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Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives (Read 57653 times)
Dan Goodell
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #15 - Aug 2nd, 2011 at 4:49pm
 
Prozactive wrote on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 12:45pm:
I had no problems accessing it with Ghost 2003 using the Panasonic DOS USB driver and DI1000DD.SYS, and successfully made a full disk image of the drive [...]

Imaging/restoring is a two-way street . . . did you test whether you could restore said image, before moving on to reformat the partition?  IOW, I'm not sure you've established a cause/effect relationship from your file system change.


Quote:
Only ASPIDISK.SYS allows me to access the drive in Ghost 2003, but it doesn't show up in the list of mounted disks so I cannot make any disk or partition images from the drive.

Are you sure the FAT32 partition is formatted?  Can you save/read files to/from it?  Remember that Microsoft does not support FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB, so be careful about making any assumptions.  Rather than a driver problem, maybe Ghost simply doesn't see any valid file system to make an image of.


Quote:
I'm pretty sure it's due to ASPIDISK.SYS mounting the drive as SCSI (or something similar) even though it's not.

Don't get hung up on the "SCSI" term.  I've noticed lots of older utilities seem to think SATA devices are SCSI.  Apparently, they call anything non-IDE "SCSI".


Quote:
UPDATE: It appears that the latest version of Ghost (15.0) does not support restoring from .GHO images. I'm not familiar at all with the newer versions of Ghost but it looks like I'm screwed.

Screwed??  I'm confused.  You've just been testing and haven't yet saved an image of anything you needed to keep, so how are you screwed?

(And to get on my soapbox again, it always baffles me why people want to image non-OS partitions in the first place.  It's the wrong tool for the wrong job.  Imaging should be used for backing up operating systems.  Non-OS partitions can be backed up by simple file copying, or something like ordinary zipfiles if you want some compression.)


But back to testing . . .

If you think the file system change had something to do with it, have you tried reformatting the 1TB partition back to NTFS first?

Have you tried repartitioning the external disk to smaller than 1TB partition(s) and then doing a "partition-from-image" restore to a smaller destination partition?




 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #16 - Aug 2nd, 2011 at 11:53pm
 
@
Dan Goodell

Hmmm...maybe being a little hard on Prozactive--I think I might understand what he was doing to initially *image* his new external HDD--being as I have just done the same thing this last week myself!

Quote:
(And to get on my soapbox again, it always baffles me why people want to image non-OS partitions in the first place.  It's the wrong tool for the wrong job.  Imaging should be used for backing up operating systems.  Non-OS partitions can be backed up by simple file copying, or something like ordinary zipfiles if you want some compression.)

Well, my thought was that I could use the Ghost image to restore the external HDD back to the way is was before I started *messin* with it with the least amount of effort.  It doesn't take long to restore the boot track, the file system formatting, and partition structure using a Ghost image compared to doing everything manually, step-by-step.

I used the *-ib* (image boot) switch so that I would have a copy of the whole boot tract in case any important data is stored there (I looked at it with a sector editor--and it's actually full of data--not just empty space like one usually sees!), the backup image creation took less than 10-15 seconds, and the image size is 397,698 kB.

My plan was to zero the boot tract, create a bootable external HDD and do some testing.  And, if I wanted or needed to, I could restore quickly using the image file in order to start over again.

Quote:
Screwed??  I'm confused.  You've just been testing and haven't yet saved an image of anything you needed to keep, so how are you screwed?

I think his reference point is that he does not have access via a usable Ghost program to restore his *.gho* image of the external HDD--not so much that he lost any important data.

Quote:
But back to testing . . .

If you think the file system change had something to do with it, have you tried reformatting the 1TB partition back to NTFS first?

That would be interesting to test and see if it changes Ghost's access behavior in any way!  Please test this, Prozactive.  You should be able to hook up the external HDD, and use Window's Disk Management to delete the FAT32 partition, and then create a new NTFS partition.  Then re-test access in DOS to the NTFS partition.  Let us know the results!



 

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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #17 - Aug 3rd, 2011 at 12:52am
 
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As I mentioned to Dan above, I just got a 1TB WD Passport this last week myself.  Your post is of great interest, and I'd like to better understand what you did.  And, maybe I can help figure a way to access that Ghost image file.

Quote:
I had no problems accessing it with Ghost 2003 using the Panasonic DOS USB driver and DI1000DD.SYS, and successfully made a full disk image of the drive

So, you booted to DOS and the Panasonic DOS USB driver and DI1000DD.sys loaded without errors and you were able to access the 1 TB HDD as the source HDD and you were able to create an image file on some other destination HDD.

1.  Did you boot from a floppy disk, optical disc, or external USB HDD, or external USB flashdrive, or.....?

2.  How old is the system's motherboard?  Brand?  Model?

3.  Any special settings enabled or disabled in the BIOS regarding USB support?

4.  SATA and/or PATA HDDs in use on the main motherboard?

Quote:
before repartitioning and formatting it in FAT32 (I decided to create one FAT32 partition for the entire 1 TB free space).

5.  What partitioning tool did you use to accomplish this.  Window's Disk Management only allows up to 32 GB partition size.  Did you do this in Windows, or did you boot to DOS, or some other non-Windows OS?

Quote:
Only ASPIDISK.SYS allows me to access the drive in Ghost 2003

6.  So, remind me....where does that driver come from?  It's not the Panasonic USB DOS driver.  And it's not the Ghost Iomega USB DOS driver.  What's the source and are there any references showing how to use this driver?

Quote:
Only ASPIDISK.SYS allows me to access the drive in Ghost 2003, but it doesn't show up in the list of mounted disks so I cannot make any disk or partition images from the drive

7.  Okay, I'm lost in the terminology here!  Either you can, or you can not access the drive--which is it?  And, I don't know what *list of mounted disks* is in reference to--DOS Ghost has *source* HDDs and *destination* HDDs--there are no mention of *mounted disks* in the DOS Ghost interface--what are you referencing?

Quote:
It does show as a destination drive in the File Explorer window so I can save images of other drives to it

8.  I don't recognize that term *File Explorer window*.  Are we talking about DOS Ghost?

Quote:
So, apparently the FAT32 file system is the limiting factor for the maximum HDD size that Ghost 2003 can handle, as NTFS allows 1 TB drives to be successfully accessed (at least from my single data point of experience). It would be interesting to hear other experiences with greater than 1 TB NTFS-formatted HDDs.

I wouldn't jump to that conclusion just yet--there are a number of other variables that may be playing a role here.  I've done some recent experiments that may suggest otherwise--which I will share--but, I'm out of town for the rest of this week, and I'm almost out of time for forum posting this evening--so, more details will have to wait 'til next week--and I'd like to have some of your answers to my above questions before we go forward, so I understand better what you have done so far.

Quote:
UPDATE: It appears that the latest version of Ghost (15.0) does not support restoring from .GHO images. I'm not familiar at all with the newer versions of Ghost but it looks like I'm screwed.

Only Ghost 9 and Ghost 10 had the ability to restore *legacy* Ghost 2003 *.gho and .ghs* files--Ghost 14 and 15 do not have that ability.  (Ghost 11.xx is the Corporate version of Ghost--used before Ghost 14 came out--and Ghost 13 was a skipped version number--someone at Symantec is superstitious!)

Quote:
I cannot figure out any way to restore the full disk image I made (if I ever wanted to revert to the factory configuration) since I can no longer access the HDD in Ghost 2003 (in the list of mounted disks for image creation/restoration).

Didn't you already create the image of the external HDD--where did you store it?  If your external HDD shows up as a *destination* HDD, and you are able to select the *source* HDD that has that image, then you should be able to restore the image from the *source* HDD to the *destination* HDD!
 

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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #18 - Aug 3rd, 2011 at 6:54am
 
NightOwl wrote on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 11:53pm:
Well, my thought was that I could use the Ghost image to restore the external HDD back to the way is was before I started *messin* with it with the least amount of effort.

I guess Prozactive has put the lie to that "least amount of effort" theory!   Wink


Quote:
It doesn't take long to restore the boot track, the file system formatting, and partition structure using a Ghost image compared to doing everything manually, step-by-step.

I guess it's a matter of preference.  To me, it's much quicker to do it manually.  Plus, I dislike committing data to a proprietary backup format unless there's a good reason to do so.

A quick backup of an external drive would entail plugging the drive into a running Windows computer, grabbing the boot track with Roadkil's SecEdit, and then dropping the entire contents of the external's single partition into a backup location with Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.  Much faster than Ghost 2003, and with no reboots.  If you want compression: Ctrl-A, right-click, and "send to compressed file".  (Aside:  I grab the boot track just in case there was anything special in it, and because it's the quickest way to restore the original partition layout.)

If a restore should ever be needed, the procedure would involve plugging the external into a running Windows computer, dropping the boot track back on with SecEdit, unplugging/replugging the external to remount in Windows, quick-formatting the single NTFS partition, then restoring the contents with Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V again.  It all takes less time than it would to reboot, run Ghost 2003, and reboot again to restart Windows.  And there's no chance of running into the kind of issues Prozactive is struggling with.



 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #19 - Aug 4th, 2011 at 12:40pm
 
@Dan Goodell and NightOwl:
Thanks for your replies. I must say I'm kinda surprised at their extensive detailed nature and all the various technical and other issues you've raised. It will take quite some time to carefully parse and reply to all of them! I put a fair amount of effort into writing a fairly concise but technically accurate summary of my experiences, at least I thought. I certainly didn't address every technical detail I had to deal with, and many of them are difficult to concisely explain in words. But at any rate, I'll start trying to address some of your many questions and issues.

@Dan Goodell:
As an aside, I've browsed your website several times in the past and I've been impressed with the technical accuracy and thoroughness of your work (DSRFix, etc.). Thanks for all of your efforts.

Dan Goodell wrote on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 5:49pm:
Quote:
Imaging/restoring is a two-way street . . . did you test whether you could restore said image, before moving on to reformat the partition? IOW, I'm not sure you've established a cause/effect relationship from your file system change.


While I did not actually restore the Ghost disk image, I did successfully run an integrity check and I have no doubt that I could've restored the image had I chosen to do so. And, I had no issues whatsoever accessing the 1 TB HDD when it was formatted NTFS but got "divide overflow" errors after it was formatted FAT32, so I'd say that was a strong "cause/effect" relationship. I will admit however, it's not definitively proven (hence my comment about a single data point), but it's certainly a strong indication.

Quote:
Are you sure the FAT32 partition is formatted? Can you save/read files to/from it? Remember that Microsoft does not support FAT32 partitions greater than 32GB, so be careful about making any assumptions. Rather than a driver problem, maybe Ghost simply doesn't see any valid file system to make an image of.


I am 100% certain the disk is formatted FAT32. I have run several Scandisk type utility programs to verify the file system logical structure. And yes I can save/read files to/from it. As I understand it, the 32 GB FAT32 limitation is an artificial one created by Microsoft in Windows XP. FAT32 can support up to 2 TiB from my research (and even larger capacities with nonstandard cluster sizes).

Quote:
Don't get hung up on the "SCSI" term. I've noticed lots of older utilities seem to think SATA devices are SCSI. Apparently, they call anything non-IDE "SCSI".


Understood. However, this comes directly from the DOS status messages as ASPIDISK.SYS is loading. I don't have a direct quote right now but the status messages strongly imply that ASPIDISK.SYS is mounting the disk as SCSI, or something very similar. It's not surprising, since the driver is part of Adaptec's EZ-SCSI software package.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #20 - Aug 4th, 2011 at 2:15pm
 
Continuing with my replies to the numerous questions and issues raised...

NightOwl wrote on Aug 3rd, 2011 at 12:53am:
Quote:
Well, my thought was that I could use the Ghost image to restore the external HDD back to the way is was before I started *messin* with it with the least amount of effort.
[...]
I used the *-ib* (image boot) switch so that I would have a copy of the whole boot tract [sic] in case any important data is stored there...


Exactly. My standard operating procedure is to use Ghost to make a full disk image of the HDD before any repartitioning/reformatting so I'd always have a clean "as-found" factory configuration to revert back to in case something goes wrong or if I ever just want to restore the disk to that state again. I've successfully used this method numerous times in the past with smaller external USB HDDs.

I was not familiar with the -IB switch and did not use it in making my disk image. Perhaps I should have. Based on past experience, I've always assumed that Ghost also makes a backup of the boot sector in creating a disk image. I've successfully repaired several instances of corrupt MBRs caused by malware in other systems by restoring Ghost disk images. I should point out that Western Digital includes an aggravating intrusive backup/utility software package called SmartWare with their latest external USB HDDs. I absolutely did not want it but it took a lot of effort and work to get rid of it. Web searches showed that they play tricks with it, embedding it in the drive's firmware and creating some sort of virtual CD that you can only hide but not remove. Perhaps that's part of the reason you saw all that data in the boot sector when you viewed it with a hex editor.

Dan Goodell wrote on Aug 2nd, 2011 at 5:49pm:
Quote:
Screwed?? I'm confused. You've just been testing and haven't yet saved an image of anything you needed to keep, so how are you screwed?

NightOwl wrote on Aug 3rd, 2011 at 12:53am:
Quote:
I think his reference point is that he does not have access via a usable Ghost program to restore his *.gho* image of the external HDD--not so much that he lost any important data.


Exactly. I cannot restore the original "as-found" disk image now that I cannot access the HDD anymore in Ghost 2003 (in the list of mounted disks) after I reformatted it to FAT32.

Quote:
If you think the file system change had something to do with it, have you tried reformatting the 1TB partition back to NTFS first?

That would be interesting to test and see if it changes Ghost's access behavior in any way! Please test this, Prozactive. You should be able to hook up the external HDD, and use Windows Disk Management to delete the FAT32 partition, and then create a new NTFS partition. Then re-test access in DOS to the NTFS partition. Let us know the results!


That's certainly an excellent point. However, I've already spent a good bit of time and effort setting up a new directory structure with file transfers and management that I'm reluctant to lose all that work by reformatting the disk. If there was some way I could create a new Ghost disk image of my FAT32 setup I'd be glad to reformat the disk to NTFS, but alas the errors I've reported preclude my doing so. I've thought about using a non-Ghost disk imaging program, and if that pans out I'll certainly reformat the disk back to NTFS to see if Ghost 2003 can successfully access it again. By the way, you know that DOS cannot normally access NTFS, right? Ghost 2003 obviously has some special proprietary drivers and/or programming to allow it to do so.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #21 - Aug 4th, 2011 at 4:52pm
 
Prozactive wrote on Aug 4th, 2011 at 12:40pm:
"Imaging/restoring is a two-way street . . . did you test whether you could restore said image, before moving on to reformat the partition? IOW, I'm not sure you've established a cause/effect relationship from your file system change."

While I did not actually restore the Ghost disk image, I did successfully run an integrity check and I have no doubt that I could've restored the image had I chosen to do so.

Not necessarily--you're jumping to conclusions.  You're getting the "divide overflow" when it tries to write sectors back to the 1TB, right?  Or are you getting the error earlier (before it actually tries to write)?

The program code to read a partition can be significantly different than the code to write disk sectors.  That's what I mean by "two-way street".  You didn't test whether it could write sectors on the 1TB disk.  You tested whether it could read the image, but not whether it could see the 1TB as a target to write sectors.

Note I don't mean you necessarily had to go through the full restore process for real, but what I wanted to know was whether you followed the restore procedure far enough to find out whether Ghost saw the external as a valid destination.  It doesn't now, but did it before you reformatted?  If not, that would mean FAT32 isn't the issue.


Quote:
And, I had no issues whatsoever accessing the 1 TB HDD when it was formatted NTFS but got "divide overflow" errors after it was formatted FAT32, so I'd say that was a strong "cause/effect" relationship.

Like NightOwl mentioned, your terminology is unclear.  "Accessing the 1 TB HDD" is an ambiguous phrase.  As he asked, which screen are you referring to?  Was the external HDD grayed out or did it not show up at all?  Or are you referring to the *partition* on the external being grayed out or not showing up at all?


Quote:
As I understand it, the 32 GB FAT32 limitation is an artificial one created by Microsoft in Windows XP.

True.  The point isn't that you can't use FAT32, my point is if you're using Microsoft tools you shouldn't assume Microsoft is going to properly do a job it doesn't officially support.

However, the fact you can read and write to the partition is evidence it's formatted.


Quote:
"Don't get hung up on the "SCSI" term. I've noticed lots of older utilities seem to think SATA devices are SCSI. Apparently, they call anything non-IDE "SCSI".

Understood. However, this comes directly from the DOS status messages as ASPIDISK.SYS is loading. I don't have a direct quote right now but the status messages strongly imply that ASPIDISK.SYS is mounting the disk as SCSI,

I think you missed my point.  I think you're saying it identified it as SCSI, while I'm saying maybe it merely identified it as non-IDE.

Your assumption:
    [Driver]  "Hey HDD, are you IDE?"
    [HDD]  "No."
    [Driver]  "Are you SCSI?"
    [HDD]  "Yes."
    [Driver]  "Okay, I'll tell the user you're SCSI."

My suggestion:
    [Driver]  "Hey HDD, are you IDE?"
    [HDD]  "No."
    [Driver]  "Okay, I'll tell the user you're SCSI."



Prozactive wrote on Aug 4th, 2011 at 2:15pm:
[Retesting as NTFS is] certainly an excellent point. However, I've already spent a good bit of time and effort setting up a new directory structure with file transfers and management that I'm reluctant to lose all that work by reformatting the disk. If there was some way I could create a new Ghost disk image of my FAT32 setup I'd be glad to reformat the disk to NTFS,

Again, it's not an OS partition so Ghost is the wrong tool for the job.  Drag-and-drop the entire contents to a suitable holding place, then fiddle with the external HDD at will.

I would also reiterate my suggestion to repartition the external to two smaller partitions and try a "partition-from-image" restore.  That could help determine whether you have a driver issue or a Ghost issue.



 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #22 - Aug 4th, 2011 at 10:10pm
 
Dan Goodell wrote on Aug 4th, 2011 at 5:52pm:
Quote:
Not necessarily--you're jumping to conclusions. You're getting the "divide overflow" when it tries to write sectors back to the 1TB, right? Or are you getting the error earlier (before it actually tries to write)?


No no no, you're completely misunderstanding the issue. I created the disk image of the 1 TB USB HDD on another physical HDD. The "divide overflow" error now occurs immediately after loading Ghost 2003 and completely locks up the system, requiring a hard reboot. My apologies for not clearly explaining that.

I'm still slowly addressing all of the numerous other remaining questions and issues but I wanted to quickly reply to your latest post. I'll also address your additional questions later. Thanks.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #23 - Aug 5th, 2011 at 9:45pm
 
I had spent very long hours daily for 2 weeks to run some Win98-DOS Bootup and Ghost 2003 Build .793 test. Even though the tests can hardly be called either scientific or even thorough testing job, the big picture might be worth your attention

PC: Dell P4 2.8GHz/512MB/BIOS A02/5X USB2.0 built-in ports/Maxtor 70GB PATA HDD
OS: WinXP pro
Device Driver: Both Iomega and Panasonic for the first 5 Test Cases, and using only Panasonic pairs for all the remaining tests.
Boot Up: HP 2.0G USB Fresh Drive unless I got trouble in getting the Ghost 2003 work. I used the 1.4MB Floppy to boot and run Ghost should that happen.
USB2.0 mass storage device used to do the boot and Ghost 2003 tests:
1X HP 2GB USB thumb drive,
1X Kingston 4GB USB thumb drive,
1X AVB USB2.0 CardReader with 2GB Kingston SD card.
1X Hitachi 1TB SATA HDD,
1X Seagate 1TB SATA HDD (come with the Seagate 1TB USB2.0 Expansion model HD)
1X Seagate 500GB SATA HDD,
1X WD 160GB SATA HDD,
1X Maxtor 250GB PATA HDD,
1X IBM 60GB PATA HDD (very old),
1X Fujitsu 2G PATA HDD (even older),
1X Bytecc USB2.0/PATA-SATA adaptor kit,
1X KingWin USB2.0/PATA-SATA adaptor kit.
2X inland 3.5” USB2.0/SATA enclosure,
1X Seagate 3.5” USB2.0/SATA Expansion model (I know the fact that Seagate does not do USB Enclosure business. I disassembled a Seagate 1TB USB2.0/SATA Expansion model, which had cost me $49.95 + taxes, with some reasonable brute force and caused some non-fatal damage to get the case available for other SATA HDD tests. )
1X Eagle 2.5” USB2.0/SATA Enclosure with WD 320GB SATA 2.5” HDD
1X Eagle 2.5” USB2.0/PATA Enclosure with WD 160GB PATA 2.5” HDD
1X Cyber 2.5” USB2.0/PATA Enclosure with Samsung 60GB PATA 2.5” HDD
1X Oriental 3.5” USB2.0/PATA Enclosure with WD PATA 250GB 3.5” HDD

File Systems: FAT, FAT32 and NTFS
Partition(s): Single or multi (to make the 1TB HDD look like a <1TB logical drive)

The results of my tests:
 
(1) The Iomega and Panasonic device drivers are either both ok or both failures in any single same test. They might have performance/speed difference, but I don't see any go/no-go difference thru out all my tests. I was so convinced of that as to adopt only the Panasonic device drivers for most of my lenghty tests to save time.

(2) As long as none of the attached USB2.0 devices is of capacity larger than 1TB, they will all be able to be recognized by the device drivers and work with Ghost 2003 to do Backup/Restore job successfully.

(3) Point (2) being said, I need to highlight that none of these factors: FAT, FAT32, NTFS, SATA, PATA will cause the device drivers fail to talk to the device as to carry out the Ghost 2003 jobs successfully. I have tried all kinds of permutation/combination during the tests, so long the 1TB HDD is not plugged in any 1 of the 5 USB ports of my PC, the test party will always be a happy one. I even swap out the booting HP Flash itself and totally rely on the virtual RAM Drive to finish the device driver download jobs, and the test still o.k.

(4) I can not get even 1 single test case successfully in getting either of the Hitachi 1TB SATA HDD or the Seagate 1TB SATA HDD to pass the device driver mounting job. Not to mention to work with Ghost 2003. All the USB2.0 conduit devices in my hands have been used, NTFS, FAT32 (done by a Tokiwa Formatter) multi-partition, you name it, I have tried it. And all these test had been repeated by using both the Panasonic and the Iomega device drivers. The results? Failed, it all failed.

My conclusion:

If you are using Ghost 2003, don't ever intend to output the Ghost Image to a >1TB HDD; be it an internal or external HDD. Since Ghost 2003 works on DOS, any HDD that can be recognized by your WinXP and works great as such does not mean that HDD will work when being used as the Image Target HDD by the Ghost 2003 on DOS environments --- My honesty opinion is that it will definitely fail each time and every time.

On the other hand, so long you are not using >1TB HDD for the Ghost 2003 Image output, you don't need to worry about any other issues like: FAT, FAT32, NTFS, PATA, SATA, USB2.0/PATA, USB2.0/SATA, USB2.0/PATA/FAT32, USB2.0/PATA/NTFS, USB2.0/SATA/FAT32, USB2.0/SATA/NTFS, USB2.0 HDD type storage media, USB2.0 Flash type storage media.

None of these factors will cause you any trouble in using Ghost 2003.

If Ghost 2003 would ever be forced to retire, it is not owing to Ghost 2003 can no longer do a good job in Backup/Restore the computer system, it is owing to the fact that the User will sooner find nowhere to buy any Hard Drive of capacity smaller than 1TB.

 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #24 - Aug 7th, 2011 at 1:45pm
 
Continuing again with my replies to the numerous questions and issues previously raised...

NightOwl wrote on Aug 3rd, 2011 at 1:52am:
Quote:
1. Did you boot from a floppy disk, optical disc, or external USB HDD, or external USB flashdrive, or.....?

I use a custom boot CD with various DOS USB drivers and configurations that I've developed over time to boot Ghost 2003. There are no special BIOS settings for USB support. I use a standard PS/2 keyboard and mouse. The system is totally PATA (no SATA controllers or drives). USB 2.0 support is provided via a Syba VIA VT6212 PCI add-on card, which I've found is not recognized or supported by the native Iomega DOS USB drivers bundled with Ghost 2003 (e.g., ASPIEHCI.SYS).

Quote:
5. What partitioning tool did you use to accomplish this? Windows Disk Management only allows up to 32 GB partition size. Did you do this in Windows, or did you boot to DOS, or some other non-Windows OS?

I used Norton GDISK from DOS, after booting with the Panasonic DOS USB driver and DI1000DD.SYS to get the 1 TB USB HDD mounted with a drive letter. I've used a wide variety of partitioning and formatting utilities over the years and GDISK is my #1 choice by far.

Quote:
Only ASPIDISK.SYS allows me to access the drive in Ghost 2003, but it doesn't show up in the list of mounted disks so I cannot make any disk or partition images from the drive

7. Okay, I'm lost in the terminology here! Either you can, or you can not access the drive--which is it? And, I don't know what *list of mounted disks* is in reference to--DOS Ghost has *source* HDDs and *destination* HDDs--there are no mention of *mounted disks* in the DOS Ghost interface--what are you referencing?

This is what I meant when I said it's difficult to concisely explain some things in words, especially when you're doing it from memory. You're correct, the term "mounted disk" is something I came up with to try to describe what was occurring. I apologize if it caused some confusion. I just booted up my system with my Ghost boot CD and wrote down the exact descriptive terminology used by Ghost and the DOS drivers utilized. What I meant by "not showing up in the list of mounted disks" after booting up with ASPIDISK.SYS is that the WD Passport 1 TB USB HDD is *NOT* listed in the dialog window with the title "Select local source drive by clicking on the drive number" that appears after you start to create an image or want to run an integrity check on a disk.

Quote:
It does show as a destination drive in the File Explorer window so I can save images of other drives to it

8. I don't recognize that term *File Explorer window*. Are we talking about DOS Ghost?

Again, my apologies for any confusion. What I meant is the File Explorer dialog window that appears for you to select the destination location to save an image file you're creating of another disk or partition (via the previously described "Select local source drive by clicking on the drive number" dialog window). The WD Passport 1 TB USB HDD *DOES* show up as a disk drive in the top pulldown menu of the File Explorer dialog window after it's mounted with ASPIDISK.SYS. I hope this clears things up.

Quote:
Didn't you already create the image of the external HDD--where did you store it? If your external HDD shows up as a *destination* HDD, and you are able to select the *source* HDD that has that image, then you should be able to restore the image from the *source* HDD to the *destination* HDD!

As I already mentioned in a reply to Dan Goodell, I stored the disk image in a separate internal PATA HDD. I cannot restore this image to my WD Passport 1 TB USB HDD because it also does not show in the "Select local destination drive by clicking on the drive number" dialog window after it's mounted with ASPIDISK.SYS, leading to my previous comment about "being screwed". Smiley

Dan Goodell wrote on Aug 4th, 2011 at 11:10pm:
Quote:
I think you missed my point. I think you're saying it identified it as SCSI, while I'm saying maybe it merely identified it as non-IDE.

Your assumption:
     [Driver] "Hey HDD, are you IDE?"
     [HDD] "No."
     [Driver] "Are you SCSI?"
     [HDD] "Yes."
     [Driver] "Okay, I'll tell the user you're SCSI."

My suggestion:
     [Driver] "Hey HDD, are you IDE?"
     [HDD] "No."
     [Driver] "Okay, I'll tell the user you're SCSI."

I see what you're saying. I didn't make that assumption (or any assumption at all), actually. I merely observed some status message quickly flashing by during bootup alluding to the disk being SCSI. I just paused then logged the exact status messages reported by ASPIDISK.SYS for the record. Again, I have no idea what ASPIDISK.SYS is actually doing.

Quote:
ASPI Disk Driver for DOS
Version 4.01b

1 SCSI disk drive(s) handled by ASPIDISK
1 logical drive(s) installed
ASPIDISK.SYS Installation Successful
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #25 - Aug 8th, 2011 at 11:25am
 
This is the verbatim divide overflow error message that occurs immediately after loading GHOST.EXE with the 1 TB USB HDD mounted via the Panasonic DOS USB driver and DI1000DD.SYS:

Quote:
Your program caused a divide overflow error.
If the problem persists, contact your program vendor.

I strongly suspect it's caused more by the DI1000DD.SYS ASPI mass storage device driver and/or its interaction with Ghost 2003 rather than the main program executable GHOST.EXE itself. I get a similar divide overflow error using NJ32DISK.SYS in place of DI1000DD.SYS. I'm sure that GHOST.EXE also has a maximum HDD capacity limit but I'm not able to test that as I do not have the capability of connecting a 1+ TB HDD directly to a SATA controller.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #26 - Aug 10th, 2011 at 10:18am
 
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Prozactive

Hang in there, I've not quite got my act together just yet on this topic--I'll be reporting my results soon.

 

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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #27 - Aug 12th, 2011 at 10:50am
 
@NightOwl:
No problem. I fully understand how much time it takes. Thanks for the reply. Dan Goodell also has not been back on the board as far as I can tell.

I also did not fully understand the long, somewhat rambling post earlier by Ghost2003-Wonder. I appreciate his contributions, especially since English is apparently not his native language, but I did not get a clear read if he was able to access his 1 TB SATA HDDs while directly connected to a SATA controller as opposed to being mounted in a USB 2.0 enclosure. That information would be valuable to know, as it's quite clear from the data presented in this (and other) threads that 1+ TB HDDs cause divide overflow errors with most DOS USB drivers.

On a somewhat different topic, I just encountered my very first integrity check failure on a Ghost image, dating back almost 10 years from my first use of Norton Ghost 6.0. It occurred after I copied image files from an internal PATA HDD to an external USB HDD. The copied image files on the external USB HDD failed an integrity check, giving the following error:

Quote:
ABORT: 15080, Corruption in image file, CRC32 error: C4B2AAF5, 907A76A

Investigation showed that the original source image files passed the integrity check, and recopying them over onto the external USB HDD corrected the problem. Apparently some sort of file corruption occurred during the copy operation, again the first time I've ever experienced this.
 
 
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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #28 - Aug 15th, 2011 at 1:15am
 
@
Dan Goodell

Quote:
I guess Prozactive has put the lie to that "least amount of effort" theory!

Well, I can't speak for Prozactive--but, I think he was doing a series of experiments and changes to his 1 TB external drive while booted to DOS--so, I don't think he was spending *extra time* booting to DOS just to make an image of that drive.

And, I have to confess that I'm doing thing just a bit different, anyway.  I have *ghost32.exe* from my Ghost 10 installation CD which gives me the option of running Ghost under Windows in a DOS command prompt window--so, I don't have to re-boot and load DOS to do Ghost imaging and restores of drives that are not my OS drive or partition.

From you reply #18:

Quote:
A quick backup of an external drive would entail plugging the drive into a running Windows computer, grabbing the boot track with Roadkil's SecEdit, and then dropping the entire contents of the external's single partition into a backup location with Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V.  Much faster than Ghost 2003, and with no reboots.  If you want compression: Ctrl-A, right-click, and "send to compressed file".  (Aside:  I grab the boot track just in case there was anything special in it, and because it's the quickest way to restore the original partition layout.)

If a restore should ever be needed, the procedure would involve plugging the external into a running Windows computer, dropping the boot track back on with SecEdit, unplugging/replugging the external to remount in Windows, quick-formatting the single NTFS partition, then restoring the contents with Ctrl-A, Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V again.

Great outline!  Another way to save the layout and data of a drive without resorting to imaging software.  I wouldn't have thought to do it that way 'til you stated this!
 

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Re: Ghost 2003 and 1+TB hard drives
Reply #29 - Aug 15th, 2011 at 1:27am
 
@
Prozactive

Quote:
That's certainly an excellent point. However, I've already spent a good bit of time and effort setting up a new directory structure with file transfers and management that I'm reluctant to lose all that work by reformatting the disk.

As mentioned above, Dan has given you a possible way to save your current drive directory structure and layout--so there is an option there to allow for easy experimenting.  If you don't understand his suggestions, let me know and we can walk through it.

In my previous reply # 17, looks like you have answered questions 1, 3, 4, 5, 7, & 8.  But, questions 2 and 6 are still hanging.  If you could tell me roughly how old your system is (brand, model if that's appropriate), and where the *ASPIDISK.SYS* driver comes from, that would be helpful.  I think you will understand why I ask those questions when I start reporting my testing results--probably in a day or two.

 

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