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Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong? (Read 16447 times)
voximan
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Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Oct 4th, 2010 at 9:18am
 
Today, I tried making some fresh Bootdisks; it's been several years during which I've used the one bootdisk, so in the interests of data integrity, I thought it best to make at least one new one. The bootdisk in this case is a brand new floppy-disc and the version of Ghost I have on the hard disc is v.793. This is the so-called Standard Bootdisk, incidentally.

Having chosen what I thought were the correct options and having let Ghost write the appropriate files to the new floppy, I compared the files on the new one with those on the old one - and they weren't the same! I repeated the exercise, choosing a slightly different option but it made no difference.

I remember that, way back, I had this problem once before. The old floppy definitely works. The difference between the two is that the new floppy has the following two files missing:

mouse.ini
guest.exe

I've configured the OS to show the hidden system files.

Can anyone suggest where I'm going wrong?
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #1 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 9:54am
 
@
voximan

Quote:
The difference between the two is that the new floppy has the following two files missing:

mouse.ini
guest.exe


Quote:
Can anyone suggest where I'm going wrong?

Hopefully *yes*!

*mouse.ini* will be created and saved to the floppy disk by the *mouse.com*--or is *mouse.exe* when you first use the disk to boot!  (Not all DOS mouse drivers create the *.ini* file, but the one included with Ghost 2003 does!). 

You can copy that file from you old floppy to the new if you want to manually add it.  Or, that *.ini* file can be opened with NotePad to see what's inside--you can use NotePad to make a similar file, and save it as *mouse.ini* to the new boot disk--and that will work too!  The reason I mention that--if you use that floppy disk (without the *mouse.ini* file before actually booting from it and it does not have that file) to create a bootable optical disc--the boot from the optical disc will fail because *mouse.com* will not be able to write the *mouse.ini* file to the optical disc and the *virtual floppy drive* that is used when booting a bootable optical disc.

*guest.exe* is added to the boot disk if you elect to add USB support (and possibly the Firewire support too!).  That program is responsible for assigning a drive letter to a USB device if it has been mounted by one of the USB drivers.  Not using USB with Ghost--then the file is not needed!
 

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voximan
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #2 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 10:55am
 
Oh, of course, I remember now. Yes, one or more extra files get written to the floppy the first time you boot into PC-DOS with it. It was such a long time ago that I last did this that I'd totally forgotten about that.

I've just tried it all again, opting for USB 2.0 support on external storage media. As a destination drive, that's a USB ext HDD in my case. And I didn't assign driveletters. However, I've found that although mouse.ini has now been written to the floppy, guest.exe hasn't. I've done a search on my computer for that file and it's apparently not on the hard disk anywhere.

My old Bootdisk, which has guest.exe on it and which definitely works for all my needs, was created some years ago on a different incarnation of my WinXP.

So, can you suggest what's still wrong?

I've tested the new Bootdisk by running Ghost PC-DOS and seeing whether it recognises my drives, including the external one, and it does. But that might not be definitive, if you see what I mean.

Could it be that guest.exe doesn't appear because I've selected the wrong type of USB support - perhaps USB2.0 when it should have been 1.1? The Ghost instructions say not to select 2.0 if not all devices are 2.0-compliant. Well, my ext devices these days are, but there are some USB ports on my motherboard that are 1.1.
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #3 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 12:31pm
 
You were right on the button, Nightowl. I repeated the exercise, selecting OHCI driver, USB2.0 support, and for driveletters of ext USB devices to be assigned. I then carefully made sure the floppy was still in write mode when I booted to it and ensured also that my USB ext drive was on. It then produced a set of files on the floppy that appeared to be identical to my old set. Great.

The odd thing is, though, that as PC-DOS boots, the dialog says "Finding a driveletter for your Iomega drive ....", then ...... "No driveletters were added".  So, it doesn't seem to add driveletters anyway.

I take it that "Iomega drive" is just a generic name that Ghost uses?

Anyway, I do vaguely recall that, when making the old Bootdisk way back, something similar happened. That is, Ghost never appeared to assign driveletters even though I'd tried that setting. Still, it doesn't seem to matter, as I 've always been able to image and restore using my old Bootdisk and I presume I'll be able to do the same with these new bootdisks.

I see that in the Options, you can select to add support for two different sorts of drivers (I chose OHCI) or All Drivers. I'm now wondering whether All Drivers might be the safer choice. What d'ya reckon?
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #4 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 1:29pm
 
Voximan, not being critical or anything like that, but my curiosity is killing me.....  If your old floppy disk still worked, why didn't you just do a Disk Copy in windows and make yourself a new copy of your disk?  Heck, just make two or three and squirrel them away someplace for safe keeping.

I have copies of my own Ghost disks, all over the house, everyplace that I run a computer.

Just curious.
 

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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #5 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 3:22pm
 
Quote:
"No driveletters were added"

Isn't that down to the fact that no FAT partition was present, only NTFS partitions which never gets a drive letter assigned.
 

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #6 - Oct 4th, 2010 at 4:57pm
 
@
voximan

Have you considered converting your good Ghost floppy into a Ghost CD or USB flash drive? They certainly boot faster than a floppy.
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #7 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 3:42am
 
OldCasper,

Have you actually tried any of the floppies/discs you made using Disc Copy? I did try that a day or two ago but the copy it made wasn't bootable. The boot sequence simply stopped as soon as the floppy was detected and a DOS message told me to remove the disc and 'press any key to continue' (which meant 'boot back to Windows').

If you reckon that Disc Copy does work for copying discs of this kind, then I will be most intrigued to learn from you exactly how you did it.

(I presume you're referring to the Disc Copy function in Windows and not to some other third-party Disc Copy utility?).
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #8 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 3:48am
 
Brian,

Yes, I've certainly contemplated making a bootable USB flash drive and I had a brief look at the procedure involved for that, posted by a forum contributor, but it seemed to be a lot of work, so I resorted in the end to using floppies again. Perhaps I'll revisit the idea later, though.
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #9 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 3:50am
 
Christer,

Re 'no driveletters' and NTFS, I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know.
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #10 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 8:26am
 
Quote:
I did try that a day or two ago but the copy it made wasn't bootable.

Strange, did you open Windows Explorer > right-click on the floppydrive > choose "copy disk" (or whichever the terminology is in english)?

Quote:
Re 'no driveletters' and NTFS, I didn't know that. Thanks for letting me know.

NTFS partitions get "numbered" X:Y, e.g. 1:1, 1:2, 2:1 and 2:2 where X denotes the hard disk and Y denotes the partition on the hard disk.
 

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #11 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 8:35am
 
Yes, Christer, I did. Using Copy Disk, I copied the files to a new folder I made, then wrote them to a new FD. It didn't subsequently boot into PC-DOS, presumably because the files didn't include those necessary to make it bootable.

Re what you've stated about the NTFS partition numbering in PC-DOS, yes I've noticed that. You don't see that numbering until you're well into Ghost PC-DOS.
 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #12 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 8:44am
 
Quote:
Yes, Christer, I did. Using Copy Disk, I copied the files to a new folder I made, then wrote them to a new FD. It didn't subsequently boot into PC-DOS, presumably because the files didn't include those necessary to make it bootable.

When I do that on my computer, I get prompted for a source disk and subsequently a target disk. Nothing is copied to any folder anywhere. The source disk must be written to the target disk.
 

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #13 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 1:31pm
 
voximan wrote on Oct 5th, 2010 at 3:48am:
but it seemed to be a lot of work,


Voximan,

It shouldn't take long at all. Make an ISO from your floppy and put the ISO on a grub4DOS USB flash drive.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1283214065/0

To make an ISO and CD from your floppy, download...

IMGFLPYD
MKBISO
BurnCDCC

from http://www.terabyteunlimited.com/downloads-free-software.htm#mkbiso

Use this batch file...

Code:
REM utility to automate boot cd creation called BOOTCD
echo.
@ECHO OFF
COLOR 0A
CLS
echo STARTING BOOTCD
echo.
echo insert BOOTABLE floppy disc with all desired files
echo.
echo also insert CD disc
echo.
pause
if exist cd.iso (DEL cd.iso)
if exist floppy.IMG (DEL floppy.IMG)
set img=floppy.IMG
set iso=cd.ISO
IMGFLPYD.EXE A: %img%
MKBISO.EXE %iso% %img%
BURNCDCC.EXE /O /F /V /S=8 /i=%iso%
EXIT


Put the 3 downloaded files and the batch file in the same folder. Double click the batch file.

 
 
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Re: Making new Bootdisk: what am I doing wrong?
Reply #14 - Oct 5th, 2010 at 4:16pm
 
voximan,
in one of our threads, you said that you were going to create one Ghost 2003 floppy without the switch "-fdsp" for XP and another with the switch for W7.

I'm testing my new build: I installed XP and created images. Next, I installed W7 and created images. All images were created from a Standard Ghost 2003 floppy with the "-fdsp" switch which was also used to restore the images.

I have restored XP and W7 several times, one after the other and the system boots right up. Note that the images have been restored to the original partition on the original hard disk.

XP didn't mind the new disk signature, created by the installation of W7.

I don't know what would happen if W7 were installed prior to XP, the installation of XP changing the disk signature for W7. That install order is not likely to happen, not on my computer at least, since the reason for installing XP prior to W7 is to get the hard disk partitioned and formated, enabling Ghost 2003 to work with a subsequent installation of W7.
 

Old chinese proverb:
If I hear - I forget, If I see - I remember, If I do - I understand
 
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