Ghost problems with IBM xSeries 3

[PGNMAN]

I am using the ServerGuide 6.06 CD to setup the drives. The IBM partition is created and I continue through the ServerGuide version of the Win2k installation (which is bad by the way...) NOTE: I also used UpdateXpress CD v1.04 to update my firmware.

I install Win2k Server and a few apps - we are creating a base image for all of our servers - and then I run SYSPREP and image the partition with Ghost. Then we are installing apps onto the new server that has been created from the image to create machines with exchange, web, infrastructure, application.

I create a Ghost image of the partition - not the entire disk, since I am using this image for serveral models (x342, x360, x232)

On the new machine, I boot with the ServerGuide CD and wipe the drives clean and re-initialize the array. I create a RAID1 set for the OS and RAID 5 the rest of the drives (I have tried different combinations of RAID1 & RAID5 to see if this may have been the problem). I then create the system partition and exit ServerGuide. I boot from a network diskette and map a drive to the share with my image. I run Ghost and click Local/Partition/From Image and then create a partition and pull down the image. When I reboot the machine, I get the message &quot;Windows 2000 could not statr because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows 2000 Root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe&quot;

I follow the procedure AGAIN, and put the same Ghost image on top of the same partition I just created, and it starts jsut fine. I have been pestering IBM for 2 months and they have not responded. Any help would be appreciated,

Thank you

Tom Barnett

 

[biercing]

Hi again,
Another solution for x235 (1.10) + serveraid5i (6.10) (write back) + raid5 + ghost 2003:

norton ghost boot wizard -> standard ghost boot disk,
I've copied 3 additional files onto it:
qemm386.sys, ipsraspi.sys, ipsrdos.idp

autoexec.bat (not changed):
@echo off
SET TZ=GHO-01:00
MOUSE.COM
echo Loading...
CD GHOST
GHOST.EXE

config.sys:
device=qemm386.sys
DEVICE=A:\IPSRASPI.SYS /F
LASTDRIVE = Z

and don't forget to disable the direct aspi/scsi access among ghost options!

And now Ghost is writing the partition image onto a DVD-RW!



Good luck!
b.

 

[d1novak]

I have a different situation.
We use ghost to image an entire classroom from a file on a 10000 rpm 5 disk scsi raid 5 server.
oddly up against a single 7200 ide drive server, the 5 disk raid 5 images the room only 3times faster. 90mb/min vs 30mb/min. And each server ghosting only one machine at a time, the ide is faster.
Is this the best i can hope for or should it be screaming fast?
What am i missing
any help is greatly appreciated
Dan

 

[SpongeBob777]

d1novak, you probably need Ghost Enterprise, which allows you to use Ghost Multicasting to downloas an image to multiple machines at the same time

Hope this helps

 

[DaliRides]

I have an x345 server and am having trouble pushing down a ghost image. I have the image created, I can connect to the Multicast session, but once connected and I hit send, the image is not pushed down to the server.

I have the following:
System ROM BIOS – 1.13
Raid 5i BIOS – 6.10.24 (RAID 0+1)
Diagnostics – 1.04
Hard Drive FW – 1.15 (S27P)
Integrated Systems Management Processor – 1.07

I have tried using the -fni switch as well and that did not work either.

My AutoExec.bat is:
@echo off
prompt $p$g
\net\netbind.com
MOUSE.COM
cd \ghost
echo Loading...
GHOST.EXE -fni -fdsp

My config.sys is:
DEVICE=\net\protman.dos /I:\net
DEVICE=\net\dis_pkt.dos
DEVICE=\net\e1000.dos

 

[LubosNikolini]

Besides following all previous recommendations (updating FW,BIOS,latest drivers,using DOS ASPI drivers for ServeRAID and so on - thank you guys fot that!), if you still have problems with Ghost, try following switches (tested for Ghost 8):

c:\ghost.exe -fdsz -fro -szel -fns -fnu

Especially usefull are switches &quot;-fns&quot; (disable direct ASPI/SCSI) and &quot;-fnu&quot; (disable UltraDMA - rather uses PIO). After using them, miracurously Ghost stopped freezing, hanging and behaves perfectly!

 

[LeoVilla]

Thanks all,

For me the working configuration was.
MS 6.22
Ghost 2003
Server x345 ServeRaid 5i

Config.sys
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmemff
Device=EMM386.exe noems x=d000-dfff i=b000-b7ff
Dos=High,umb
Files=150
Buffers=99
DEVICE=A:\ipsraspi.sys /f
LASTDRIVE=Z


c:\ghost.exe -fdsz -fro -fns -fnu

 

[eilz]

Ghost works with a few teaks (my test was imaging raid 1 image on IBM 345 back to another IBM 345 with Raid 5 using 5i (Tried and tested OK vise-versa also)

1. If you use the below boot disk settings and make sure to add the ipsraspi.sys file to your dos boot disk.

autoexec.bat
LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:MSCD001 /L:X
LH smartdrv /x

config.sys
device=a:\ipsraspi.sys /f
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF
DEVICE=EMM386.EXE noems i=b000-b7ff
DOS=HIGH,UMB
DEVICE=OAKCDROM.SYS /D:MSCD001
FILES=100
BUFFERS=30
STACKS=9,256

2. Run ghost -fdsz -fro -fns -fnu (-fnu should be enough)

3. Ghost image onto the IBM setup as Raid 5 config. This should complete without freeze ups, once finished restart server.

4. Once restarted if you get ..&quot;Missing Operating System..&quot; then run fdisk from boot disk and set the disk to active and restart.

5. Once restarted you may get the message ...&quot;NTLDR missing..&quot; and need to fix the master boot sector

6. Boot using Windows 2000 CD and run Recovery Console, and then run fixmbr

7. Restart and all should ne ok. Note that you may not always get errors 4 or 5 but this is how to fix them.

Eilesh Gondalia, UK,
Senior Server Specialist
(looking for work)
egondalia@yahoo.co.uk

 

[BigFinn]

My experience:

Run Ghost with -fnu on a SCSI system. The ASPI drivers need to be on the boot floppy as mentioned above.

Ghost takes a long while to browse network drives for some reason, it seems to lock up for about a minute while browsing where to image to/from, but then comes back to life and works fine. It appears to have crashed, but in fact it hasn't. I think I spent a long time troubleshooting a problem that I didn't in fact have!

Anyone care to comment?

BF

 

[govindshankar]

I am having similar trouble..
Have ServeRAID 6i
I tried Norton Ghost 2003. It goes all the way to see the drives. When I select the Source drive to back from, it hangs with an hourglass.
I tried Deploy Center too, and had similar problems..It cannot load the RAID Drivers at all

Please Help..

 

[JaySmith888]

This is a message for lmbedore. I am having the same exact problem with Ghost 7.0/x345/5i controller/RAID 1. After the image is put on the server and rebooted, I get to a blank screen with a blinking cursor. I contacted Jerry Bennett as I work at IBM myself and he couldnt really help me. He suggessted using noems for emm386.exe which I dont think is going to help me. Did you finally figure out how to get around this issue?? Any help will be GREATLY appreciated!!! Thanks again.

 

[surfndude44]

Hi

I have an IBM eServer x220 with an IBM ServRaid 4L installed and three drives. There are two arrays, RAID 1 and 0. I have Ghost 7.5 Enterprise edition and am trying to create a DOS boot diskette that ghost sees and allows me to restore images on the 0 array to the RAID 1 array. I followed this thread from the beginning creating a boot diskette and copying the IPSRASPI.SYS and IPSRDOS.IDP files, but so far no luck. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

regards, Tom

 

[Stiddy]

use powerquest, they dont care about raid partitions, in fact it works much faster than ghost

 

[MBragg]

I'll add to this.

xSeries 240
ServRAID 4L
Maxtor External USB

Trying to create an image on a USB drive and failing miserably. Can see the RAID drive in Ghost but as soon as I add the driver from Ghost for external USB either the guest application or Ghost app fail with an EMM: "unrecoverable privileged operation error".
I have tried loading the USB driver before the EMM386 and the driver loads but then I get the error. If I add it after the EMM386 it doesn't see the USB drive but i don't get the error with either Ghost or Guest apps.

Symantec won't help because it is a RAID system.

 

[trez1]

Different Subject but you may be able to help.

I have a IBM 8647-4AX with ServRaid 5i and 3-36g drives. Trying to install either w2k server or w3k standard server. I am unable to get the os installed. Have had numerous calls with ibm and had most of the system replaced by ibm. Any suggestions? Without the 5i installed the os loads ok. Have also used a ServRaid 6i. Any suggestions. BIOS, firmware and drivers are current as of today.

 

[ChrisM510]

Thanks to all who contributed...I got Symantec Ghost 7.5 Corp Ed to work on an IBM xSeries with a ServeRAID 6i controller and 6 36.4GB drives in a RAID5 array. Here is my config (MS-DOS 6.22):

Autoexec.bat:

LH MOUSE.COM
cd ghost
ghost.exe -fni

Config.sys:

DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmemff
Device=EMM386.exe noems x=d000-dfff i=b000-b7ff
Dos=High,umb
Files=150
Buffers=99
DEVICE=A:\ipsraspi.sys /f
LASTDRIVE=Z


Hope this helps someone like your posts helped me!

 

[rlweitz]

Thanks a million! These tips saved me mucho time. I'm running an XSeries 345 with a ServerRAID 6m card. BIOS 1.15, ServerRAID Firmware at 6.10.85 Ghosting from a RAID 1 and RAID 5 array to a standalone FAT32 drive. I'm seeing a minute or so lag from screen to screen as mentioned above, but all is working. Used Bootdisk configuration from bootdisk.com for 98SE No RAM Drive. Grabbed emm386.exe off a Windows 98SE workstation.
Here is my config.

Config.sys
DEVICE=HIMEM.SYS /testmemff
device=emm386.exe noems x=d000-dfff i=b000-b7ff
DOS=HIGH,UMB
FILES=150
BUFFERS=99
DEVICE=cd1.SYS /D:banana
DEVICE=A:\RAID\IPSRASPI.SYS /F
LASTDRIVE=Z

Autoexec.bat
@echo off
lh smartdrv.exe /x
rem lh mouse.com
lh MSCDEX.EXE /D:banana /L:Z
SET COMSPEC=A:\COMMAND.COM
Z:
rem Ghost is on my CD (Z drive)

Ghost Command Line:
ghost -fdsz -fro -szel -fns -fnu

 

[hieyeque1]

I noticed some folks are experiencing problems when their servers have more than 4GB's of RAM. The error they recieve is "No DPMI Memory". I found this out on the web and it fixed my problems!
DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF /NUMHANDLES=128

The key here is adding the /NUMHANDLES=128

I also added this line:
DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-DFFF I=B000-B7FF

my whole config.sys looks like this:
DEVICE=A:\HIMEM.SYS /TESTMEM:OFF /NUMHANDLES=128
DEVICE=A:\EMM386.EXE NOEMS X=D000-DFFF I=B000-B7FF
DOS=UMB
FILES=100
BUFFERS=30
DEVICE=A:\CPQIDECD.SYS /D:CDROM
LASTDRIVE=Z

Hope this helps.

 

[SirDragoRn]

Hello,
this thread is very helpfull...
But !
After several try i obtain a "good" result.
I can create a image of full disk, i can create a image of a partition and i can restore a partition from a virtual ghost partition or boot ghost partition BUT I CAN'T restore a full disk from virtual or real boot ghost partition.

When i attempt to restore a full disk from a virtual boot partition (or real) ghost bug and the server restart without finish the task in ghost console. And this until i cancel manualy the task.

If, after one attempt from virtual partition , i try to restore from boot floppy, ghost tell me that it must move the virtual partition after restore, it do and restart and after it restore.
Anyone can explain me !!
Ps: sorry for langage , i am a poor little french boy !!

 

[SirDragoRn]

Oups !!
Correction :
the problem appear when i want to restore the boot partition.
Thus the result is not a good result !
please help me .

 

[hieyeque1]

SirDragoRn, I had some problems imaging a server once, and I finally tried to run CHKDSK before I imaged the server. After doing this, I was able to create a new image that I could restore without difficulty. I hope this helps - I know it's a simple solution you may have already tried.