Hi Folks,
I'm a newbie with the Ghost cloning SW.
I installed everythign and even ran a backup to a USB 500gb drive with no problems.
But not so when I attempted to test the restore operation.

I booted the SRD ( apparently it's the CD that the Ghost app came on ) and it displayed:

Windows is loading files...

with a progress bar underneath.

After the progress bar indicated the loading completed, it just hung there and did nothing.

Anyone have a clue?

Does anyone have any screen shots of what happens next?

Thanks alot.  I want to get this thing up ASAP as I've lost data before and know how painful that can be.

All the best,

DM.

Thanks NightOwl for the info.

I did run the Ghost driver validation util and it is reporting missing driver(s) for what looks like a network interface.

See the output from the driver validation below...

If the HDD driver was missing would that be caught by the validation program?

All the best,

DM.

Here's the validation result:

The following devices do not have drivers in the Symantec Recovery Disk.

Packet Scheduler Miniport
WAN Miniport (ATW)

A detailed information about these devices is given below

Description      : Packet Scheduler Miniport
Class            : Net
Class Guid      : {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Hardware Id      : ms_pschedmp
Hardware Id      : ms_pschedmp
----------------------------------
Description      : WAN Miniport (ATW)
Class            : Net
Class Guid      : {4D36E972-E325-11CE-BFC1-08002BE10318}
Hardware Id      : WANATW
Hardware Id      : WANATW
----------------------------------




NightOwl wrote on Sep 30^th, 2007 at 10:34am:

datamaniac wrote on Sep 30^th, 2007 at 8:49am:

You're on the right track as NightOwl suggested, to getting the needed drivers integrated with your boot CD.  During the CD boot process, the pause you are seeing is Windows trying to identify your hardware.  Which you have correctly found out isn't on the cd.

There is a way to create a new boot CD from Ghost 12.  Read starting on page 19 of the Ghost 12 User Manual:

If it is still having trouble identifying your hardware, you need to simplify your pc as an aid to debugging.
1. Unplug any other usb2 devices (such as usb card readers etc.) and try again.
2. If that still doesn't work, unplug even your external usb2 hard drive and see if that works by booting from the cd.

If you're still stuck, look for BIOS settings that affect usb2 devices for your motherboard; some motherboards have usb2 compatibility or other termed settings. 

Update your BIOS to latest level.

What brand pc and motherboard do you have?

Thanks Ghost4me!  That fixed it!

I have quite a few USB devices hanging off my monitor USB hub.  I disconnected all those and it worked.

I assume that if and when I do need to restore my computer, just because those usb devices will be disconnected during the image restore, the drivers for those disconnected USB devices will be restored just the same, no?

Anyhow, that's great.  I really like the idea of cloning drives.  It's the only way to go IMO.

I'm running an enterprise email server, have several drives with interfaces of all types, tons of professional and personal files that are irreplaceable, etc., and need a good backup/restore strategy.

Thanks!

Brian:

After I made a custom SRD my missing driver problems went away.  The custom SRD creation program must go out and pull all the necessary drivers it can't find on the Symantic SRD directly off the system drive, which is great because now I don't have to worry about getting copies from Dell should my system crap out.

Once Dell discontinues a system as they did with mine ( 8400 ) you can no longer get a CD from them which contains all your specific system's specific drivers, like a custom CD for your Dell system.  They will send you one no problem if your system is still offered by them, but once they retire that specific model/line, you're on your own.

You have to go find them piece-meal on their site and install them one at a time.

I think I may have seen something about the F6 key in the 12.0 README but am not sure...

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who offerred help.  I will be back to contribute any useful Ghost 12.0 info I discover.

Thanks again!

All the best,

DM.


John. wrote on Sep 30^th, 2007 at 3:37pm:

datamaniac wrote on Sep 30^th, 2007 at 5:41pm:

Glad you have it working now.  The boot process was trying to communicate with each and every usb device and evidently had some problems.  Disconnecting for the boot CD is a common fix needed especially if you have a lot of strange devices.
You won't have to worry about the drivers, because those devices are still there on XP, just not on the Recovery CD boot process, which doesn't need them anyway.  You're just trying to backup or restore the hard drive disk image.  So that one has to work.

Brian

Quote:


Quote:

Really...!  That's news to me!  

Is the Ghost 12 Recovery Disk no longer loading the WinPE environment?

Or does it load the WinPE--but Symantec has once again *customized* it so it no longer functions correctly!!!!!!

If its the same WinPE that you have use to install Windows--why can Symantec leave well enough alone?!

Brian

Edited:

Thank you for checking that out!  

So, Symantec still thinks it's more important to try and make the drive letters match in the Recovery Environment, rather than correct enumeration of USB storage devices or outright failure to mount the external USB storage devices in the Recovery Environment!

By any chance, did you test to see if you can cause your USB HDD to not mount in Ghost 12's Recovery Environment like it does in Ghost 10?

Every system that has a built-in USB card reader will assign drive letters to those card slots before a user adds an external USB HDD to their system--that will almost always create drive letter conflicts for the USB HDD's!!!

Quote:

So...does that mean Vista's installation CD also no longer has an F6 function to add drivers for a system that is newer than when the installation CD was created, and does not have those newer drivers?!

So, if datamaniac solved his problem by disconnecting some of his USB devices--must be that reading of the registry to assign drive letters in the Recovery Environment that was causing the problem!

Interesting!