Boot disk failure after Ghost 2003 image

[Cams]

My first post to the forum, and it's a stinker of a problem!

OS: XP Pro SP1 with all critical updates
Related apps: Norton Ghost 2003 (from Systemworks 2003) with all updates

After a whole week of headaches reformatting and reinstalling WinXP Pro, I got to the final stage this evening. I took a Ghost image of the working XP installation "out the box" as it were, with only drivers and Windows updates. I then took another with minimum applications for my daily work. Then finally I spent the evening installing various non-critical applications and planned on a final Ghost image.

I'm using Ghost image from Windows, not the floppy. I set it up to copy an image of the partition to my slave HDD. All went as it ought; I got the warning that Windows would have to close to carry out the task, okayed it, and sat back.

I was greeted with the message: Boot disk failure

I booted the system off my slave HDD to have a look at what was going on and here's what I found:

(I tried to take a screenshot and upload but my FTP client won't connect)

All the partitions were in tact, including the one I wanted to ghost, so I was able to ghost it anyway, this time using the Ghost floppy. There was an extra partition of 8MB that wasn't there before, called -VPSGHBOOT-; it contains the following:

GHOST (directory) containing:
-GDISK.EXE
-GHOST.EXE
-GHREBOOT.EXE
-GHSTWALK.EXE
-GHWRAP.EXE
-GSCRIPT.TXT
-imgdescp.txt

E.EX
E.EXE
E.INI
EHELP.HLP
IBMBIO.COM
IBMDOS.COM
MBR.BIN
MOUSE.COM

I tried to look at EHELP.HLP and got the message: The EHELP.HLP file is not a Windows help file, or the file is corrupted.
The content of E.INI is as follows:

;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
; This file is used to override the default configuration values of the
; E Editor. For instructions on changing these values, refer to the
; initialization file (.INI) information in your PC DOS documentation.
;-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
AUTOSAVE=0
AUTOSAVEPATH=
AUTOSHELL=ON
BACKUPPATH=
BOXCOLOR=14
COMMANDCOLOR=48
CURSORCOLOR=112
FILENAMECOLOR=7
FUNCTIONKEYTEXTCOLOR=3
MARKCOLOR=113
MENUCOLOR=48
MENUDITHERCOLOR=56
MENUSELECTCOLOR=19
MENUSTATUSCOLOR=11
MESSAGECOLOR=12
STATUSCOLOR=7
WINDOWCOLOR=23
MONOBOXCOLOR=7
MONOCOMMANDCOLOR=112
MONOCURSORCOLOR=7
MONOFILENAMECOLOR=7
MONOFUNCTIONKEYTEXTCOLOR=7
MONOMARKCOLOR=112
MONOMENUCOLOR=112
MONOMENUDITHERCOLOR=112
MONOMENUSELECTCOLOR=7
MONOMENUSTATUSCOLOR=7
MONOMESSAGECOLOR=7
MONOSTATUSCOLOR=7
MONOWINDOWCOLOR=7
DEFAULTSEARCHOPTIONS=
DISCARDTEMPFILES=OFF
ENTERKEY=STREAM
CTRLENTERKEY=NEXTLINE
EXPAND=ON
MARGINS=1 254 1
MATCHTAB=OFF
TABS=8
TEMPFILENAME=E.TMP
WINDOWMODE=TILED
MAXDELETEDRECORDS=50
RESTOREMARKAFTERSORT=ON
SETSTAY=OFF
SAVEWITHTABS=OFF
CURSORONCOMMAND=OFF
DEFAULTINSERT=ON
DEFAULTPRINTER=LPT1
MACROPATH=
EOFMODE=ON
CINDENT=3
REXXINDENT=3

I then had a look at Disk Management and found that there is 11.77GB of unallocated space on the master drive that was previously allocated, so I presume Ghost has put this aside for temporary use.

Google has yielded no help and I'm now stuck. I have thought about simply deleting the 8MB Ghost partition and then seeing whether it boots up, but I wanted to ask the board for some advice before doing so, just in case I can resolve this. If I can't I could simply format corrupt partiton and reinstall the Ghost image, but if the entire partition is corrupt, then my Ghost image no doubt will also be corrupt. I would still have the image with critical apps, but it will still be a major PITA to have to install all my non-critical apps all over again.

Any suggestions anyone?

Cams

[A Person]

I dont have an answer to your problem but a little info that may help. About that 8 meg partitio, I'm not sure what its for but whenever you install windoze it always leaves that 8 meg partition (and for some reason its always FAT32 as opposed to NTFS). When you are installing windoze it shows the presence of that partition but when you use third party apps like Partition Magic to view the partitions it doesn't recognize that it is there. I'm not sure what the partition is for but I'm guessing that Windooze has some use for it. Not sure if that helped, but good luck anyways.

[Cams]

Thankfully, I've managed to solve the problem. The solution was found hidden away on Symantec's site.

The answer lay in the Ghost reboot utility, GHREBOOT.EXE. It seems that, when working with Ghost from Windows, it creates a partition and alters the master boot record so that at reboot the Ghost partition will boot up allowing it to do its business. For some reason or other, this didn't happen. Looking at disk management shows that a possible reason is that the Ghost partition is beyond the bootable sector range of the physical disk, although I've used it before in this way without any problems.

Another possible reason is that was using PC-DOS and not MS-DOS, although I don't claim to understand the difference.

Anyway, I had to boot up to get an a:> prompt and from there, execute GHREBOOT.EXE. Problem solved.

From now on I shall only use the Ghost floppy. Thankfully, Ghost 2003 doesn't present you with a serial number and then subsequently ask for it as Ghost 2002 did. This was a real problem for me as my cloned IBM "clicking" keyboard doesn't work in DOS for some reason. Which reminds me, time to put this Microsoft one away and get the clicker back in its place!

Cams

[EmoMakesMeCry]

the 8mb partition is for windows to save the partition configuration files to or somethin like that if i remember right.

[Nevastra]

Yep, had this problem as well.
Here's an easy solution so you can stop tearing shreds off Symantec:

1. Turn off PC for 2-3 minutes
2. Have a boot disk ready (floppy or CD-ROM)
3. Restart and boot from either
4. Run F-Disk and check partition details
5. Delete the partition that Ghost has created - usually it will have changed your C: drive to E: and will have created an active partion named in the original post here, ie. -VPSGHBOOT-
6. Make your original OS partition active again
7. Reboot - fixed!:-p

This is an easy way to stop you going insane after thinking you had just had to KILLDISK the lot and start again.

You can get the basics for boot disks here: http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

PS: Everybody who wants to backup to a Ghost Image take this advice:

1. Make a PC-DOS Ghost Boot Disk
2. Follow the relevent instructions and make an image from DOS.
3. Sleep easy. :wink:

Good Luck.