If you use multiple DVD disks with Ghost to store your HD backup image, as I do, you may encounter the problem I just had during a HD restore session. I use Ghost 9.0 but it would apply to any version of Ghost on any machine.

Recovering from a HD failure (or from any other need to restore) is an anxious time, and when you receive error messages saying that the restore is ended due to read and cycling errors, it can make you anticipate the worst and wonder if there is anything you can do without a major expense and a prolonged search for help.

Before doing anything else, you might try what just saved me from either of those routes.

Clean the disks carefully (use gentle radial strokes) with a lens cleaning fluid and special cloth you can get from an optician's store. (You could probably use Windex and Kleenex but this is a time to be very careful.)

Because the error messages are generated when one disk is in the drive DOES NOT MEAN that it is the one disk that needs cleaning, which is what I first assumed. It turned out to be not so in my case, and I went through more agony before discovering which disk actually needed cleaning.

The only way to be sure that cleaning is (or is not) the problem is to clean them all. It's best to do a 5-minute cleaning as a regular practice at the beginning of any restore session, because on a 60 G HD such a session can last 4 - 5 hours and if it aborts with Ghost, you are all the way back at the beginning and have to start over.

I am one relieved user right now because of finding these things out.

Thanks Harold.

I broke up your large, single block of text into smaller, bite-sized pieces for better readability. Hope you don't mind.

Harold,

Good to hear from you again. Interesting observation.

I don't write images to DVDs because it's so slow. I'd expect restoring to be slow but you have obviously adjusted to the time frame.

I'd be concerned about storing your images on DVD+/- RW. There are anecdotal reports about their unreliability and I've had two of these discs "die". DVD+/- R are more reliable.

Harold, I like having my eggs in two baskets. I store some backup images on different media. Most are on my second internal HD but some are copied to an external HD and the rare one is on DVD. Occasionally I backup using a different imaging program.

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Exactly.