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  • 1.  GSS 2.0.1 is writing bad partition tables?

    Posted May 22, 2007 09:16 PM
    This may be user error, but here is what I am doing/seeing:

    1) I'll be restoring a disk, (not partition,) image (started via the console,) and for some reason, (not always related to ghost, sometimes I unplug the wrong power cord,) it stops half way through the restore... Obviously I'm going to have to restore the image again, so:
    2) I use a ghost network boot disk, (CD) and the ghost server to restore the image, and I take all the defaults on the client.
    And then I try to boot the newly restored windows, (XP,) on the client and it blue screens, (I've turned the option on in windows.  If I hadn't it would just silently reboot and send me back to the "boot in safe mode?" menu...)

    So I boot the computer off of a windows install disk, and get to the part where it asks me where I want to install it, and it shows 2 identical 80Gig partitions on my 80Gig drive.  (If I delete one of them, it shows something like 13 MB free...)
    So I delete both partitions, (don't install windows,) and then repeat step 2, and then everything is fine...

    Am I doing something wrong in there, or is this a bug?


    I'm seeing this on a bunch of different machines/images, (some of which have 20Gig drives instead of 80's,) so I don't think it is anything special to this machine/image.  The images are all fairly simple: They have one big NTFS partition, and Windows XP on it, and it was created on the machine that I'm restoring it to.

    If I look at the partition table between steps 1 and 2, there are two partitions: a 24M FAT partition, (with a label of -VPSGHOST-,) and an 80 Gig NTFS partition, so that looks normal.

    If instead of using the ghost network boot disk, I just reboot, press Ctrl-X, and run ghost, restore the image and then ghreboot, I don't see this problem.  (But I have a bunch of people that are trained to use the CD instead of Ctrl-X, but that is a different problem...)  The CD alone doesn't cause this problem either: If I have a working machine, and use the CD to restore the image, it works fine.

    I was seeing something similar with GSS 2.0.0, although I never tracked down the cause, but I only saw it on one machine/image, and that image was a little weird anyways.  I never saw this with Ghost 7.0.


  • 2.  RE: GSS 2.0.1 is writing bad partition tables?

    Posted Jun 05, 2007 07:59 PM
    I believe this happens since your operation failed in the middle of cloning.
     
    when ghost console do a clone task, it creates a virtual partition.(24M FAT partition you are seeing.)
    after the successful cloning operation, ghost dos client will delete this virtual partition from a partition table and reboot back to windows.
    But if the operation failed in the middle, this partition will be still there.
     
    at this point, when you tried Ghost network boot CD, it might get confused with virtual partition since it is not properly deleted. (this is probably why when you ctrl-x, it worked)
     
    when you use ghreboot command, it will delete the virtual partition properly.
    so when you error out during the restore operation, run ghreboot.
    after that boot from a ghost network boot CD.
    I believe this should work.
     
    hope this help. :)

    Message Edited by Ethan Hunt on 06-05-200704:59 PM