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Restored Ghost Image Won't Boot

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sjjnks

MIS
May 28, 2002
10
US
Hey all:

We've been using Ghost for years with no problems. Because so many of our users require unique software builds, we Ghost each machine after we've gotten it all squeaky clean and running perfectly. Then we give it to the user and wait for them to destroy it. When they do, we load the image back on it (after saving what we can of their work files) and redeploy. One hour job instead of a whole day.

This scenario worked well on every make/model machine we used, until we migrated from W98 to W2K. Now we have a problem but only on the Gateway Solo 5300 laptops. After building a 5300 with W2KPro from scratch and formatting NTFS everything works great. We get an image without a problem. But when we try to put that image back on a hard drive and put that hard drive back in the same machine, it won't boot. I can boot to floppy or CD without a problem. I can see the data on the drive by mounting it in another machine with W2K and viewing it there. But booting to the hard drive will go through POST to where it should start loading W2K and the cursor will just flash in the upper left hand corner.

Get this: I can put that same exact hard drive in a Gateway Solo 5350 and it *will* boot! But it won't boot in any 5300. I can take an old Ghost image for a 5300 that was built with W98, restore that to the hard drive in question and it will boot just fine.

I've upgraded the BIOS to the latest version available on Gateway's site. I gotta think it's something with NTFS and how it's handled by those models, but can't find any help from Symantec, Microsoft, Gateway or the rest of the 'net. Other W2K/NTFS images work perfectly on other models. And if I build a 5300 from scratch, format NTFS, it works fine. Just not after a Ghost.

Oh, yeah...we're running Ghost 7.5 Corporate Edition. I don't want to focus too much on the fact that it is a Solo 5300--its just that that's the only one we have that fails. Has anyone seen this on any other make/model? Actually, we used Solo 2550's prior to that and they may exhibit the same thing...I don't know. I haven't tested them enough to know for sure. Anything we have prior to that we haven't tried putting W2K on so wouldn't know for sure. But any subsequent model (5350, 450, etc) works fine.

Sorry this is so long...just wanted to get all the info out there. Probably still missed something. It's just so wierd and haven't seen anyone else with the same kind of problems.

Ohh...speaking of forgetting to include all the info...we ran GDISK /MBR and restoring the image with the -fdsp switch.

Thanks in advance for any help/suggestions.
 
Have you try restoring the boot sector (run fixboot from recovery console) or booting from a 2k boot floppy (formatted floppy with ntldr, ntdetect.com & boot.ini copied to it)? That would determine if its a problem with the bios passing control to the boot sector (I've no experience with the hardware you're using, so just a suggestion).
 
I've had a simlilar sort of problem, where when I clone a Acer Veriton 5500 (Desktop) the Original Disk boots, but the (Disk)clones seem not to boot, (infact when the image is present on the HDD, not even the CD or Floppy boots!) Finally I Attributed the fault to the Norton Ghost Version I was using at the time - I think it was 6 something or so, it seemed to miss something with NTFS.
After using Ghost 2003 I managed to get rid of the problem.

I dont think ur problem is exactly what I experienced, must be something with the BIOS - Large Disk Support etc (Bcos it seemed to work with later models)

I think if u had a primary Fat 32Partition (Just for experimental purposes - say C drive with 100 MB) Maybe thats a solution (Keep the W2K on the Extended NTFS - D Drive)
LasithG

Lasith G.
B.Sc (Hons), MIEEE
Coordinator - ITRC,USJP
 
sjjnks;

Have you resolved this? and what was the outcome?

Thnx


Mark
<O>
_|_
 
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