splash screen, pre-user settings blank page.  A couple of hours later, I walked into the room and found that it had booted successfully! I rebooted three more times, and the hanging problem never resurfaced.

You are absolutely right--now that the heat of the moment has passed, I realize I didn't follow your instructions to the letter (pardon the pun) because I gave the "copy" drive a letter before I detached the "master" drive.

This is why I love computers.  They are magic! I am going to clone my drive correctly tonight, using your instructions, but I thought you'd be interested to know about this little experiment.

Thanks SO much for all of your help.   

Beth

Beth wrote on Dec 21^st, 2006 at 8:19am:
Ah, ok, that' why I asked.  Nightowl's last post will be of great value to you then, looks like you can still use Ghost 2003.  Good luck!