Disk cloning problem with Symantic Ghost

I have cloned three partitions of disk A to disk B using Norton Ghost. My version is a part of Norton Utilities for Year 2003. Disk A contains a Windows 2000 Pro os. This is a back up. and the cloning process seems ok, by eyeball. When I boot from the cloned disk it states the virtual page size is zero or missing and requests the operator to go to MY COMPUTER to reset the virtual page size. Trouble is, the OS locks u out. On rebooting OS goes straight to this diagnostic and if u persist loops between the message and a reboot. Does anyone know a way around this. And why the hell should a clone behave this way???????????

 

Were these hard drives the same size? with the same size partitions? If not, the cluster sizes are not right. Or to put it another way, a partition has a certain cluster size, when you clone it takes the cluster size of the source and imposes it on the destination, regardless if it is the right one, problems result.

 

What you don't have is a clone. You have an image copy. One in which Ghost may have avoided or mangled the page file. If you want a clone using Ghost 2003, look into forensic cloning (sector-by-sector copy) and the -ID and -IR switches. This won't work for a partition image copy. If you decide to make a clone copy, you may find this easiest when using a target drive that has the same or similar drive geometry as the original.

The -ID and -IR switches appear to get around the disk signature GUID. There are a few things to keep in mind when cloning system/boot drives. The appropriate cloned partition may not have the "active" flag set. You can use GDISK with its switches to get around that easy enough.

I have no trouble with partition image files made of data drives and no trouble with any partition from W9X. With WNT/2K/XP, system/boot drives seem to behave best when using the switches above and doing a disk-to-disk clone.

For backup, you can boot from DOS and use removable drives in the backup bay. It would be useful if the jumper settings on the IDE drive for master/single and master/slave were the same position, so that you can just add a slave at backup time. SCSI might be a little more difficult.

When you get done cloning the disk and log into the "new" system (cloned system on new drive), you are likely to get this message:

Shutdown the system, power down, power up, reboot and that message goes away.

If the computer is a member of a domain, it may need to rejoin the domain when using the image.

I have a friend who says he has successfully cloned Windows 2000 pro system/boot drive to an image file and restored. When he restores he always has problems with network configuration and always has to rejoin the domain. If he's using any special switches like /NTIL, he didn't mention and I don't think he is, but he's also using an older version of Ghost (maybe prior to 6.0 but assuredly before 2003...).

* fixed links *

 

Hmmm. I wonder if deleting the page file when you shutdown would help...

Start regedit.

Drill down to

H_KEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CURRENTCONTROLSET\CONTROL\SESSIONMANAGER\MEMORYMANAGEMENT.

Set the key ClearPageFileAtShutdown to 1 to enable.

Close regedit and reboot your computer to take effect.

The usual caveats for mucking up the registry apply.

 

Thanks to markp62 & bitbyter for assistance, all of which was helpful. I was "cloning" two partitions of an 80GB drive to a 60GB drive. When I changed 20GB of the 80GB drive to free space, so that Ghost executed a 60GB to 60GB (cloned) copy, it all worked O.K.

 

Glad to hear you solved it. ...and thanks for letting us know how it turned out. So many people don't tell how the story ended.

Hmmm. I've done same size to same size and smaller to larger -- never the other way. I'll have to try to remember this by hour two or so of futzing if I ever do that.