Ghost Solution Suite

Using GSS 1.1

I am trying to restore an image inside a vmware ESX server 2.5.2 but Ghost is unable to recognize the LSI SCSI disk.

When I try to do a console task I get the following error:

Date : Wed Nov 1 10:02:26 2006
Error Number: (11030)
Message: Invalid destination drive
Version: 8.3.0.1331 (Nov 28 2005, Build=1331)
OS Version: DOS v7.10
Command line arguments: -noide -clone,dst=1:1,mode=prestore,src=@MCPCOA524push736 -batch -jm=U -sgt
Active Switches :
AutoName

When I try restore an image manually the disk is greyed out.

Anyone else try to restore to vmware ESX 2.5 server?

One step closer - looks like vmware creates raw partitions with no partition table.
I had to create the partition table by using fdisk.

Is there an option for ghost to be able to write to it without using fdisk?

For a partition restore operation ghost needs the disk to have a valid partition table - there is no flag to allow the partition table to be created during the partition restore.

The console client agent software includes gdisk.exe. Hence an alternative could be to add an additional task to Console that executes a command in the ghost partition to initialize the mbr. The task would execute the command string 'gdisk' with arguments
'<disk> /mbr /wipe /y' (e.g. 1 /mbr /wipe /y). After this task has run the partition restore task should work correctly as the mbr on disk 1 will be initialized.

Excellent - Thanks I used other methods to accomplish the same thing - but I like your answer because I can do it all from the console!

OK - next step

Apparently when deploying to ESX Server 2.5.x they only use SCSI controllers (BUSLogic and LSI Logic) unfortunately when I captured the image it used IDE controllers. So after deploying the image I get a Blue Screen of Death and it reboots. I can get to the screen that asks for "Safe Mode" but selecting "Safe Mode" does not work either.

Is there any way to use the current image or do I have to "Patch" the image prior to capture, and what would I need to do?

Further but still need more help

HI Mark
The info I sent you concerning setting up multihal sysprep and multiple IDE/SCSI controllers should do what you want. The information has to be merged into the registry of the doner workstation first.
also I don't know if this is the case but with VMware you have two ways to create the disk. One is to allow the disk to take space as required, if it is set this way ghost will fail but if you set the disk size initially and allow the virtual machine to pre alocate the space ghsot works fine.


cheers Gary
PS. VMware P2V would probably work better if you are using ESX server