Ghost Solution Suite

Hi,

I am new to this community and have just recently started working with Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5.1 Trial Version and I ran into a problem where I create a boot image to restore a Windows XP OS and when I try to boot on the faulty computer from the disk image, all I see is the progress bar "Windows is Loading Files' go to the end, and then when it reaches the end it just hangs there. I left it for quite some time (few hours) and still nothing. I do not see any evidence of it even getting as far as opening the start.bat file. I have tried to include all the necessary drivers, so I do not think that is the issue. Am I possibly missing some essential settings that prevent the computer from moving on to start the restore? My concern is that I might be missing someting when I am going through the Boot Wizard to create the recovery disk. Please comment or respond if you are familiar with this issue, with any tips/suggestions of what I should try. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you

-Regards, Alex

notes:

Using the Trial Version of Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5.1

and running it on a Dell Windows 7 OS trying to create a boot image for a Windows XP OS

You don't mention whether you have added the appropriate SATA drivers for your hard disk subsystem, which need to be the Vista 32 bit drivers for your hardware, since WinPE V2 is based on the Vista kernel.

I'm guessing your reference to a disk image means that you have written the boot image to an optical disk, so do not exclude the possibility that the optical image is reading 100%. Try it on another system, preferably an old one with IDE devices, if available.

Here are three links that I would suggest to get you up and running:

http://www.symantec.com/business/support/index?page=content&id=TECH110134

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/do-i-have-correct-driver-winpe

https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe

Hi again,

First of all would like to say thank you for responding so quickly.

Now to answer your inquiries:

1) I have added all of the drivers in the Ghost Boot Wizard menu when I select Windows PE then "Edit" then I select WinPE-512 and then go to "Edit' and I tried to do "Add all drivers", so I do not think I am missing a driver.

2) I have created multiple discs (DVD-R) and tried this process multiple times, so we can rule out the problem with a possible bad DVD.

3) The computer I am trying to restore has a Via Technologies VT 6421 V-RAID CDROM (SATA) chip, so I am wondering maybe I need to download an additional driver and add it for this specific chipset?

4) I have tried to restore both on a SATA and on IDE and I still get the same issue, just see the "Windows is Loading Screen" and nothing after that.

5) Another question is when I am going through the Ghost Boot Wizard I select the "Standard Ghost Boot Disk" option then go "Next" and then "Next" again and then when I hit "Next" again I get to the client settings and I do not add/select anything, just go "Next" and then selct "DHCP will assign IP settings then finish off the wizard and start buring onto a DVD. Am I missing something? Should I be configuring settings on the Client settings page?

Please let me know

-Regards, Alex

In response

1.  The drivers included with Ghost are those that were current back when Vista was released. The whole point of providing the Ghost Boot Wizard is to enable users to ADD drivers for modern chipsets that were not available at the time that Vista was released. Otherwise Symantec could just provide an ISO file to burn to a CD and not give you a tool to add, then select, external drivers.

3. Yes, that would indeed be a good move.

4. This is a little worrying as WinPE runs from RAM and should still boot on an IDE system even if there is no hard disk.

5. Unfortunately I don't recall the options in enough detail to guide you here - but I'm sure one of the other forums regulars will double check your actions. There is no point loading all the drivers however, and it would be better, and avoid potential conflicts, if you only add drivers that your KNOW are required.

Hi,

 Yeah, that makes much more sense now how you explained it. I will look for the necessary driver and try to add it and see if I get any satisfactory results. Just to clear any confusion, the computer I am trying to restore DOES run but I am trying to make it restore automatically when I put the DVD disk in the drive (like a recovery disc if something goes wrong). The computer I am trying to restore cannot be used to make recovery discs so thats why I am using Symantec Ghost. Thanks for the help so far I appreciate it...

-Regards, Alex

Ok. So I found the necessary driver for my chipset and added it to the driver list. I burned the disk and tried it but still nothing has changed, still see the "windows is loading files" and thats it. I don't know maybe I am supposed to do something else after creating the DVD from the ghost boot wizard? Im trying to go through the implementation manual and the help menu but for now I do not see what could be the issue?! Any help or suggestions would be appreciated.

Thanks

Alex

The process is (usually) pretty bulletproof, so I'm at something of a loss as to what else to suggest. 

Have you tried on a different machine?  I'd like to exclude the possibility that some bizarre hard fault, probably with a RAM chip, is causing the boot to hang.  I'd also like to point you again at the third link I posted earlier which takes you through the steps of building your own WinPE boot solution, using the same version of WinPE as used by Ghost. This enables you to build a boot solution that can run from a USB stick as well as CD which makes it a lot easier to update.

Regarding your test machine - does it have a UEFI bios, and if so, can you turn off the UEFI option?

If your bios has hard disk settings which include a "compatibility mode", try turning on compatibility mode.

How big is the WinPE image on your CD ?  Normally I would expect the fileset to be a bit less than 200Mb unless you have a lot of drivers in there.

If you're still stuck let me have your email address.

OK i just got it into safe mode and I select the command line option, and I see windows is loading the different drivers, and then it stops on disk.sys and says please wait? Any suggestions?

It comes back to looking like a disk access problem, or a hardware problem. Have you tried a different machine as I suggested earlier?

OK we tried on older machine, it worked. Having problems with newer machine so it must be that we dont have the necessary drivers for the newer machine. Plus the older machine had a 400mHz processor, and the newer one has a 800Mhz processor which might be an issue?

The processor speed should not be an issue, so I would suggest focusing your attention on the drivers.

Thank you for all of the help. I did try it on an older machine and it worked, so the issue is with the new hardware, and therefore our problem must be related to missing drivers that are necessary. Thanks again for the support, it was greatly appreciated!

Regards,

Alex