Suresh - Ghost Don't Like SATA

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

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.

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. The system prompts like A:\>
  5. Change the drive to C and run ghost as below

    A:\>C:
    C:\>cd support
    C:\SUPPORT>ghost -NOIDE


  6. Now the system moves to the Symantec startup screen flawlessly
  7. Click OK in the Symantec About Norton Ghost screen.
  8. A small windows startup like screen appears with the following options

    Local
    Peer to Peer
    Options
    Quit


  9. Select Local -> Partition -> To Image
  10. 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.
  11. Note There is one more option under Local called Check and though I am not worried about that.
  12. 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.
  13. Select Drive 1 and then click OK
  14. A new screen with the title Select source partition(s) from Basic drive: 1 appears.
  15. 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
  16. 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.


  17. 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
  18. 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.
  19. 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
  20. Wow, there are signs of hope and the image creation started with the progress bar moving towards right.
  21. 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.
  22. Now the screen returns to the very first Startup like screen with

    Local
    Peer to Peer
    Options
    Quit.


  23. I remembered there is one option called Check inside Local option and thought of giving it a try.
  24. Select Local -> Check -> Image File
  25. 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
  26. 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
  27. 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.
  28. The display now changes to the Startup look like screen and this time I selected Quit option to quit the Symantec wizard.
  29. 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
  30. 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.
  31. 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.

  1. Change the boot sequence by pressing F2 while booting the computer. The CD/DVD drive should come first in priority before HDD.
  2. Reboot the computer with the Norton Ghost 2003 CD in the CD/DVD drive.
  3. Follow the on screen instructions and the computer will boot into the PC-DOS mode
  4. Run the following commands.

    A:\>C:
    C:\>cd support
    C:\SUPPORT>ghost -NOIDE


  5. Click OK in the Symantec welcome screen.
  6. In the Startup look like screen, select Local -> Partition -> From Image option.
  7. 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.)
  8. Select the image file. In my case it is jpimg.GHO.
  9. 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
  10. 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
  11. 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


  12. I selected Part 2 which is my C drive where the OS needs to be installed. Click OK
  13. 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
  14. 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.
  15. A info message dialog is displayed titled Clone Complete (1912) with message ! Clone Completed Successfully with two buttons Continue, Reset Computer. Click Continue
  16. The Startup like screen is displayed again and I selected Quit
  17. An Interrogative message dialog titled Quit Norton Ghost (1953) displays. Click Yes.
  18. Reboot the computer using Ctrl+Alt+Del and if you want change back the boot sequence by pressing F2
  19. 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.