[dba-Tech] Petulant PC

Arthur Fuller fuller.artful at gmail.com
Sun Jun 3 15:40:01 CDT 2007


The following is no help at all to your current situation, but since you
have used Ghost for a while, and I never have, even though I had it included
in a previous version of Norton, I thought I would ask:

Let's say your current boot drive has 250GB capacity and 150GB is occupied
when you Ghost. How big is the Ghost file? Do you need another HD upon which
to plant said file?

The reason I ask is this: a bare-bones installation already comes with my HP
computer. (This is achieved by partititioning the HD, creating a
read-only partition with the initial image on it, then allowing you to start
over anytme by re-initializing drive c: from the r-o drive d:. However, even
though I love this ability, it still means after re-initializing I have to
spend the better part of a day reinstalling Office, Office Developer,
SP1...n, NoteTab, winRAR, VS.NET, SQL 2005 and so on. So even though I can
reinit the original, I still lose a day implanting the rest.

So let's assume that the total install that satisfies me is > 50% of the
disk. Does Ghost compress it? Even if it does, I think there is no
alternative but a pair of disks of whatever size in the machine of interest.
Ok. Given that if I'm talking about a box with a 500GB disk, therefore I
need a pair, in fact three (the third on another box, so I can copy the
Ghost file to safety).

This sounds:
a) like a recursive problem;
b) reminiscent of the days of FastBack, when I needed 50 3.5 disks to back
up my HD (currently the number of dual-layer DVDs is smaller, let's see
250GB / 4.7 GB = 50 + single-layer DVDs. That assumes the drive is full. I
never let a drive get even 50% before I think it's time for another.
Fortunately prices plummet in relatively direct proportion with my
compulsive need to install more software and create new data.

Either way, it seems that backup has been momentarily possible and then
suddenly impossible, then possible, then impossible, then possible, then
impossible (repeat until exhausted). Hofstadter, so to speak.

Even the alleged massive storage of Blue-Ray apparently leaves us in the
FastBack situation of multiple disks. 200GB to back up, 50GB on a Blue-Ray.
Back in the FastBack situation. If disk 3 has a problem, I have a BIG
problem.

A.


On 6/3/07, Steve Erbach <erbachs at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> Dear Group,
>
> I've used Norton Ghost for a long time as part of Norton SystemWorks.
> I use it to do a disk to disk backup of my entire hard disk.
>
> I recently upgraded to the latest version of SystemWorks.  Lo! and
> behold! Ghost is no longer included with it!
>
> So I made a bootable diskette with Ghost on it from my wife's copy of
> SystemWorks 2003 and I've been using that.
>
> However, every time I run Ghost now I have trouble getting my computer
> going again.  The main behavior of the system is that it'll get past
> the Windows XP progress bar thingie and up comes the blue-gray
> background, just before the login form appears.  At that point, before
> the login form appears the system either reboots or shuts down.
>
> The past several times this has happened I've pretty much let it cycle
> through umpteen reboots until, finally, it stops rebooting or shutting
> itself off and allows me to log in.  Then everything's hunky-dory
> until I run Ghost again.
>
> Not this time.  Now I see a new error that the file
> C:\Windows\System32\Config\System is either missing or corrupt and
> that I should try the Repair option from the Windows XP installation
> disk.
>
> So I put in the XP install disk and everything looks like it's going
> along nicely; but when the main installation menu appears the system
> shuts itself off.  I've tried this numerous times with the same
> result. I must be insane then, to expect that something different will
> happen if I just start it over again, eh?
>
> I have a 2002 version of Russinovich's ERD Commander.  It gets ALMOST
> to the point where it asks me which hard disk to boot from when the
> system shuts down.
>
> I've run Spinrite 6 to no effect.  I only used level 2, but I think
> I'll try level 4 while I go see Shrek the Third.  That'll take 5 or 6
> hours to complete.  Right now I'm running the Ghost Check function on
> my C: drive....
>
> Does this ring any bells with anyone?
>
> --
> Regards,
>
> Steve Erbach
> Neenah, WI
> http://TheTownCrank.blogspot.com
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