blackeagle

Are you using Ghost from a DOS boot floppy disc or optical disc--or are you using the Windows Ghost interface when booted to Windows?

Ghost 2003 will require a DOS USB storage device driver that loads during the boot up to DOS and is able to *see* the USB HDD--so it's not Ghost that assigns the drive letter--it's the DOS USB storage device driver that has to be able to *see* the USB HDD and assign the drive letter.

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Could be!  Not all USB storage devices are *equal*--the DOS USB driver may or may not be compatible--what brand is the external USB device?

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What type of DOS device drivers are you using here?

Have you tried different USB ports?  A friend has a Dell laptop that Ghost won't recognize external USB drive connected to one USB port when Ghost is run from boot CD, but it will recognize it when connected to the other USB port.

blackeagle

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Did you use the Ghost 2003 Boot Wizard to create your boot floppy?

Did you put a *check mark* in the box to add USB 2.0 support to the floppy disk?  If you did, then you should have ended up with a *two disk boot set*--i.e. two floppy disks in order to boot to DOS and load Ghost.  The first disk has the DOS boot files, and the second disk has the *ghost.exe* program on it to load after booting to DOS.  If you add USB support--then the total number of files and their sizes will not fit on a single 1.44 MB floppy disk.

If you have a *two disk boot set*--then you have to do some *fancy foot work* to create a functional optical boot disc--because using just a default standard boot routine on an optical disc can only have a single 1.44 MB floppy disk size for the hidden optical boot sector!

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My suspicion is that your answers to the above questions will be *No--you do not have a *two floppy boot set**--if that's true, then you probably do not have a DOS USB driver for HDD's being loaded by the boot disk or disc--and access to the USB memory stick must have been provided by your system's BIOS--and your system may not be able to provide access to a USB HDD even though it might provide access to a flash drive--there's lots of variability out there on what different BIOS's can do with USB at the DOS level!  We would have to explore that to figure it out!

blackeagle

I have some important information to offer you regarding your questions--but, I'm pressed for time right now and have to be out of town for the next 4-5 days--so, don't do anything yet with you Ghost 2003 disks or discs--or the installation of Ghost 2003--until I can give you some feed back--sorry I can't do it right now!

blackeagle

Okay--I'm back!!!

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If you have the stand-alone Ghost 2003 installation disc, when you install that to Windows, you will get the same Symantec Windows interface that you had when you also had the Norton anti-virus software installed--just without the anti-virus listed in that interface.  I installed Ghost 2003 as part of the Norton SystemWorks suite--so I had Norton Anti-virus, Norton Utilities, Norton CleanSweep, Web-tools, Extra Features, and Ghost 2003.  When I later uninstalled Norton Anti-virus, that was removed from the Symantec interface--but all the others remained.

So, the LiveUpdate is installed as part of that Symantec Windows interface.  However, the version of LiveUpdate that is installed is not aware of the Symantec Archieved Update server for older programs!  And, for reasons I don't understand, LiveUpdate is unable to update itself to more recent versions!  So, you have to *manually* update LiveUpdate to the more recent version, and then you can select the Archieve server to get to the updates for Ghost 2003.  Here's a quote from another thread in the past:

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Having said all that, you may not need to worry about the LiveUpdate issue!  You have a floppy disk made from the Ghost 2003 Windows Norton Ghost Boot Wizard in the past--if that was made after you had updated your Ghost 2003 back when the original LiveUpdate worked without the *fix* above--then your *ghost.exe* will be the most recent build of *.793*.  You can install Ghost 2003 onto Windows, use the Boot Wizard to create whatever boot floppies you want, and then just delete the *ghost.exe* that's on those new boot disks, and copy the *ghost.exe* that's on your *old* boot disk to the *new* boot disks--you will then have that most recent *ghost.exe* on the *new* boot disks.

So, if that *old* boot disk has the most recent build of *ghost.exe*--protect that disk!!!  It's *golden*!

Back in the day, most of the *updates* were to the *ghost.exe* program and not the other supporting programs and DOS drivers--so you probably won't be missing much--if anything--if you don't *officially* update the installed Ghost 2003 program!

How do you *know* what version of *ghost.exe* that you have?  You can run the *version* command switch from within Windows--you go to *Start*, then *Run*, and type *command* (without the **'s), and press Enter.  Windows will open a *MS-DOS Prompt* command window--the default location is the user's name in the *Documents and Settings* directory of the Windows partition--usually *C:\Documents and Settings\User Name*.  Navigate to whatever drive (HDD, floppy drive, or optical drive) and/or subdirectory that has the *ghost.exe* program in question, and then type at the DOS-prompt:  *ghost.exe -ver* (without the **'s) and press Enter.  You will get a response showing the version and build of that *ghost.exe* program.

If you have installed (or have a 3rd party file manager program that has the feature included) the Windows Power Toy tool for opening a *command prompt here*, you can use Windows Explorer to navigate to the location, right click on that subdirectory and select *Open Command Window Here*.  Now, type the Ghost version command:  *ghost.exe -ver* (without the **'s) and press Enter.

That's enough for this post--there's more to come!

Hi NightOwl,
                    Many thanks for taking the time to write all this. Well I got my copy of Ghost 2003 when I was working at a University. We had an external Iomega hard drive of quite low capacity as compared to what is available now and one day I noticed that Ghost was mentioned on the box of the hard drive. It was not easy to track down down the Ghost 2003 CD which came with the external Iomega hard drive as no one really knew what Ghost was. Finally I could lay my hands on the treasure. Now I've just looked at my Ghost 2003 CD and I find that that my ghost.exe file is under the SUPPORT directory together with gdisk.exe, ghreboot.exe and ghstwalk.exe. The installation CD offers to install Ghost 2003 in 10 languaages and the menu has the logo of Iomega on the top right hand side. In the readme.txt file, I see that the date given there is August 14, 2002.

From a previous post here on ratified, I learned how to update Ghost to the most recent version. I remember that I had to run the update process TWICE in order to get the latest version. I've just checked the version of my Ghost and it's version is 793, cdrlib: 3.1.25 .And I have also 793 marked on the diskette label when I did the update a few years back.

Please note that m laptop doesn't come with a floppy disk drive. So I use an external floppy drive. In my case it's a Sony USB floppy drive. I have been using this since I started playing with Ghost.


You mentioned "When you boot from it, you would get a boot menu where you could choose not to load any extra DOS drivers". Unfortunately I don't get this. It loads PC DOS directly in my case and the mouse driver. But I can certainly quit the program once inside to go to the command prompt.

Also please note that I have my Sony USB floppy drive attached to a USB port when I'm booting from my diskette. But I have also made a boot CD with the Ghost contents of the floppy disk and I normally use the CD, and keep the boot diskette somewhere safe.

blackeagle

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I think you have misunderstood what I'm saying--there are two different optical disc we are talking about--the *Installation CD* from Symantec--and the bootable optical disc you made using the floppy boot disk as the source to create that bootable CD.

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Exactly--it was created using the floppy disk boot files so it (optical disc) should be identical to what loads when using the floppy disk.

But, what I'm talking about is the Symantec *Installation CD*!  It's bootable and allows you to boot to DOS--and it should give you that menu to choose whether to load additional DOS drivers such as the USB 1.x or 2.0, or Firewire!

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Again, when I mentioned my original Ghost CD--I was talking about when I used it to boot to DOS--you had to choose a language for use in DOS--you are talking about when you *install* it in Windows--not the same thing!!!

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My question was *what's the version of Ghost on the Symantec Installation CD*? 

If your optical drive in Windows is given the drive letter *X:*, put your Symantec Ghost 2003 Installation CD in the optical drive, open the *MS-DOS Prompt* window as I mentioned in reply #9 above.  Type   x:  , and press Enter--this will change the DOS prompt *focus* to the optical drive.  Then, type   cd support , and press Enter--*cd* is for *change directory*--so you are changing the focus to the *Support* sub-directory--which is where you said the *ghost.exe* is located.  Now, type   ghost.exe -ver , and press Enter--this will give you the version of the *ghost.exe* that's on the Symantec Installation CD.

What's your version of *ghost.exe* on that Installation CD?

Put that Installation CD in your optical drive.  Turn off the system.  And now boot up the system using that Installation CD as your optical boot disc. 

Do you get that menu to select a USB DOS driver to be loaded?