Ghost image fails to restore properly?

[louise]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
etc.

I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
didn't function properly.

I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
the same ways...

I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
(Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS

I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
not/was not, a hardware issue.

The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
problems kept coming back?

Is this possible?

Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.

TIA

Louise

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

"louise" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d586bb2c64361f798968a@news-server.nyc.rr.com...
> One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
> discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
> apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
> etc.
>
> I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
> didn't function properly.
>
> I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
> to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
> image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
> the same ways...
>
> I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
> chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
> I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
> (Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS
>
> I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
> ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
> not/was not, a hardware issue.
>
> The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
> image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
> problems kept coming back?
>
> Is this possible?
>
> Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
> happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.
>
> TIA
>
> Louise


Pleading some degree of ignorance (with Ghost ) here, I'm surprised also
that the Ghost image didn't completely cure the problem - since I would
*assume* (wrongly, apparently) that the Windows registry would've also been
replaced and the initialization (and registry keys) of those programs fully
repaired.

I'm left scratching my head thinking that some remnants of the damaged OS
were left after the Ghost restore, and that makes absolutely *no* common
sense to me. ?

I'm also wondering (after the fact) what re-installation of those problem
programs would've done (if anything) after your initial Ghost restores.

Someone here has an answer, but it isn't me.....


Stew

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

louise <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
>I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
>didn't function properly.
>
>I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
>to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
>image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
>the same ways...

Maybe a program that had been running just fine before a certain date
fell over after that date, and restoring an image which had that same
program in it restored the problem.

[I just discovered that APC's UPS control program caused two different
machines to act in strange ways _today_, including not being able to
fire up Internet Explorer, not bring able to open Outlook, and loss of
Palm sync functionality. Yeah, I know, it's not possible, but
removing the program brought everything back to normal. Bizarre
things happen!]

 

[Clark]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

You might check the integrity of the Ghost image.

Maybe part of your hard drive was damaged and Ghost could not tell, so it
put the data back in the same place. It might be a good idea to format
before you restore a Ghost image. I've been playing with Ghost 2003 and one
restore had errors, but a couple of others did not. I was trying to restore
from both CDs and an external USB hard drive.

If the integrity of the image is good and you had a lot of data you did not
want to loose, I would try again. Maybe a new hard drive could be used so
you did not wipe out your current install.

Clark

"louise" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
news:MPG.1d586bb2c64361f798968a@news-server.nyc.rr.com...
> One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
> discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
> apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
> etc.
>
> I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
> didn't function properly.
>
> I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
> to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
> image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
> the same ways...
>
> I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
> chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
> I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
> (Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS
>
> I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
> ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
> not/was not, a hardware issue.
>
> The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
> image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
> problems kept coming back?
>
> Is this possible?
>
> Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
> happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.
>
> TIA
>
> Louise

 

[Guest]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <MPG.1d586bb2c64361f798968a@news-server.nyc.rr.com>,
nospam@nospam.com says...
> One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
> discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
> apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
> etc.
>
> I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
> didn't function properly.
>
> I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
> to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
> image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
> the same ways...

If your ghost image was made using a boot disk, not from within windows,
and you restored the image, then it would be exactly the same as you had
running at the time of the image you saved. To make a good image of a
drive, so that you can perfectly restore to point A in time, you need to
boot from a floppy disk and image to some other drive.

--

spam999free@rrohio.com
remove 999 in order to email me

 

[nick]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 22:16:45 GMT, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, louise
<nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

>I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
>chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
>I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
>(Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS
>
>I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
>ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
>not/was not, a hardware issue.
>
>The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
>image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
>problems kept coming back?
>
>Is this possible?

I'm not familiar with Ghost, my best guess would be that the momentary power
problem corrupted some formatting information or file system information
that Ghost didn't backup.

>Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
>happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.

My suggestion: buy yourself a UPS. They aren't that expensive, and can be a
real work and data saver.

For years, I knew I should use a UPS but never bothered. Then one day the
lights flickered. Just for a second or two, but that was enough to make the
computer reboot.

I was less than five minutes away from the end of a one hour or more
download (on dialup then) which I had to restart from scratch, plus I also
lost a big chunk of a lengthy technical document I'd been typing up during
the download (hadn't saved for 20-30 minutes).

The next day, I finally ordered a UPS. A few days after it arrived and was
put to use, we had another brief power failure: and the computer and I just
kept going right through it totally unaffected.

That was six or seven years and a couple of computers ago, and I've been
through a bunch of power failures, surges, etc. since then with zero
problems.

For me, that UPS and it's successors have been one of the best investments
I've every made.

Sorry about the sales pitch: I honestly don't work for a UPS manufacturer!

--
Nick <mailto:tanstaafl@pobox.com>

TANSTAAFL! (There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch!) R.A.H.

 

[louise]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <EwxHe.1965$iT2.1443@newssvr25.news.prodigy.net>,
who@whoknows.com says...
> You might check the integrity of the Ghost image.
>
> Maybe part of your hard drive was damaged and Ghost could not tell, so it
> put the data back in the same place. It might be a good idea to format
> before you restore a Ghost image. I've been playing with Ghost 2003 and one
> restore had errors, but a couple of others did not. I was trying to restore
> from both CDs and an external USB hard drive.
>
> If the integrity of the image is good and you had a lot of data you did not
> want to loose, I would try again. Maybe a new hard drive could be used so
> you did not wipe out your current install.
>
> Clark
>
> "louise" <nospam@nospam.com> wrote in message
> news:MPG.1d586bb2c64361f798968a@news-server.nyc.rr.com...
> > One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
> > discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
> > apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
> > etc.
> >
> > I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
> > didn't function properly.
> >
> > I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
> > to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
> > image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
> > the same ways...
> >
> > I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
> > chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
> > I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
> > (Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS
> >
> > I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
> > ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
> > not/was not, a hardware issue.
> >
> > The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
> > image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
> > problems kept coming back?
> >
> > Is this possible?
> >
> > Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
> > happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.
> >
> > TIA
> >
> > Louise
Well....I had three different backup images from weeks apart. The
oldest one had been used when I made a mess (fiddling with a
program and then couldn't connect to ISP), and it worked at the
time. So I have reason to believe that image was sound, if not the
other two.

I tried restoring different images and had Ghost verify the
integrity of the image before restoring - and yet, it happened each
time.

I did try another hard drive (brand new), and it happened with that
drive also. I did not reformat the drive(s) before replacing the
image and I should have.

Fortunately I'm paranoid I do nightly backups to a different
external drive using Dantz Retrospect. I do image backups every
week or two to another external drive using Ghost. So I have all
my data from the Dantz Retrospect nightly backup. So far I've been
reinstalling the data and there hasn't been a problem.

It seems to me that Ghost does not completely clear the drive
because even if the brownout caused data damage, or a virus caused
data/program damage, both of those should be negated by restoring
an image from 6 weeks ago. And they weren't.

Louise

 

[louise]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <MPG.1d586f7f5891e227989ab6@news-
server.columbus.rr.com>, void@nowhere.lan says...
> In article <MPG.1d586bb2c64361f798968a@news-server.nyc.rr.com>,
> nospam@nospam.com says...
> > One day, after a very brief brownout, I turned on my computer to
> > discover that several programs hung halfway through loading or
> > apparently loaded, but didn't respond to any commands, mouse click,
> > etc.
> >
> > I had a recent Ghost 9 image. I restored. The same programs
> > didn't function properly.
> >
> > I had an older Ghost 9 image which I had already successfully used
> > to restore the hard drive about a month ago. I restored this
> > image. Again, the same programs didn't function properly, and in
> > the same ways...
>
> If your ghost image was made using a boot disk, not from within windows,
> and you restored the image, then it would be exactly the same as you had
> running at the time of the image you saved. To make a good image of a
> drive, so that you can perfectly restore to point A in time, you need to
> boot from a floppy disk and image to some other drive.
>
>
My ghost image was on an external hard drive. But I did not boot
from a floppy - but rather from the Ghost CD which says it is to be
used as a restore disk.

I'm using Ghost 9. Should I still have a floppy?

Louise

 

[louise]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

In article <q0ate1dv0qn0e4ffd7g88a7s0g795oka85@4ax.com>,
tanstaafl@pobox.com says...
>
> On Mon, 01 Aug 2005 22:16:45 GMT, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, louise
> <nospam@nospam.com> wrote:
>
> >I tested memory (memtest), hard drive itself (Seatools), ran
> >chkdsk, etc. etc. I used two anti-virus scans and a spyware scan.
> >I also changed the hard drive itself. Nothing showed up. Seatools
> >(Seagates diagnostic tool), did indicate critical problem with NTFS
> >
> >I finally used the restore CD that came with my computer (2.5 years
> >ago) and all is going smoothely, further indicating that it is
> >not/was not, a hardware issue.
> >
> >The only thing I can imagine is that although I restored a Ghost
> >image, the disk was not completely cleaned and therefore, the same
> >problems kept coming back?
> >
> >Is this possible?
>
> I'm not familiar with Ghost, my best guess would be that the momentary power
> problem corrupted some formatting information or file system information
> that Ghost didn't backup.
>
> >Any suggestions? I'm horrified at the thought that this could
> >happen again and that my backup image wouldn't work.
>
> My suggestion: buy yourself a UPS. They aren't that expensive, and can be a
> real work and data saver.
>
> For years, I knew I should use a UPS but never bothered. Then one day the
> lights flickered. Just for a second or two, but that was enough to make the
> computer reboot.
>
> I was less than five minutes away from the end of a one hour or more
> download (on dialup then) which I had to restart from scratch, plus I also
> lost a big chunk of a lengthy technical document I'd been typing up during
> the download (hadn't saved for 20-30 minutes).
>
> The next day, I finally ordered a UPS. A few days after it arrived and was
> put to use, we had another brief power failure: and the computer and I just
> kept going right through it totally unaffected.
>
> That was six or seven years and a couple of computers ago, and I've been
> through a bunch of power failures, surges, etc. since then with zero
> problems.
>
> For me, that UPS and it's successors have been one of the best investments
> I've every made.
>
> Sorry about the sales pitch: I honestly don't work for a UPS manufacturer!
YES - thank you. It makes sense that the file system information
was damaged by the brownout. The reason I say this so emphatically
is because Seatools said the NTFS file system was "critically" off,
or something like that. It said the disk itself was fine.

I didn't know that Ghost doesn't backup basic NTFS file system
information, but I'm sure that's what happened now that you spell
it out that way.

Do you think that reformatting the drive and then restoring the
image would have worked? It's too late now but I don't ever want
to go through this again so I'm trying to find out as much as I
can.

You are also correct about the UPS. Is there a brand and/or kind
that you find particularly reliable?

TIA

Louise

 

[nick]

Archived from groups: alt.sys.pc-clone.dell (More info?)

On Tue, 02 Aug 2005 00:49:27 GMT, in alt.sys.pc-clone.dell, louise
<nospam@nospam.com> wrote:

>YES - thank you. It makes sense that the file system information
>was damaged by the brownout. The reason I say this so emphatically
>is because Seatools said the NTFS file system was "critically" off,
>or something like that. It said the disk itself was fine.
>
>I didn't know that Ghost doesn't backup basic NTFS file system
>information, but I'm sure that's what happened now that you spell
>it out that way.

I honestly don't know; I'm not familiar with Ghost and was just speculating.
You mentioned in another post that you also tried a different hard drive
with no success, so maybe it was some other problem not directly related to
that drive.

>Do you think that reformatting the drive and then restoring the
>image would have worked? It's too late now but I don't ever want
>to go through this again so I'm trying to find out as much as I
>can.

Frankly, my best suggestion would be to check the Ghost documentation and
the support information their web site to see what they recommend for doing
a total restore in a situation like this.

>You are also correct about the UPS. Is there a brand and/or kind
>that you find particularly reliable?

For what it's worth, my little sales pitch was literally a true story: I
still remember how ticked off I was at the amount of time it took me to redo
things all because of a few seconds of power loss.

I don't have a lot of experience with different brands: the last two I
bought were APC Back-UPS models, because that's what Dell offered with the
computer I bought.

The one I bought with my Dimension 8100 has worked fine for a little over
four years, including a number of power outages. Right now, it's
semi-retired supporting two external hard drives I use for backups. A new
battery for it is on my shopping list when I get around to it...

I bought a new APC UPS with the Dimension XPS 5 from Dell (a few weeks ago),
because the new computer draws more power and I wanted more capacity than
the old UPS had.

I would think you'd be OK with a UPS from any major manufacturer.

--
Nick <mailto:tanstaafl@pobox.com>