This explains how I took back up image on a Dell GX620 System with
SATA HD drive
System Info
Dell GX620
SATA HDD 152.587 GB
C :\ NTFS 40.970 GB : Win XP Japanese OS (Pre-installed)
D :\ NTFS 111.568 GB
My intention is to take a image back up of C:\ drive and put it in D:\
drive. I will then move that image to a file server on the network
and install a fresh install of WinXP English version for
testing some software application.
I used Norton Ghost 2003 that was available in our department. But
only after using that I came to know that there seems to be no support
for SATA drives.
First I installed Norton Ghost 2003 into my Winxp system and then try
to do the image back up from Windows itself. Everything went fine and
it displayed a message saying that the system will boot into PC-DOS
mode, finish image backup and then automatically boot back into
WinXp. I just clicked OK on the dialog box wondering "how simple it is
to create an image" but only to be annoyed later.
The system booted in PC-Dos mode and the Symantec screen appeared and
then freezed. The progress bar did not move and there is no indication on
the screen except that windows sand clock at the middle of the
screen. I could not do anything but waited for 30min hoping that
something would happen since this is the first time I am doing this.
I can't wait more and so restarted the system with Ctrl + Alt + Del
Now there is a screen asking me to select where to boot. WinXp or
PC-Dos. Selecting neither or either one is not of any help but a total
freeze.
There is no recovery CD with this computer but a Reinstall CD.
There is no floppy drive and booting with that option is also gone.
I put the WinXP cd and checked the partition. Ghost 2003 has screwed
up my computer and it has created a new partition in C and has moved
my original C partition to D and my D partition to E.
Even if I try to delete the unwanted C partition created by Ghost, I
could not rename my D and E drives back to original C and D drives
since that is one of my basic requirements.
So I went ahead deleting all the partitions, made a clean install of
WinXP Japanese, installed all the drivers from Dell Resource CD and it
has eaten up half a day.
I googled and found out that lot more people are facing this problem
and lot of suggestions with parameters.
I tweaked my BIOS bit trying to change the following
- Integrated peripherals
- SATA devices configuration
- On-Chip Serial ATA from "Enhanced mode" to "Auto arrange by bios"
as specified by one geek in a forum. Unfortunately, there is no such
option in my BIOS.
I tried few other options then proceeded with the image creation from
inside windows and it panicked again. I did this in a cycle for 3
times and I ended up installing WinXP and drives every time the system
freezed.
I then spoke with several guys here in my office and everyone gave his
own suggestion but nobody seems to have worked with SATAN drives.
Finally one dude told me that he has done image backup but booting
from the CD itself. It strike me and I rebooted the system with Norton
Ghost 2003 in the Cd Drive after a fresh install of WinXP (fourth time
I guess)
His version was slightly different that he took a backup of the entire
disk and he wrote it to a IOMEGA drive it seems.
So I am writing my version on how I did this.
- Frist Boot the system and press F2 to enter setup. Change the
boot sequence so that the CD/DVD drive is in the top. Save and
Exit. Reboot the system with the Ghost 2003 CD in the CD Drive.
- The system boots into PC-DOS mode. In the main screen, it asks to
select one option from a set of 5. Select 2.Load USB 1.1 drivers.
If I select nothing or other options, it is not working.
- The screen complains that no Devices found. Don't worry. There is
a hint like. Drive C: = Driver CD1 unit 0 and I guess that is my
CD drive.
- The system prompts like A:\>
- Change the drive to C and run ghost as below
A:\>C:
C:\>cd support
C:\SUPPORT>ghost -NOIDE
- Now the system moves to the Symantec startup screen flawlessly
- Click OK in the Symantec About Norton Ghost screen.
- A small windows startup like screen appears with the following
options
Local
Peer to Peer
Options
Quit
- Select Local -> Partition -> To Image
- Note You may have to use Local -> Disk -> To Image if you are
taking a complete back up of the hard disk to a IOMEGA drive or
something else.
- Note There is one more option under Local called Check and
though I am not worried about that.
- A new screen with the title Select local source drive by
clicking on the drive number appears and there is only one option
since I have a single HDD.
- Select Drive 1 and then click OK
- A new screen with the title Select source partition(s) from
Basic drive: 1 appears.
- There are two Primary partitions (one for Dell utility with 39
MB space) and the other is the C drive with 40970 MB) and one
Logical drive D with 111568 MB. I selected the second Primary
i.e. my C:\ drive with 40970 MB space. Click OK
- A file dialog box appears with title File name to copy image
to. There are three drives listed in the Look in pull down list.
a) A: Local Drive (I guess it is my Ghost CD)
b) 1:2 [] NTFS drive (Selecting this display a set of
folders and I can see my WINDOWS directory inside. I
guessed this is my C drive. So I can't save the image
in the same drive.
c) 1:3 [] NTFS drive. This is my last option and so I
selected this.
- I then gave a file name jpimg for the image file name. I read
somewhere that the ghost file name should not exceed 8
characters else ghost will truncate it. Click Save
- A interrogation message dialog box appears with title Compress
Image (1916) with the message ? Compress image file? There are
three options No, High, Low. I selected Fast referring to my
colleagues version of the document.
- Hey, there is one more info message dialog box with title
Question: (1837) (What the hell these numbers refer to ?) with
Yes and No options. I clicked Yes
- Wow, there are signs of hope and the image creation started with
the progress bar moving towards right.
- It took less than 10 minutes for the image creation and now
there is one more info message dialog box titled Image Creation
Complete (1925) with the message ! Image Creating Completed
Successfully. I now clicked Continue in that message dialog
because that is the only option available.
- Now the screen returns to the very first Startup like screen
with
Local
Peer to Peer
Options
Quit.
- I remembered there is one option called Check inside Local
option and thought of giving it a try.
- Select Local -> Check -> Image File
- A file dialog appears and in the Look in pull down, I selected
1:3 [] NTFS drive where I saved my jpimg while image
creation. I selected jpimg.GHO and selected Open
- There is one more Interrogation message dialog titled Question:
(1814) with the message ? Proceed with image file integrity
check? with Yes and No options. I clicked on Yes
- Progress bar started moving and after few seconds there is a
info dialog box titled Verify complete (1498) with the message !
Image file passed integrity check. There is a single button
with Continue option and I clicked that.
- The display now changes to the Startup look like screen and this
time I selected Quit option to quit the Symantec wizard.
- Huh, there is one more Interrogation message dialog titled Quit
Norton Ghost (1953) with message ? Are you sure you want to
quit? with Yes and No options and I selected Yes
- Screen went into DOS mode prompting C:\SUPPORT>. I just
pressed Ctrl+Alt+Del and the system now reboots. Remove Ghost
CD from the drive and then change the boot sequence in the
BIOS back to HDD with first priority, if you want.
- The jpimg.GHO file is about 1.26 GB (3:1) compression of the C:\
drive and I moved it safely to a file server for any future
use.
How I restored Japanese OS using image file.
- Change the boot sequence by pressing F2 while booting the
computer. The CD/DVD drive should come first in priority before HDD.
- Reboot the computer with the Norton Ghost 2003 CD in the CD/DVD drive.
- Follow the on screen instructions and the computer will boot into
the PC-DOS mode
- Run the following commands.
A:\>C:
C:\>cd support
C:\SUPPORT>ghost -NOIDE
- Click OK in the Symantec welcome screen.
- In the Startup look like screen, select Local -> Partition -> From
Image option.
- In the next screen titled Image file name to restore from, select
1:3 [] NTFS drive against the Look in: pull down list. (This is
the D drive where I kept my image earlier.)
- Select the image file. In my case it is jpimg.GHO.
- A screen with title Select source partition from image file is
displayed and select the Partition in the image file you want to
restore. In my case it is the Part 1, Primary, with size 40970
MB. i.e. my C drive. Click OK
- A new screen titled Select local destination drive by
clicking on the drive number displays and there is only one
HDD drive in my case. I selected the drive that is Drive 1,
152587 MB size and then Click OK
- The next screen is titled Select destination partition from Basic
drive: 1 and it listed three drives as below
Part Type Description Label Size
1 Primary Diagnostic DellUtility 39
2 Primary NTFS No name 40970
3 Logical NTFS extd No name 111568
- I selected Part 2 which is my C drive where the OS needs to be
installed. Click OK
- An Interrogative message dialog appears with title Question:
(1823) with message ? Proceed with partition restore?
Destination partition will be permanently overwritten. with Yes
and No options. Click Yes
- A new screen displays with title Process Indicator and the
progress bar starts moving right. I took less than 3 minutes to
restore the OS to Japanese from English.
- A info message dialog is displayed titled Clone Complete (1912)
with message ! Clone Completed Successfully with two buttons
Continue, Reset Computer. Click Continue
- The Startup like screen is displayed again and I selected Quit
- An Interrogative message dialog titled Quit Norton Ghost (1953) displays.
Click Yes.
- Reboot the computer using Ctrl+Alt+Del and if you want change
back the boot sequence by pressing F2
- Unbelievable, the system now boots into Japanese WinXP and I
have restored the computer in no less than 10 minutes whereas a
clean install should have taken almost half a day.