Radified Community Forums - Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #15 - Dec 27^th, 2009 at 3:49pm

@

Brian

Quote:

But I just tried NightOwl's challenge.

Thanks for taking the time to test that out!

Quote:

I tried to boot the HD as a USB device and then tried to boot using a menu in BING. Each started off promising (for a few seconds) in that the WinXP splash screen appeared and then the computer restarted. No luck.

Well, I guess *there you go*--it's not just a *walk in the park* procedure! But, you still see folks posting *success* with their various attempts--so must be doable on certain setups!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

!

IP Logged

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

	Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost. Reply #16 - Jan 6^th, 2010 at 12:53pm To all Here's a possible resource for pursuing booting from a USB device: The CD Forum--USB Booting There's appears to be evidence that some folks can master this process! And, here's another forum: Boot from USB/Boot Anywhere
	____________________________________________________________________________________________ No question is stupid ... but, possibly the answers are ! IP Logged

Brian

Demigod

Offline

Posts: 6345
NSW, Australia

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #17 - Jan 6^th, 2010 at 1:07pm

@

NightOwl

DOS boots nicely from a USB external HD. I have an 8 MB FreeDOS partition at the start of an external HD. It is set Active so I can boot to this partition, run Image for DOS and restore an image stored elsewhere on this external HD. It should work for Ghost.exe as well. No CD needed for restores with this method.

IP Logged

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #18 - Jan 10^th, 2010 at 12:05pm

@

Brian

Quote:

DOS boots nicely from a USB external HD. I have an 8 MB FreeDOS partition at the start of an external HD. It is set Active so I can boot to this partition, run Image for DOS and restore an image stored elsewhere on this external HD. It should work for Ghost.exe as well. No CD needed for restores with this method.

Very nice, and interesting--I have no experience with systems that offer this type of USB support--do you have to load any DOS USB mass storage device drivers (for example the Panasonic USB drivers) in the boot files to have access to the external USB HDD after booting--or does the system that supports booting from the HDD also take care of continued access after booting without any added DOS USB drivers?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

!

IP Logged

Brian

Demigod

Offline

Posts: 6345
NSW, Australia

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #19 - Jan 10^th, 2010 at 3:56pm

@

NightOwl

I did the whole exercise again using a DOS partition instead of FreeDOS.

A few years ago you helped me create an 8 MB DOS partition on my HD0 using the sys C: method. I imaged this partition and restored the image to the start of my external HD, then set the partition Active and simply booted from the external HD just as if I was booting a USB flash drive. No drivers were added to the DOS partition. It was exactly the same as the partition on my HD0.

I ran Ghost 2003 from the DOS partition on the external HD and it saw all NTFS partitions on HD0, HD1 and the external HD. I created Ghost images of a HD0 partition and wrote them to HD1 and to the main NTFS partition on the external HD.

I think this is a practical way to run image/restore from a USB external HD. I know you have a config.sys menu so you could have various image/restore scenarios in the menu if you desired.

IP Logged

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #20 - Jan 11^th, 2010 at 9:57am

@

Brian

Quote:

I ran Ghost 2003 from the DOS partition on the external HD and it saw all NTFS partitions on HD0, HD1 and the external HD. I created Ghost images of a HD0 partition and wrote them to HD1 and to the main NTFS partition on the external HD.

Interesting--access in DOS to everything without any additional DOS drivers!

If you boot from your regular HDD to DOS, and have an external USB HDD hooked up--does your system still give you access to that USB HDD in DOS--in other words, do you have access to that external HDD in DOS regardless of how you boot? If *Yes*, then I must assume your BIOS is taking care of access to any mass storage device regardless of what type of controller (USB, IDE, SATA) is being used.

Quote:

I think this is a practical way to run image/restore from a USB external HD.

This would be an excellent method for laptop users to have their backup images stored on a second HDD--being as most laptops only have a single HDD available--of course if there's a second partition available on the laptop's HDD, laptop users can save the image file to that second partition, and then transfer it to an external HDD later--might be faster even though it takes additional steps!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

!

IP Logged

Brian

Demigod

Offline

Posts: 6345
NSW, Australia

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #21 - Jan 11^th, 2010 at 1:31pm

@

NightOwl

NightOwl wrote on Jan 11^th, 2010 at 9:57am:

does your system still give you access to that USB HDD in DOS--

Yes. Booted from DOS on the HD, I can see the DOS partition on the external HD.

Quote:

of course if there's a second partition available on the laptop's HDD, laptop users can save the image file to that second partition, and then transfer it to an external HDD later--might be faster even though it takes additional steps!

That's what I like doing too as I create my images while Windows is running.

IP Logged

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #22 - Jan 14^th, 2010 at 11:33am

@

Brian

Quote:

Yes. Booted from DOS on the HD, I can see the DOS partition on the external HD.

Dang! I need a new system Wink

!!!!

I self-built my system in approx. 2002. It has the following:

Quote:

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-8IHXP, Socket 478, revision v2.1
CPU: Intel Pentium 4A, 2.4 GHz (Alias: Northwood, A80532)
BIOS: AMI (American Megatrends, Inc.), date 2/24/2003, 8IHXP F8
Boot Devices: Floppy Disk, Hard Disk, CD-ROM, ATAPI ZIP, LS-120

Chipset: North Bridge: Intel Tehama i850E
South Bridge: Intel 82801DB ICH4, Ultra ATA/133 Controller

Integrated RAID Controller Chip: Promice MBFastTrak133 Lite RAID Controller

I'm curious, if you're willing to share--what motherboard/ or system brand/model do you have?

How old is it?

What is the BIOS manufacturer and what is the BIOS date that gives you BIOS supported access to attached USB external storage devices without DOS device drivers?

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

!

IP Logged

Brian

Demigod

Offline

Posts: 6345
NSW, Australia

Back to top

	Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost. Reply #23 - Jan 14^th, 2010 at 2:07pm @ NightOwl It's a Dell 9150, three and a half years old. The BIOS is two and a half years old and apart from seeing "Dell" in the BIOS, there is no other identification.
	IP Logged

NightOwl

Radministrator

Offline

"I tought I saw a puddy
tat..."

Posts: 5826
Olympia, WA--Puget Sound--USA

Back to top

Re: Suggestion for very fast restore, with an External HD, using Ghost.
Reply #24 - Jan 15^th, 2010 at 9:56am

@

Brian

Quote:

apart from seeing "Dell" in the BIOS, there is no other identification

I guess Dell doesn't want you to know who the *actual* supplier(s) of a component(s) is (are)!

It's been awhile, but when I last opened an older Dell system, the motherboard was clearly labeled *Asus*--and I think the BIOS chip was *Award*--but I'm sure the suppliers change over time!

____________________________________________________________________________________________

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

!

IP Logged

	Welcome, Guest. Please Login