Is there an explanation for this ??

[Debbie]

Hi All,

I have WinXP installed and mostly video related software. After updating or installing other software I image the drive with Norton Ghost.

I save the image on my second drive. Both drives NTSF. For some strange reason if the computer crashes and will not recover from the error, it will be almost impossible to reinstall from the image file without errors.

This also happens if I deleat the partition and the only way is to reinstall all the software from scratch.

Is there a logical reason for this ??

Regards,

Debbie

[Sciascia]

Ghost uses a DOS based system which does not read NTFS images AFAIK, though it will backup an NTFS drive. If the drive the image is on is on an NTFS partition, that may be the problem. If you have CD burner, try backing it up with that, it will automatically span the archive over the discs and you can even make it bootable. Don't forget to use high compression, it doees not effect the files, but it makes the re-install much faster.

[Debbie]

Hi Sciascia,

Thanks for your reply.

I am using Ghost 2003 and if I am correct, it is intended for WinXP (NTFS).

Debbie

[colinbr]

I'm using an old version 4 of DriveImage (a couple of years old?)for much the same purpose with Windows 2000.

I'm pretty sure that it can create and restore image files on/from NTFS partitions - but I'll check tonight.

Even if Ghost can't read the image from an NTFS patition (which sounds a bit odd) there is a free DOS driver available which can allow readonly access to NTFS partitions from DOS.

can you expand upon "it will be almost impossible to reinstall from the image file without errors."? Is Ghost able to see the image file that you wish to restore? What sort of errors?

[Debbie]

Basicly the WindowsXP errors are related to computer identification and failing to shut down.

Also at times the computer will reboot just before reaching the desktop.

Some times I wonder if it could be a hardware problem since I have been using the same image for over 3 months without problems. However this has happend before and I had to "fresh install" to clear the problem.

I shall try to do a fresh install and see how it goes.

Debbie

[Flying dutchman]

I use PowerQuest drive image 5 (now freeware, it was included with a magazine) for the same purpose. I use a bootable floppy with a network client and save/restore to my second PC which acts as a file server. Hence no file system problems. PQDI5 also handles the XP flavour of NTFS which causes some problems to Norton Ghost and PQDI4. It can also directly burn CDR's. I haven't tried DVD+RW yet.

[J1NG]

Debbie, have you checked you RAM for dust?

I had my XP system fall on me a couple of weeks back, because there was some dust on one of the RAM modules (with ECC) and kept dying on my until I cleaned it of the dust.

J1NG

[Debbie]

So I re-installed everything from scratch.

I had quite a "few" problems installing WinXP, from the same CD that gave me no problems before.

During the file copying stage I kept receiving the warning that the file has not been copied correctly.. Retry, Skip, Quit ecc.

So now I'm begining to think it is an intermittent hardware problem. At the moment all is ok I just have to wait and see what happens.

Debbie

[Flying dutchman]

Sounds like either a dusty laser pickup in the cdrom drive or a HDD cabling/speed problem. Try a cleaning disk.

Which cable type and which DMA mode do you use? I had quite a few data corruption problems because my motherboard and Windows insisted on using UDMA-100 but my cabling and disk caddies were only suitable for UDMA-33 (I have all hard disks in caddies to facilitate quick exchanging).

In the end I replaced the IDE cables for 80-wire ones and bought new UDMA-100 compatible high-end disk frames and caddies.

[Debbie]

Thanks Dutchman for your interest.

I have two Maxtor HDDs UDMA-133 with 80 wire ribbon cables.

As for the laser ware I have a Pioneer DVD-166 and Pioneer DVD-R\WR A05. I clean them both regularly (wet cleaner).

Is there a way I can test my RAM "sticks" other than changing them?

Regards,

Debbie

[LvR]

Debbie

I have on quite a few occasions encountered this file copy problem thing - and in all of those cases I removed all but the drive the OS needs to get loaded on and stuck that on the primary IDE connector, and the CDROM on the secondary IDE connector - each as master (or CS on the end connector) on their own cables in order to solve the problem.

Used DOS/W98 ( )
Fdisk /mbr and reboot
Fdisk and remove all partitions and reboot
Boot with OS CD in CDROM and let it do its thing.
Once OS is running, reconnect other drives and reconfigure Windows as required.

Something to try..............

[Debbie]

Hi Again,

Problem solved !!! Norton Ghost had nothing to do with it.
I had a good look at it over the weekend.
It was a sick of bad RAM that somtimes went "crazy that caused all the problems.

Debbie

[J1NG]

Good to hear all's fine.

J1NG

[Debbie]

Thanks J1NG for your concern. I have just put in 2 sticks of DDR 333 256Mb and the machine is at its best again.

Debbie