Cannot restore image from DVD (error 518 or 1972)
I have Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 (with the two LiveUpdates), and I am trying to create a DVD that will restore an image that is currently saved on a hard drive. Here is what I've tried doing:
1. I created the image using a basic boot disk and a GhostCast session to save it on the HD of my server.
2. I opened the image in Explorer and recompiled it into 1 GB chunks. Originally, I tried using my own filenames (keeping within the 8.3 format), but eventually I started using the CDR0001.GHO filenames (just to see if that would fix it).
3. I created a boot disk (Windows PE, Standard Ghost Boot Disk), and included the first 4 spans of the image. At first, I was saving them into a subdirectory, but later I started saving them to the root.
4. Whenever I try to restore the image, I get one of the following errors, depending on which value I use for source:
- If I use @CD, I get error 1972: The current disk is not the first in the set
- If I use E:\CDR00001.GHO, I get Error 518: Not a valid image file
I saw an earlier post from a Symantec employee, where they gave a vbs script to dump the header of a Ghost file. I tried that, and the image on the HD looks good, but the one on the DVD is missing it's header! Strangely enough, only the .GHO file is missing the header: the .GHS files on DVD look OK.
I am currently recreating my boot disk using PC-DOS to see if that will help, but I'm not looking forward to rewriting my script for DOS. Plus, I can't seem to get the mouse to work on a bootable DOS CD (but that's for another posting...)
It seems like what I'm doing should be very simple. In fact, I did manage to get it to work with a very small image (only 2 spans; a 1 GB and a .5 GB). I can't figure out what I did differently between the two images.
Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. Thanks.
Comments
More information:
Interestingly enough, I created another disk for some reason (can't remember what I was trying), and then I ran the vbs script on the first image file. I noticed that instead of a header, it contains the text of another file that I added to the DVD! The file is a text file that contains the switches that will be passed (using the @filename option) to Ghost32.exe. So I went back to an earlier CD, and I noticed that instead of a header it has some other text (I don't recognize it, but it looks like some sort of code). I would have expected some binary data, but instead it has stuff like this:
"Adaptec.Adpu320" = {
class = storage,
...and so on...
I know there were some changes made to the Add Files functionality in the second LiveUpdate. Could it be that it is gettings its lines crossed, and corrupting the image file by writing the data from other files into it?
Thanks.
Thanks for te detailed explanation - great! but I have one question - what are you trying to accomplish with this?
If all you wanting is to have your image saved to DVD then I suggest just burning images created by ghost from your hard disk directly to DVD or using Ghost boot wizard via "adidtional user files" page.
I suggest not playing with image header and image names - it can get confusing. Image header is only valid for the first image and not for spans, however when ghost writes directly to CD all image spans looks the same. Also it is quite easy to misinterpret ghost span naming convention scheme (in fact it has 3 main ones starting with old DOS 8.3). I suggest you create main image either using ghost and save it to your hard disk or use ghost explorer and recompile your image and do not rename any segments.
Cheers.
I would like to have some of the image files on the boot disk, so I don't feel like I'm wasting a disk. Plus, I don't know how to restore from disk without having at least the first segment on the same disk. Would I just have to swap disks after the PreOS boots up?
I am using the Boot Wizard add user files page to add the first few Ghost files (the .GHO and first three .GHS files).
Also, I am not renaming the image files; I am using the compile to create new image files with short (8.3) names. So, for example, if the original image is "Long File Name.gho", I open it in Explorer and then compile it into 1 GB chunks named LNGNM001.GHO, etc.
I was only looking at the headers for troubleshooting purposes. Since the error I was getting was that it was an invalid file, I was curious to see why it thought it was invalid. It looks like the header is getting trashed (as far as I can tell) when I use the Add User Files page.
Thanks.
I will check whether there is a bug of some sort writing to DVD. When we create Winpe based CD we also write a lot of data and we have been checking writing code with lots of other data files but maybe there is some condition that triggers a bug? How much data are you writing to the first DVD?
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