Norton ghost fails to clone

[orthopod]

I am attempting to clone my hard drive using Norton ghost 2003 on a PC running a preinstalled clean version of windows XP.
All goes well until the system restarts (an expected part of the cloning prodedure) at which point the operating system cannot be detected and the system fails to reboot. Some work in BIOS and using CD boot disk and Gdisk utilities on the Ghost CD have retored my system but the drive remains uncloned.
Ghost creates a new partition on my source drive but this appears not to contain an OS allowing the system to boot.
The copy of Ghost is legit and has worked on other systems
Symantec help has not been able to sort the problem

Any Suggestions?

 

[ffresh]

From what I have heard and read:

After the clone is complete, do not allow the system to reboot or allow Ghost to reset the drive or the system volume is renamed on the newly cloned drive making it unbootable. Instead, shut the system down and take out the original boot drive and replace it with the newly cloned drive - then reboot

ffresh

 

[orthopod]

I believe you have misunderstood the problem.
The cloning process never starts.
Norton Ghost requires to reboot into its own OS in order to undertake the cloning process. It is this reboot that is failing rather than the post cloning reboot

 

[ffresh]

Sorry, I did misunderstand. I have ghost 2003 also. The one time I tried to clone my OS with it, here was the result (from my permanent notes):

02/28/07
NOTE: On this date, tried to do a Norton Ghost 2003 clone of drive C: from within WinXP, before installing Vista Business. Ghost rebooted to DOS and created a virtual partition on the drive from which to boot Ghost, but failed in the operation after creating the partition "-VPSGHBOOT-" and making it active. The computer was stuck in an endless loop of trying to either boot into Ghost or WinXP, neither of which was successful. After researching this debacle on Google, the solution was to use a Floppy Boot Disk and boot into DOS. Then, use FDisk to delete the ~800MB partition,
"-VPSGHBOOT-", that Ghost had made active, then, make the original WinXP partition active. This corrected the problem.

This got me out of the endless loop and allowed me to return to a normal state, however, it did nothing to help me clone my drive. I just refreshed my memory of late on the workings (or non-workings) of Ghost because I just bought a larger/faster HDD for my OS. After toying with Ghost for a couple of hours and contemplating other solutions, I remembered a piece of software from Acorn that I had used to upgrade to a new HDD in my laptop. I dug it out of storage, installed it and cloned my 100GB OS disk (C & D partitions) while dynamically resizing the individual partitions in 20 mins - FLAWLESS!!!! Easiest OS disk upgrades that I've ever done. Wish I could offer encouragement on Ghost 2003 for you.

ffresh

 

[orthopod]

Thanks,

This sounds exactly like the problem I've had. I am planning to abandon Ghost and use another utility. Clonezilla has been suggested...does anyone have any experience with this program?

 

[Zorg]

Why don't you get the manufacturer's software for the target drive and use their bootable DOS CD to clone it. Most, if not all, have a cloning feature. Also Paragon Drive Backup, and many others, will clone.

 

[dokk2]

I am attempting to clone my hard drive using Norton ghost 2003 on a PC running a preinstalled clean version of windows XP.
All goes well until the system restarts (an expected part of the cloning prodedure) at which point the operating system cannot be detected and the system fails to reboot. Some work in BIOS and using CD boot disk and Gdisk utilities on the Ghost CD have retored my system but the drive remains uncloned.
Ghost creates a new partition on my source drive but this appears not to contain an OS allowing the system to boot.
The copy of Ghost is legit and has worked on other systems
Symantec help has not been able to sort the problem

Any Suggestions?

why would ghost create a partition on your "source drive" are you not trying to clone to another drive?? I made a similar error once long ago and wound up putting my ghost on the wrong partition too,sounds like someone is not paying attention ????

 

[ffresh]

why would ghost create a partition on your "source drive" are you not trying to clone to another drive?? I made a similar error once long ago and wound up putting my ghost on the wrong partition too,sounds like someone is not paying attention ????

You install it into the OS (in this case WinXP Pro). You start the program, you tell it to clone drive C: It is supposed to reboot to DOS and do its thing. It (Ghost) is supposed to create a small partition to reboot into and do its thing, namely, clone the drive - It F###S UP and ends up in a reboot loop.

<I made a similar error once long ago>

You were probably using a DOS/non-windows version of the program and it would be totally different

ffresh

 

[jitpublisher]

The simplest answer here is download the free version of Acronis True Image.
Fast, extremely easy to use. Have used it many times, including mirroring RAID volumes to single disk and back. It just simply works. Has complete backup and arhciving features as well. Step by step instructions, whoever created this software package knew what they were doing.
Forget about Ghost, Copyzilla or whatever it was and go get Acronis.
Once you use, you WILL buy it.

 

[Zorg]

I heard the latest version of Acronis had problems with the Linux based recovery boot disk. I just had problems with the Linux recovery boot disk from Paragon. It wouldn't see the drive with the backup capsule. Luckily they have a safe mode which runs in PTS-DOS and it worked.

 

[jitpublisher]

Don't know about Linux. However, I have used Acronis with Windows 2000, XP, Vista 32 and Vista 64. Multiple times, and as I said even moving RAID 0 arrays to single disks, and back to another array...... bootable and storage drives, arrays, you name it.
Never had any problem what-so-ever, always worked perfectly.
And what I really like is that it is so easy to use, if I can use it without problems.....heck even a cave man can do it........

 

[Zorg]

What I'm talking about is that the recovery boot disk runs in linux, and has problems.

 

[dokk2]

You install it into the OS (in this case WinXP Pro). You start the program, you tell it to clone drive C: It is supposed to reboot to DOS and do its thing. It (Ghost) is supposed to create a small partition to reboot into and do its thing, namely, clone the drive - It F###S UP and ends up in a reboot loop.

<I made a similar error once long ago>

You were probably using a DOS/non-windows version of the program and it would be totally different

ffresh

No way Brother,,I only use Norton Ghost from a floppy,have never trusted it from windoze,in fact I had to stop using Ghost 2003 as my system would not cooperate with it,and so am now using Ghost 8 which resides on two floppies,Ghost.exe is now too big for one floppy..
For what it is worth my protocol for moving from one hdd to another is to prepare the target hdd, [btw I have a partition just for keeping a Ghost image or two on], make a ghost of the "C" drive which is never bigger than 15g I do not install anything except utilities and drivers on the "C" drive [because when there is a system crash it is usually the "C" partition that gets it in the neck as it is the boot section],,copy the Ghost image to the target hdd run it allow windoze to settle down and then copy over the rest of your data from the source hdd,the other thing I will occasionally do is to "write zeros" to an older hdd because 1,it's almost like getting a new hdd,,and 2,It's like cleaning up a blackboard after much usage,now you and your hdd can see what you are doing ,,,oops guess I'd better shut up...

 

[ffresh]

<I only use Norton Ghost from a floppy,have never trusted it from windoze>

Well. I feel essentially the same. The unique aspect of the software though is it's supposed to boot the computer into DOS to do its work ... oh well! The software that I mentioned a post or two ago works FLAWLESSLY like that

ffresh

 

[evongugg]

Sometimes Ghost gets confused when there are multiple SATA controllers.
I have to turn off the RAID controller.

 

[bc4]

This did a perfect job for me
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

 

[ffresh]

No way Brother,,I only use Norton Ghost from a floppy,have never trusted it from windoze,in fact I had to stop using Ghost 2003 as my system would not cooperate with it,and so am now using Ghost 8 which resides on two floppies,Ghost.exe is now too big for one floppy..
For what it is worth my protocol for moving from one hdd to another is to prepare the target hdd, [btw I have a partition just for keeping a Ghost image or two on], make a ghost of the "C" drive which is never bigger than 15g I do not install anything except utilities and drivers on the "C" drive [because when there is a system crash it is usually the "C" partition that gets it in the neck as it is the boot section],,copy the Ghost image to the target hdd run it allow windoze to settle down and then copy over the rest of your data from the source hdd,the other thing I will occasionally do is to "write zeros" to an older hdd because 1,it's almost like getting a new hdd,,and 2,It's like cleaning up a blackboard after much usage,now you and your hdd can see what you are doing ,,,oops guess I'd better shut up...

As far as I can tell, Ghost 2003 can only burn a bootable floppy and not a bootable CD. Am I missing something (I don't have a floppy drive installed)

ffresh

 

[ffresh]

This did a perfect job for me
http://www.easeus.com/disk-copy/

Looks nice - thanks for the info!
Acorn Clone EZ II does a great job, also!


ffresh

 

[olmecoid]

Look at this, print it, and follow step by step. It works.

http://www.justlinux.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=149328

 

[gsmith2471]

NOTE: On this date, tried to do a Norton Ghost 2003 clone of drive C: from within WinXP, before installing Vista Business. Ghost rebooted to DOS and created a virtual partition on the drive from which to boot Ghost, but failed in the operation after creating the partition "-VPSGHBOOT-" and making it active. The computer was stuck in an endless loop of trying to either boot into Ghost or WinXP, neither of which was successful. After researching this debacle on Google, the solution was to use a Floppy Boot Disk and boot into DOS. Then, use FDisk to delete the ~800MB partition,
"-VPSGHBOOT-", that Ghost had made active, then, make the original WinXP partition active. This corrected the problem.

Just wanted to say I was about crazy with this until I found this forum. I did exactly as mentioned above and it worked perfect. Thank you so musc