topic Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays in Other Norton Products

Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

Bogey62 — Wed, 12 May 2010 15:33:25 GMT

I have a competing backup program that creates a bootable CD (Linux) to restore backups from. The problem is, it only sees my IDE drive as a source for an already existing backup and it only sees my two separate SATA RAID 0 arrays (two drives each) when selecting a drive to backup (not restore from). Also, it sees only one drive of the two drives that make up each of my two separate SATA RAID 0 arrays as valid and the second drive of each as unallocated space. This leads me to believe that this program won't restore to/from a RAID 0 array.

Can Norton Ghost backup/restore to/from SATA RAID 0 arrays from a bootable CD? If not, it's worthless to me and I would welcome any suggestions for competing products that can perform this task.

Thank you.

Bill

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

krgoodwin — Mon, 17 May 2010 21:39:03 GMT

I use Norton Ghost Version 14 to backup my Gateway RAID 0 array (just purchased Ghost Ver 15). It has been a long time but I had to create a Custom System Recovery Disk (SRD) with the inf file for my nvidia array (NVR32.INF). I suspect that the Driver Validation process gave me the insight necessary to create the SRD with the necessary nvidia driver. I also see in my notes that when I start networking services after booting from the Norton SRD, in order to get to my network drive where the backups are located, I have to map the network drive after I start Networking Services. I've tested all of this and it works fine.

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

Bogey62 — Fri, 21 May 2010 15:25:50 GMT

Is there any chance you could post detailed directions as to how you restored a backup to a RAID 0 array after a crash of the array or other corruption to it?

Does the restored backup just boot up normally like it did before the problem? Does Windows bug you to activate it again after a restore of the image?

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

krgoodwin — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:15:59 GMT

First off, I have never gone futher than checking to see if my recovery environment can read my backup files. And it has been so long ago, I don't really remember how I came to the conclusion of loading a specific driver (a inf file as it turned out) onto the 'custom' Symantec Recovery Disk (SRD) - but I am pretty sure that the process of "Validating the Drivers" gave me the necessary information.

The steps are quite simple:

1. Boot to the custom SRD using the bootup menu to select the Norton custom SRD (in my system hit F10 during bootup to select the device from which to boot, in this case the DVD drive that has the custom SRD).

2. Let Norton Windows boot up (EMS enabled)

3 Start Networking Services (a selection in the resultant Norton recovery environment menu)

4. Map the network drive (make sure you know the network path \\something\somthing to the drive containing the backup files and the username/password if required by the network drive)

5. Either by "View by System" or "Recover My Files" (menu options in the Norton recovery environment), select one option to use the backup files on the network drive to restore the computer system.

6. Pray.

If one has the complete system backup files on an external USB/Firewire drive, the whole recovery process is much simplier since the original Norton Ghost disk works as the boot source and the drive is immediately recognized once the Norton recovery environment is loaded. Which is one reason why my offsite backup source is an external USB drive. External USB drives with large capacities are very cheap these days plus even though I have a gigabit network, the backup to the USB device takes less than half the time it takes to backup to the network drive (both with the validation option selected). I find it hard to believe that USB 2 is much faster than gigabit Ethernet so my guess is that the gigabit network switch must slow things down a bit - but I am guessing.

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

krgoodwin — Mon, 24 May 2010 20:45:34 GMT

A few things I missed. In my system, I have what is called a software RAID system (it is an NVIDIA Raid system) which I presume is the predominant RAID configuration these days. So when I boot up I see in order: the Boot menu, the BIOS settings menu, the network boot configuration menu and the RAID setup menu -- all before Windows even gets to the party. I have never concerned myself with the network boot menu since I guess that is for booting using a network agent (??). But I know that one must properly configure the RAID disk system or Windows will never recognize the disk. Back in the beginning, I put another disk into the RAID array but didn't go thru the RAID setup menu. The system recognized the disk was installed but Windows knew nothing about it; in other words, once the Windows environment was loaded, the new disk was nowhere to be found. So depending on the specific system in question (mine is a Gateway) and what gets properly restored during a complete system recovery, I would bet that one should a least review the BIOS settings and the RAID configuration before Windows gets a chance to start. In my system, each one of these menus is chosen by a specific F (function) key which one beats on with high frequency as the system boots up hoping to get things properly configured before Mr. Gates makes an appearance.

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

krgoodwin — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:08:51 GMT

Even more is returning to my meager mind. I see that back on 6/29/08 I posted a message on how I got smart enough to create a custom SRD with the necessary nvidia RAID drivers. I don't see how this board delineates past messages (no message numbers) but the title of the message in this forum was "NVIDIA RAID and the Ghost 12/Ghost 14 Recovery (SRD) Environment - Solution" I remember that Ghost 12 wasn't working at all, so Norton sent me the then brand new Ghost 14 program (for free no less) which solved my SRD problem (in conjunction with obtaining the necessary nvidia RAID drivers for the recovery environment). So I doubt if any of this provides you with a detailed solution since it is geared to my situation with its nvidia RAID system but maybe you'll understand the basis of the last step in the procedure I detailed two posts prior to this one. (I've got to get a life!!)

Re: Norton Ghost and RAID 0 arrays

Bogey62 — Mon, 24 May 2010 21:14:11 GMT

Great posts and thanks a million for all that info. I feel a little more confident now (Windows is forced on most of us that know better -- if ya know what I mean.) ;)