Using Ghost to restore to a DIFFERENT hard drive

sannitig

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Hello,

I made a ghost image of my 40gb hard drive that came with my IBM R60 3 years ago. I still have that image on an external drive. Since then I have bought a 320GB HD of a different make than the original.

My question is can I restore the original ghost image onto my new hard drive? Oh actually I have also upgraded the RAM.

The only reason I am asking this is because I am getting an error message when trying to select the ghs file

error is this is not a symantic ghost image file or this is not the right span (or something like that)

please help.
 

MRFS

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> can I restore the original ghost image onto my new hard drive?

Yes.



> this is not a symantic ghost image file or this is not the right span

What version of GHOST did you use to create that original image file?

GHOST comes with a "Backup Image Browser" and in some versions,
that function is imbedded in the main GHOST program.

In other versions, it is a separate, stand-alone program with that name.

You should check the integrity of your image file, using
the Backup Image Browser that came with the version of
GHOST that created that image file.

If the file does not pass that test, you won't be able to restore it,
because the Restore task checks file integrity first, and will stop
if that integrity test fails.


MRFS
 

MRFS

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p.s. Also, try re-installing your GHOST software,
after removing it completely. I vaguely remember
getting a strange error message when we upgraded
our RAM, but this happened so long ago, I can't
remember the exact details.


MRFS
 

MRFS

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So, you should have a Backup Image Browser with that software,
which gets installed along with the full package.

What happens if/when you run that Backup Image Browser
and try to open the drive image on your external drive?

Does the large image file also have a companion index file,
e.g. with a suffix something like NAME.sv2i where "NAME"
is the system name?

".sv2i" is the suffix we get using GHOST 9.0 on our workstations,
and the large image file is typically named C_Drive.v2i .


MRFS
 

sannitig

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No all i have is 9 of these imagefile1.ghs, imagefile2.ghs...etc and an imagefile.gho

I remember doing this before and worked a couple years back. I dont have any other software installed anywhere this is just a bootable DOS disk and my images are stored on my external drive which has a fat32 part and an ntfs partition...the files are stored on the fat32. What's weird is that when ghost application views the drive it views the entire 500gb drive not just the small fat32 partition i made.
 

MRFS

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> when ghost application views the drive it views the entire 500gb drive not just the small fat32 partition i made.


It sounds to me as if your "DOS disk" is having trouble distinguishing between the
FAT32 partition and the NTFS partition.

Is there any way you can copy those image files to another HDD
that is formatted either all FAT32 or all NTFS?


> my images are stored on my external drive

Also, how is that external drive cabled, USB? or eSATA? or something else?

Sometimes, the restore task needs device drivers loaded first,
just like the F6 option when running Windows Setup.


MRFS
 

MRFS

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I've seen weird things happen whenever a single HDD is formatted with both FAT32 and NTFS partitions.

I'm thinking back to the era when FDISK was required before the FORMAT task, in DOS environments:

my GHOST 9 version has a restore task that really does not like the 2 partition types on the same HDD;
and, if my memory serves me, my GHOST 10 version has the same problem with mixed partition types.


So, FWIW, that's my current hypothesis for your situation is this: test by going to a HDD that has
only one partition type that your restore task has to deal with; then, if FAT32 does NOT work
with this test, then do the same test with a single NTFS partition.


So, it's TRIAL-AND-ERROR time! :)


MRFS



 

sannitig

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Well, I gave up. I needed it done the day that I was posting. I wish I had the time to solve it. That would have been fun. I ended up re-imaging with a windows disc. I think I'm going to use Acronis this time. I've heard good things about it.