backing up to external dvd/RW drive with norton ghost 2003

Ghost 2003 is not compatible with all CD/DVD-burners. It seems to be a hit and miss situation but those CD/DVD-burners that were released after 2003 are more likely to not be compatible. There are issues with Ghost 2003 and hard disks connected via USB and I assume that the same is applicable to a CD/DVD-burner connected via USB.

I have never created an Image directly to CD/DVD but have always created the Image to a different partition/hard disk and used Nero to burn to CD/DVD. I stopped doing that a few years ago and bought a hard disk dedicated to Ghost Images instead. Much quicker and more convenient. I have a mobile rack in my computer and the second hard disk is connected to the IDE controller which eliminates any incompatibility with USB.

There is also a compatibility issue with SATA hard disks but it doesn't seem to be the problem in your case.

The first thing to do is to check which file version of Ghost.exe you have. In order to do that, open a command window and navigate to the folder where Ghost.exe is located. At the command prompt type in: ghost.exe -ver and hit enter. It should return (build=793, cdrlib=3.1.25) for the most recent version supplied via LiveUpdate while Ghost 2003 was supported. It is no longer supported and getting it updated through LiveUpdate is no longer possible.

Click the link in my signature and visit RADIFIED Forums where issues like this are discussed and more often than not, resolved.

Christer