"Ghosting/Imaging" ENTIRE hard drive X40

[KenFodder]

I have read from numerous posts regarding the backing up on the hdd. They always have something missing.

Eg:
Whether the HPA/PDA will be included or not;
Offer advice but not tested that the system will boot after restoration (the blinking cursor syndrome)

Has anybody managed to back up the ENTIRE hdd INCLUDING the HPA/PDA - all partitions, as an image file of some form AND has managed to restore that image, after completely deleting the HPA/PDA with PM8 and clearing the MBR manually using FDISK?? (Image stored on an external hdd on USB)

All I want is to know whether it is POSSIBLE to image the WHOLE drive and restore it if I mess up windows big time.

The reason why I want to do this is if my hdd fails I can get a new disk and restore it EXACTLY the way it was and not go through the bollocks of reinstalling windows using recovery CDs.

[OnePointFour]

All I want is to know whether it is POSSIBLE to image the WHOLE drive and restore it if I mess up windows big time.

Your question is clear, and so is my answer:

• 1) It is possible
  2)There aren't any hassles if you know what you're doing.

I've created an image of my brand new X40 1.4 HDD (it came with XP SP2) before I even booted it the first time. Using Symantec Norton Ghost 32 8.0 Corporate and

Code: Select all

ghost32.exe -ib -z9

it took about half an hour and gave me nearly two DVDs of image files. Both system and HPA partition were restored without any errors and are working absolutely flawless.

There's definitely no need to change bios settings or do voodoo things. Just make sure you get to boot from the DVD instead of the HDD. My X40 came with that setting already.

Best regards,
One

[KenFodder]

Do I need to unhide the HPA in the bios (ie Security Disabled) in order for ghost to see it?

This maybe obvious but I feel a lot of newbs would appreciate the spelling out.

Also I have Norton Ghost 2003, should it make a difference - I have used it for the last 2 years on my desktop with not a problem on images 60GB and above.

Thanks in advance.

[OnePointFour]

Ken,

Do I need to unhide the HPA in the bios (ie Security Disabled) in order for ghost to see it?

There's definitely no need to change bios settings or do voodoo things.

Also I have Norton Ghost 2003, should it make a difference

You're welcome to try. Personally, I'd make sure to use the most recent build of Ghost 2003 - there have been a lot of silent bugfixes and error corrections. Run LiveUpdate and use only the updated [ghost.exe|ghostpe.exe].

Best regards,
One

[KenFodder]

I've created an image of my brand new X40 1.4 HDD (it came with XP SP2) before I even booted it the first time. Using Symantec Norton Ghost 32 8.0 Corporate

1.4? you mean 1.8"?

Also have you tried it after you have booted for the first time, ie used the laptop for a while ghost it then restore it? Not that it should make any difference - but like most things there are always exceptions eg this 4 sector boot thing needing the -ib switch, unlike all other laptops I have used.

[OnePointFour]

1.4? you mean 1.8"?

1.4 GHz Dothan core.

Also have you tried it after you have booted for the first time, ie used the laptop for a while ghost it then restore it?

I even zeroed out the whole HDD. There wasn't a single bit left before I redeployed the image.

[KenFodder]

Thanks for the help with that. How much did this new X40 set you back then?

Merry Christmas

[OnePointFour]

Thanks for the help with that.

You're welcome. Those questions bothered me a long time when I was waiting for my own X40. I'm also glad that doing a full backup has turned out to be so easy.

How much did this new X40 set you back then?

I'm not sure if you're speaking in terms of money now (English isn't my mother language). If so - the 1.4 X40 is sold for ~2.000 Euro these days here in Germany.

[KenFodder]

Yes I was talking about the cost of the notebook. It is about the same price in the UK, once I converted it to Pound Sterling.

You say you used DVDs to store the images, did your machine come with a DVD drive of some form?

Ich spreche deutsches wenig, gleichwohl Ihr Englisch vollkommen ist.
Vielen Dank

[OnePointFour]

Good morning,

no, my Ultrabase X4 is still to buy. I use a Pioneer DVR-106 in an external case connected via USB.

I haven't written those image files directly to DVD, though - the burning engine in Ghost seems to have disadvantages to me. In fact, the image gets broken down to dozens or even hundreds of files when written directly to DVD instead of a few, each more or less two GB sized files when using a local or network drive. So I did the backup to a network drive and burned the recovery DVDs afterwards.

Ich spreche deutsches wenig, gleichwohl Ihr Englisch vollkommen ist.

Thank you! Unfortunately, I don't get the opportunity to talk to native English speakers very often these days...

Best regards,
One

[Zeitgeist]

Your profile says "Cologne, Western Germany".

I thought Germany was now united?

[KenFodder]

It is united, it says "Western Germany" NOT "West Germany" subtle difference

[w0qj]

the new Norton Ghost 9.0 is quite good, able to make HDD image while you are running computer in Windows. (Norton has almost caught up with Acronis feature-wise, but Acronis is still cheaper).

hope this helps!

[OnePointFour]

the new Norton Ghost 9.0 is quite good

I have to disagree here.

At first, "Norton Ghost 9.0" is not a product of the Ghost Series. In fact, is has nothing to do with it and it is Symantec's pure brazenness to call it Ghost and give it an increased version number.

Are you astonished by now? I'll try to explain.

Ghost was the first true image backup solution for DOS / Windows based PCs when it was announced somewhen 199x. It was developed by Binary Research, Inc. (http://www.binaryresearch.net) and distributed by a company called 'Innovative Software'. It started as a text mode, DOS only application - the graphical interface you might know was added several versions later.

Ghost had it all - it was small, fast-loading and capable of imaging virtually every partition and hard disk - at least in byte-by-byte-mode. It was the favourite tool for administrators all over the world.

Then came Symantec. Not to be the first time for them doing so, they bought a brilliant product from a rather small competitor - this time Ghost from BRI. Also not the first time, they ran it down in record-breaking time.

The comedown started with the BRI logo exchanged with the symantec one. Then, they divided the formerly lean and clear positioned tool into a business version (Ghost Enterprise, version numbers counted in singular digits from now on) and a function-reduced version intended for private customers (versions counted up by year dates).

The latter was crippled with a serial number function: You had to enter a serial number before reloading an image done with that version - complete ridiculous as this number was displayed on the program's splash screen.

What is more, this number was even written on every HDD Ghost came over. Imagine this: You want to create a forensic-quality disk image and are forced to alter the HDD content before. This spoiled everything BRI ever had in Mind when developing Ghost!

The straw that breaks the camel's back is what Symantec's doing now. For reasons of their own they dropped the BRI-developed Ghost completely and acquired PowerQuest's Deploy Center, formerly known as DriveImage.

"Norton Ghost 9.0" is nothing more and nothing less than this DriveImage / DeployCenter. They did not even try to alter the user interface and change the look as they often did with similar assimilations...

DriveImage / DeployCenter looks inferior to me in many ways. It has serious problems with NTFS 5, isn't capable to reproduce ext3 file structures without corrupting them, has even errors in its user interface et cetera - the list is to long to write it down here. Try to boot from its media (for recovery purposes): Where you had a sleek and fast, dos based start with Ghost <= 8.0, the cuckoo's egg tries to boot a Windows PE lasting minutes - just to crash into a BSOD afterwards. There's not even a DOS based binary included.

And that inferior thing is what Symantec tries to sell as the further development of BRI's famous Ghost!

able to make HDD image while you are running computer in Windows.

This is exactly what you won't want. A windows up and running has several 'open' files in which is written during operation. You can't save them in a well-defined state. Furthermore, both parts of the registry are heavily used, being written and read dozens of times in a single second. The dat files hosting this registry parts can't be saved in a well-defined state either.

The bottom line: You don't want an image backup of a running windows. Programs offering such in spite aren't smart or clever in any way - in fact, they're just failures by design. The only reason to want an image backup program running in an active windows would be to backup a partition which has nothing to do with the running instance - an alternate linux partition for example. But why not just use a dos-based, windows independent solution then? Something as fast and reliable as BRI Ghost?

I don't know the details of the contract between BRI and that moloch Symantec. So I really do hope that the rights for Ghost will now fall back to BRI. Perhaps, they will reassume the development and bring back Ghost's glory. Before the Symantec incident.

Best regards,
One

[bevross]

the new Norton Ghost 9.0 is quite good

I have to disagree here. ... The bottom line: You don't want an image backup of a running windows.

Well, backup using IBM's Rescue & Recovery runs within Windows. Would you say that wasn't a good program to use? From prior posts, you said you used "Symantec Norton Ghost 32 8.0 Corporate" and recommended Ghost 2003 so I suppose you'd recommend either of these two versions? I'm awaiting delivery of Ghost v9 and now wonder if I should use it (it's for another system, not my Thinkpad)?!

[KenFodder]

I agree that imaging whilst running windows by common sense is a no go.

I have used Norton Ghost 2003, it has been a whizz for the past 2 years. The system always reboots to perform operations in DOS, or use a boot disk manually

Also I have never had the problem of needing to enter any form of serial number to use Ghost 2003, does it do this??

I am not saying it is the best tool as I have not compared it with other tools, but using it on images of 60GB+ and being on the same installation of WinXP for the past 3 years because of it has made my life simple.

I will continue to use Ghost 2003 until it has problems and I try something new, but I always believe in using tools that works for you and makes your life easier. It maybe the case you have had problems with it and someone else seems to get it to work perfectly! So be understanding, open-minded and not curse-curse-curse, it may turn out to be the better tool for the job in the long-run.

Could we try to address the original issue of this thread, of dealing with the way thinkpads have problems with the way images are restored and it won't boot, also successes in imaging AND restoring the HPA with the windows installation.

A good test FOR EXAMPLE is can you restore the way the laptop is when you first bought it using an image restoration method. NO recovery CDs as you may have used the laptop for a couple of days and don't want to reinstall applications. And please don't reply saying WHY you want to do that.

The reason is to be able to keep the HPA intact for emergencies and restore my windows and other extra partitions from an external hdd (USB2) simply by an image restoration LIKE Norton Ghost (Other apps welcome )