Clone disk with Norton Ghost 9

isuzu · Joined: Apr 16, 2007 Posts: 3

I'm trying to clone my laptops drive to a larger drive connected via USB. Using the "Copy drive" option in Ghost 9.0. Everything seems to be ok on the new drive until I'm trying to log in. The message "Loading personal settings" comes up directly followed by "Logging out" and I'm logged out. Can not log in on any account or in fail safe mode. The OS on my laptop is XP professional, SP2, fully updated.
Anyone have a clue?

User: inactive Posts:

Why are you trying to clone your main HD to a USB drive?

If your main drive crashed, that clone would not do you any good at all unless you can tell your BIOS you want to boot off of a USB drive. Can you do that?

I've heard many people say they don't like Ghost 9, for one reason or another. It seems to be just one more program that Symantec bought and screwed up.

I use Ghost 2003, booting up the PC from either a boot floppy or boot CD.
I also have the same Ghost setup on a Flash Drive. I can make both of my main PC's boot from the flash drive.

You'd be better off to have a restore-able Image file, of your C: drive stored on that external drive, in case of a HD crash.

I have current images of my C: drive on a second partition, a second HD and on DVD's.

Doing a restore from a HD image, takes only six minutes.

Can you give any more info as to what you're doing and wanting to accomplish.

Shadow Cool

isuzu · Joined: Apr 16, 2007 Posts: 3

Hello Shadow.

Thank you for the reply.
The reason for cloning the disk is that I want to change my main disk to a larger. I clone my main to the larger disk via USB then replace my main with the clone. Thats when I get the problem with the log in.
I can not log in with any account or in fail safe mode when the clone is in my lap top.

/isuzu

User: inactive Posts:

OK.....gotcha!

I had a similar problem. The clone would boot to a little Windows icon and just sit there.....like forever!

Something was not getting copied in the clone.
I got around that by using "Acronis TI 9" to do the clone. Then Ghost 2003 worked fine for daily backups and restores.

Something in the older Ghost.exe file just was missing something in the boot sector, I theorize. Well, anyway, that was my fix.

Shadow Cool

isuzu · Joined: Apr 16, 2007 Posts: 3

Hello again Shadow.

Thanks for the encouraging words Smile

I also looked at Acronis and it seems that will be the next step.

Signing off

/isuzu

User: inactive Posts:

If I'm going to err, I always want to err or the side of caution.

To migrate to a new HD, I want to set up the new HD first and format it to assure its reliability. SO.......

I first install the new drive in the PC where it will be used.
Then, I boot up with my Windows ME boot/utilities disk and FDISK and then format the new HD into two partitions.
The formatting process certifies every sector of the new drive and blocks out any sectors not formattable.

Then I make a Ghost Image of the old C: drive and save it to partition #2 of the new drive.
Then, for safety, I remove the old drive, and restore the image from part.#2 to part.#1 of the new drive. If everything went OK, then the new disk is bootable and I've got a ghost image on the drive if needed.
[while using FDISK, don't forget to set the #1 partition to ACTIVE, or the HD will never boot]

Finally, when I've got the new HD all set up the way I want it to run, I make one more Ghost image and burn it to a DVD. Now I've got a Restore DVD to use to put the computer back to day ONE.

It don't get no better'n that.

Cheers!
The Shadow Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

I have Ghost 2002 - I am trying to set up a method to Ghost (as an image) all my machines to an external USB drive. None of my computers boots from USB & are a mix of 98, XP & fedora core 5 (Linux) - I got as far as getting the drive recognized when plugged in but I could not access it. Used both of the "DOS" driver that I heard of. Any help will be appreciated.

Thanks

BTW: IF there is a newer version of Ghost (or equivalent) that will do exactly this, please let me know that too.

greyknight17 · Joined: Feb 03, 2003 Posts: 5058 Location: Brooklyn, NY

Baby_Tux, does Ghost 2002 have the option to create USB 1.1 drivers for a floppy diskette? If so, try that out if you haven't done so already. We were using a USB 2.0 external CD burner to burn an image from a laptop and couldn't figure out why it didn't work. It needed the USB 1.1 drivers (not sure why USB 2.0 won't work since it was a USB 2.0 external drive). So that may do the trick in your case.

I have Ghost 2003 and that one does the trick. It's probably/is the best Ghost versions of the bunch (better than the newer ones Wink

).

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

It DOES have USB support - not sure if 1.1 but I think I DID try it. Will check it out again & see. Thanks

Also, Can one still get a copy of 2003?

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2422

I managed to get a Ghost of a notebook computer running 98SE by using a boot floppy with a universal USB driver and not the driver that Ghost supplies.
But if your OS is not 98SE, I'm almost positive the floppy I have would be useless to you.
I'll see if I can find the information for the driver.

On another computer, I used Acronis True Image to clone a 2K computer by burning to a USB external burner. I'm almost positive that I could have substituted a USB external hd instead of the burner and Acronis would work the same way.

Having used both Ghost and Acronis True Image, I have to say that True Image is a lot easier. If you can't purchase Ghost 2003, why not look at True Image?

User: inactive Posts:

Of course you can....... Wink

(just ask, don't tell)

If you have one of the newest mobo's you probably would not need any special drivers to access a USB drive. The mobo will report the USB drive to any OS or software like Ghost, just like it was an internal drive.

I also use my wireless USB mouse with Ghost 2003, again, with no USB drivers installed. It's all in the mobo.

I have one PC with a brand new MSI mobo and it reports the USB hard drive from the Bios to the OS,,,,,in this case Ghost 2003. So I make Ghost backups to my external USB drive(s) with no problems and no special drivers installed.
Likewise my two year old 'Asrock" mobo.

On my Ghost boot disks, I load only Universal CD rom drivers, so if I want to, I can access a CD rom disk while in DOS.
So far, I've not needed to do this.....but who knows when I might. Idea

And, so far I've had no need to load any USB drivers. Confused

Cheers Mates!
Shadow Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

The USB is for "networking" so no good for what I want.

To the others:
My systems are 5 years plus so NO built in stuff. - I tried the two drivers recommended elsewhere on here (I think) but like I said, all I could get it to do was recognize the presence of the drive - NO ACCESS...

Any ideas???

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Got "playing" & found that I CAN'T ghost to any partitions to create an image (can't see partitions) - they range from 9G to 32G & are fat32 at most. - Still wonder what gives on this...???

I am beginning to think that "Norton", "gave up the ghost" as I used to use Ghost with NO PROBLEMS at all. but now?

BTW: Looked at the ads for Acronis, thinking of giving it a try...

goretsky

Hello,

Have you tried performing a repair installation of Microsoft Windows against the new larger hard disk drive in the notebook computer? If so, did that resolve the problem?

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

User: inactive Posts:

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

---To Shadow (& all others who replied), "Thanks"---
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
As far as ghost, I now have 2002 & 2003 - I only run these in DOS

The partitions show up on 2003, but for some strange reason they don't on the 2002. They USED to as I used this before.

Since I now have 2003, most of my problem is licked as I created a partition & ghosted to it. When I have more time I will try the other options. - Considering I am a big fan of Linux, & Acronis' stand alone part is based on it, I may very well go that route. But I DO have some other DOS options I can try first.

User: inactive Posts:

I'm currently playing around with Ghost 8.3, build 1331.
It's too big to put on a DOS bootable floppy, so I run it from my 64meg Flash Drive or a bootable Cd.

It looks just like older version and runs the same but seems to have greatly increased capability.

My needs are very simple, so I don't know just what all it can do.

It's floating around the internet, so anyone who wants it, should be able to find and download it.

It's just one more thing I found on Radified Forums.

Cool

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

Tried the Acronis - took it back. Hooks to the computer to much for my liking. Back to finding a DOS driver that will work. - Thanks to all anyway...

Error: image could not be loaded. Image is not available from server

Image URL: http://freeweb.supereva.com/esorciccio2002/smilies/censored.gif
<<< ME, ON THIS PROJECT <<<

zlim · Joined: Mar 11, 2005 Posts: 2422

usb-dos driver
read this thread
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=general;action=display...m=10954

I was able to ghost a 98SE notebook without a burner using this method and attaching an external burner to the USB port.

is224sac · Joined: Feb 08, 2003 Posts: 41

If you do try Acronis 9/10, look to this site: http://www.ugr.com/store.html, A lot of good tutorials for 9 and $33.00 for the program.

Baby_Tux · Joined: Mar 06, 2007 Posts: 808

This will probably be my final post on the USB dos project because after doing some research & experimenting, I came to the conclusion that I don't have a computer with the necessary chip set to support running the dos drivers.

Bummer, so I created a partition on each machine & ghost to that. Then copy to the external HD. I leave a copy on the partition so I won't have to wait for it to copy before I can fix anything. PITA but it will work... better than loosing anything!