need Norton Ghost Customized

Short Story:

I have a laptop, 60 GB drive WAS partitioned as such:
c: xppro 20 GB
d: files 30 GB
e: restore remainder GB (holds ghost images)
f: dvdrw/cdrw combo

I use Ghost 2003. I had to send the laptop out for service. Prior to shipping it out I backed up everything. They replaced the motherboard (same model), onboard wireless (same model) and dvdrw drive (different model).

The jerks wiped all my partitions and installed the factory install of xp. I repartitioned and was ready to restore things back to the way they were. As a result of the dvd drive changing, I cannot restore my c partition using the bootable ghost dvd I had made prior to getting service. (ghost can read the drive but won't use the gho file and restore)

How can I make a bootable ghost dvd that will recognize the new dvd drive?

Or, how can I get a copy of the .GHO file onto another partition? This would solve the "ghost not using dvd image issue) Presently, I have a 20 GB ntfs partition and a temp 2 GB fat32 partition that could hold the GHO image. What the command to copy using dos? (I forgot it)

I can make a custom bootable win98 dvd with the GHO file and copy the GHO to the fat32 partition. But I forget how to do this.

Ideally, I'd like to be able to make a ghost boot dvd that will recognize and utilize any cd or dvd drive.

 

I already have half a dozen different bootable cd's w/ghost on it. The problem is that when you make a bootable ghost cd, it will not be able to use gho images on other cds UNLESS the same burner was used to make the ghost boot cd.

When making a bootable ghost cd ghost does not put all cd drivers on it, it only puts the driver for the cd drive on the current system.

 

Tony,
do a search at the RADIFIED Forums. There are a few threads on the subject and also a fix (I think). I don't burn to CD/DVD myself so I haven't followed those threads in detail.

Christer

 

I'll try the Radified forums, thanks.
Anyway, I just ended up throwing on a spare xp and redoing everything all over again.

It would be easy to do that IF my laptop had a floppy. That's the bug here. So I must boot using a customized win98 startup-disk cdrom I made, that also contains other utilities such as ghost. Sparrow, my drive was wiped by the manufacturer tech, that's why I wanted to get the gho file onto a partition I created so I could then boot using a cd w/ ghost on it.

I think the easier task will be finding a usb floppy drive that I can boot from for future needs. At least I could then create a bootable restore dvd using ghost and it will be able to grab the bootable files from the floppy.

 

sparrow,

Interesting, faster in what way? Faster to load or faster to run the tasks?

I've never heard of a "win98 boot CD ", how do you create it? Can utilities be added as and when they are needed?

Christer

 

Hi sparrow!

I actually tried to create a bootable CD using a Win98SE start disk and Nero. It worked and booted but still warned about "no DOS partitions ". I thought that you had found a way to get rid of that and to make it finish the boot process at "its own prompt ".

I'm sure that someone more "DOS minded" than me could edit some of the files ...... ...... !

Christer

 

You may have missed some points in my earlier posts.
1. I have no issues using ghost IF xp (ntfs) is already installed, I just boot using a custom boot cd and run ghost & save the image to another ntfs partition.

2. my original issue was that my existing install & partitions were wiped by the manufacture technician, thus I had to somehow restore an image that I'd backed up onto a cdr. Having no floppy in the laptop means I have to boot using a cd.

3. What I did first was boot w/ a "live xp" cd & create an ntfs partition for the xp install (unformatted) and then created a fat 32 extended partition w/ logical. Next I booted using a custom win98 dvd that also contained a copy of the gho image I wanted to restore. In dos, I tried to copy the gho image to the fat32 partition but was unsuccessful for various reasons.

4. Next, I tried booting w/ a ghost dvd (contains ghost and my gho image), which I'd made on a different comp. The problem w/ this method is that when ghost makes a bootable cd or bootable dvd w/ an image, it will only add the drivers for the cd-dvd drive that is being used at the time, and as a result the disk can only be used on the comp that was used to create the disk. (this is no problem for a desktop cause one can always swap out burners to use the restore cd-dvd) but no swapping these on a laptop.

5. I ended up just installing xp from the xp cd. (the usual 5 hrs of install, tweaking and adding all my 3rd party apps)

6. Now I am working on creating bootable ghost dvd's with my new images. Trouble is that without a floppy for ghost to extract the boot image & ghost.exe, I must create this all manually & customized. I really don't need such a dvd UNLESS my drives gets erroneously wiped again in the future.

 

Not any faster to run win98 from the cd vs the floppy (because it all loads into ram anyway), but way faster booting and loading it.

I have a custom bootable win98 cd that contains many specialty apps, including fprot av & avg av, as well as ghost, aida and others, all available from a menu.

Check your private messages.

 

Thanks guys ...... ...... your information and links will keep me busy for a while!

Christer

 

sparrow

Like I had said, when xp is is already on the laptop, I have no problems at all restoring gho images that are saved on a separate partition. I boot using a ghost cd and can locate the gho file on the other partition and restore it.

The laptop has no floppy, thus I must boot using a cd w/ an operating system on it, such as win98 dos or pc dos or another os that will fit on a cd or dvd.

But, if this laptop does not have xp installed, and no partitions exist just yet, then I must boot using a cd and create a partition for the xp install and a partition to hold a copied gho image. My problem is copying the gho image from a dvd onto the newly created partition. To copy I must:

1. boot using a cd w/ an os on it.
2. create partitions.
3. use dos to copy a gho image to the partition. If booting from a cd, I must boot, then yank the boot cd and put in a dvd with the gho image. If I switch disks after booting, dos does not see the new disk w/ the gho image.

The solution, it would seem, is to create a custom boot dvd that also holds my gho images.

This time around (after a new xp install) I will not have such a problem because I installed the full ghost 2003 package, and can now create dvd backups from the ghost gui (& virtual partition). Priorly, I always just used a boot cd w/ ghost to create my images.

I agree, and do as you do, I use a dvd only for emergency backup of gho images and always restore using images located on a drive partition, except I use an ntfs partition to hold my gho images because ntfs has more security features than a fat32 partition.

 

TonyT,
I only create Partition-to-Image and have thought about creating the very first Image as Disk-to-Image. The reason is that I'm not 100% sure that restoring Image-to-Partition on a new harddisk would make it boot and XP to run. I have not (yet) created any Disk-to-Image because if my hard disk goes south, I will make a "basic installation" of XP on the new hard disk and partition as I see fit. Then I will restore my Images-to-Partition of the system partition and data partition.

What do you think would happen if you do a "basic installation" and then try to restore your Image?

Christer

 

It would work I'm sure, and a very good idea, I had not considered that as an option. I just figured if I install clean, I may as well take the additional 3 hrs and manually do the rest of the tweaking, installs, etc.

fyi, I have never done a "disk to image ", I always do a "partition to image ".

 

Yeah, me too. But the particular boot disk I was using has some issues swapping out disks. Time to make a new boot disk solely for own use.