First, apologies to Old Casper and other contributors to some of my threads posted here several months ago. I'm afraid I've been very busy with lots of other PC-related work in the meantime, so have been unable to respond to one or two tail-end comments from then.

I recall that my last topic concerned the prospect of me building a new PC for myself, to replace the 10-yr old one I'd had and on which the Ghost 2003 app was installed and on which I'd regularly run PC-DOS over some years. There was an issue about whether on the new machine I could use my existing PC-DOS version of G2003, ie the existing Bootdisk, and whether I'd need to re-install the app itself on to the new machine. I was assured by several G2003 experts in these forums that I wouldn't need to do a re-install of the app (saving HDD space) and all I needed was the copy of the Bootdisk I'd made on the old machine.

The version I'd been running on the old PC was Build 793, which I'd updated a long time ago from Build 775. I vaguely remember I'd had to get the update from a 'legacy' server of Symantec and it had been quite tricky to do, as the exact procedure hadn't been clear.

Of course, what I was advised wasn't exactly true, as I've now discovered. A Bootdisk made on the original machine will only work on a new one if the hardware is pretty much unchanged. In my case, the changes are quite profound and so it's, I suppose, no surprise that I now can't get PC-DOS to work, and so can't make any partition backups. I guess I've been naive.

At the very least, my mouse arrangement is now quite different. On the old machine, it connected via PS2, but now on the new machine it's USB-connected (though still wired). The keyboard remains PS2. So, when I booted with the Bootdisk on the new machine into PC-DOS, it wasn't able to find the mouse driver - presumably, because it wants to load a PS2 driver but the mouse is now connected via USB. You can, of course, proceed and navigate with the keyboard keys but you can't then select from partitions on a drive.

Before leaving the old machine, I made several new Bootdisks - versions with and without the -fdsp switch for Win7, and versions with all drivers. I've tried most of these on the new machine, but PC-DOS so far cannot find a mouse driver. And yes, I've remembered to run the floppy with the write function enabled.

The new machine is still WinXP platform. SP3 is installed but I've lots of other apps and utilities to install yet, before the new machine's completed. I'd hoped to make partition images (of just C:, into a different partition on that same physical drive) along the way but, annoyingly, I can't do that now.

I'm wondering what's best to do. For now, I've temporarly reverted to my old machine, so as to communicate with this forum and get some advice. Obviously, I've not wiped its HDD yet, and won't do until everything on the new machine's 100% working. Perhaps, after all, I'll have to install the G2003 app on the new machine and make a completely new Bootdisk for it, assuming that I'll still be able to get the update for Build 793. Anyone know if 793 is still available from that legacy server? Otherwise, it looks like I'm sunk. Ghost 2003 is, I'm pretty sure, the only backup facility of its kind that can handle individual partitions.

I've now wondered whether, if I were to make a fresh Bootdisk on the old machine but with the mouse connected not via PS2 but via a USB port instead (the mouse is basically USB but comes with a USB-to-PS2 adaptor), the Bootdisk would then subsequently work on the new machine. Am I being too fanciful? Would I screw up Windows and the normal PS2 mouse functioning on the old machine by so doing? Would the other differences in hardware between old and new machine still prevent PC-DOS from working? (different mobo, different HDD, different optical drives).

NightOwl,

Thanks for your comments.

This is a machine I've built from scratch. It's based around an Intel i5 CPU. I've reused the OS I was formerly using, WinXP. The new mobo is a Gigabyte P55-US3L, which I chose very carefully so as to still be compatible with some of my existing peripherals and input devices but which would now give me a faster machine, once equipped with the better CPU and faster RAM. I deliberately chose the mobo to have one PS2 (for the keyboard) and a good number of USB ports (one of which I'd use for the mouse). I also deliberately chose this series board because it had an interface for a floppy drive, as I still wanted to use G2003 on the new PC. I had to make quite an effort to obtain a FDD of the same colouration as the housing of the new PC, as they're virtually extinct these days. An alternative would have been to have used a USB pendrive instead. I use a single HDD of the SATA type, which I've split into four partitions in exactly the same way that I had with my old PC.

Yes, your second statement confirms what I discovered when I tried to use the Bootdisk I'd made on the old PC, namely that you can use those keys you've mentioned to navigate and make selections. However, when I selected the source partition from the list of partitions, I was then unable to move to the next step; none of the keys allowed me to highlight OK and then to press Enter. So, all I could then do was abort. As a longterm method for making and restoring images, I don't see the absence of a mouse in the procedure as particularly viable, anyway.

So, to answer your question, No, this doesn't solve my issue. And I've no idea why the mouse driver doesn't load, on the new PC. I suppose it's conceivable that the new FDD is faulty, but I've no means of testing the FDD.

I've yet to begin to download and install a big backlog of WinXP updates. Some of them will include bug fixes, so again one cannot rule out something like that, I suppose, as a possible reason.

My stuff's not that old, Casper! Yup, there's a serial port, but I've never had any intention of using that for a mouse! It's reserved for a connection to a UPS.

In the meantime, I've run some simple write/read tests on the FDD and, as far as I can see, the FDD is working perfectly well.

When the floppy program boots to PC-DOS, it says "Searching for mouse driver - no mouse found". But the program then continues to boot, so obviously then the only way I'm able to use it is via keyboard keys. Yes, I get as far as picking the source partition but am not allowed to proceed any further than that. The program doesn't freeze, as such. I can toggle between OK and Cancel buttons in that stage but unfortunately I can't highlight and therefore select OK. The OK gets greyed out. So, it's simply impossible to go any further.

I think the problem must lie with how Ghost reads the mouse driver and since the mouse is connected via a USB port on the PC which has a weird "Intel 5 /3400 Series chipset family Enhanced Host Controller" behind it, rather than the usual Microsoft enhanced USB controller, I don't find it surprising that it fails. As far as I can tell, though, the USB ports on the PC all work okay for USB-connected devices. I suppose what I'm saying is that there seems to be some sort of incompatibilty between Ghost and the particular USB drivers on this new machine.

I strongly suspect that the only chance I'll stand of getting the mouse recognised by Ghost is to install the G2003 app on this new PC and make a brand new Bootdisk. Even then, Ghost might not play ball.

Could it be that Ghost is sensitive to the type of USB port, ie. universal controller as distinct from enhanced controller? Will Windows crasjh or get screwed up if I tried the mouse in a different USB port?

I think I'm right in saying that USB 2.0 drivers were first produced by Microsoft and mobo manufacturers in 2001/2, but the Intel-type USB drivers now used on my new PC, and probably yours too, were devised in 2009 and 2001. Have a look at the properties of your USB controllers and root hubs in Device Manager.

Sorry I called you Casper. For some odd reason, probably tiredness, I had the name Casper in my mind. Sorry about that, NightOwl.

Well, I concede that I might still be doing something wrong when using the keyboard to navigate through the Ghost selections but I do assure you that I've done all that you've now described most fully and it still won't allow me to go any further. With Ghost on my old machine, I've used Ghost quite a lot hitherto and am very aware of the attention needed when selecting drives and partitions.

I've run my floppies yet again this morning, trying out Ghost with Legacy USB turned off in the System BIOS, just to see if that made any difference, but it didn't. I also connected my external USB HDD for the first time on this new machine. (Bear in mind that I'm in the middle of installing and configuring a great mass of software on this new PC and that that ext drive is a physical transfer from the old setup). Windows installed the ext HDD without problem but, again, when I run Ghost, Ghost sees the ext HDD and its partitions, allows me to highlight a partition, but doesn't then allow me to select it (ie. press OK/Enter), to move on to the next stage.

So, the answer to your last question is Yes, I can get to a situation where the OK button isn't greyed out and I've highlighted the required partition, but the Cancel button is also not greyed out. That's to say, I've yet to get it so that the OK button is highlighted in white. If I press Enter with the OK button not greyed out, nothing happens. Thus, all I can do is abort.

It would be nice to discover I'm simply missing a trick here, but I'm blowed if I can fathom what, if anything, I'm doing wrong. I've tried all permutations.

Afterthought: Earlier, you mentioned using the Tab key. I've not used that key at all. To get into the 'Partition to Image' menu, all I need do is navigate and select with the arrow keys. Is preceding all this with the Tab key essential? Is that where I'm going wrong?

Success! Between my last reply and your last one, I had a play with the Tab key and the 'mask fell from my eyes'. Yup, I'm indeed back in business (sans mouse), thanks to you. That Tab was absolutely key. (Sorry for the awful pun).

It was then a doddle to select the various buttons, etc. I've now made my first partition image, on this new machine. And, contrary to what I thought, it's not so bad navigating and selecting with the keyboard rather than the mouse. You quickly get used to the keyboard method.

Had you not briefly mentioned the Tab key earlier, I'd have probably never uncovered the reason for my problem. I had no idea that the Tab key had to be used. When you've used Ghost with mouse support for so many years and then you flounder without it, you're hardly likely to guess that the Tab key has to be used. So, that was why I was being held back.

Taking a more reflective view now, NightOwl, have you any theory as to why you and I cannot get the mouse driver to load in PC-DOS? The common factor seems to be that we're using Gigabyte mobos with Intel chipset that includes P55. Actually, in my case, it turns out to be an H55 chip, and it's that chip into which all USB ports are directly interfaced. With that chip, the driver for the Enhanced USB Controller is no longer the more usual one produced by Microsoft in 2001, it's instead a newly-written one by Intel, for this chip.