Other Norton Products

[tpperlman]

NOTE: I was unable to open a support issue because Norton Ghost 15 is not in the list of products on the "Open Issue" page. The highest version available for Ghost is v12. Kindly fix that.

I have been unable to make backups for weeks now and recently upgraded to Norton Ghost 15.0.1.36526 in an attempt to fix it. I have read nearly every thread even mentioning ED800012 or CRC validation errors on this site and beyond. My backups all return the following error:

• Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Drive Backup of System Reserved (*:\), Windows 7 (C:\).
• Error ED800012: The internal structure of the recovery point file (CRC Validation) is invalid, damaged or unsupported. (UMI:V-281-3215-6071)

I had initially thought that there was a problem with the operating system, so I completely reformatted and installed Windows 7 SP1 x64. Flash forward to the newly loaded O/S and I am still having the same error above.

My system stats:

• Windows 7 Ultimate SP1 x64 (freshly installed)
• EVGA nForce 680i Motherboard, Intel Core 2 CPU (no overclocking)
• 8 GB RAM DDR2 PC-800 (new)
• 1.8 TB SATA HD, NVIDIA RAID-1, evenly split into Drive C (92% free) and Drive D (73% free)
• 500 GB SATA HD, Drive Z dedicated to backups (92% free)
• 500 GB SATA HD, Drive T dedicated to temporary storage and non-vital files (33% free)
• 1.8TB NAS Device on LAN, Drive S
• Latest Norton Internet Security

Here are the steps I have taken to diagnose the situation:

• Ran CHKDSK /R on all drives --> all good
• Defragged all disks using latest Diskeeper 2011 (turned OFF for all backup testing)
• Changed all SATA cables, and even changed SATA ports where able
• Ran cold-booted MEMTEST for 8 hours --> no errors
• Tried diagnostic procedures from other postings, and all combinations of the following (even using different disks and the NAS):
• One-Time Backups --> ED800012
• Backups with/without Spanning --> ED800012
• Backups with/without Compression --> ED800012
• Backups with/without limiting number of sets --> ED800012
• Edited the registry testing all four REG file configurations mentioned in http://www.symantec.com/docs/TECH54676 --> ED800012
• Tried adding the "v2i overlapped io" value under Sme key --> ED800012
• Cold booted from the Ghost Recovery CD
• Backup with verification --> Succeeded
• Verify within the Recovery Environment --> Ran validation on the same file 3 times, failed the first two times within seconds and then Valid the third time (???)
• Verify the backup within Win7 --> Backup is Valid

So basically I can get somewhat of a reliable backup when booting from the Recovery CD but even validation there is spotty. Even using different backup devices makes no difference. I have been using the Ghost product for a long time and enjoy it VERY much.

Hopefully someone can help me get this resolved as I work from home in my own business and REALLY need to have reliable backups.

Thank you and have a wonderful evening!

--Phil

[Brian_K]

Phil,

Even though Memtest showed no errors, can you try temporarily replacing your RAM modules with known working RAM.

[tpperlman]

Thanks for the reply! I can go back to the 4 GB modules I had in two weeks ago, but the problem started before I had the new RAM.

I will try it however, but I'd probably want to run another overnight MEMTEST to confirm they are working as well.

[Brian_K]

Bad RAM is the commonest cause of Validation failure. Try Microsoft Windows Memory Diagnostic too. But changing the modules is often the best test. Strange that both sets of modules seem to fail. Maybe try removing one module at a time to see if a single module is faulty.

[tpperlman]

FIrst off, thank you for all the help and advice. After testing and replacing memory, cables, hard drives, backup destinations I had come to the conclusion that the problem was within the motherboard itself. I assume either the integrated memory controller or hdd controller was not handling the stress of a backup and was the cause of failure.

Since replacing my EVGA 680i with a Asus P5Q-E everything seems to be humming along happily now and backups are working flawlessly. The only unfortunate thing is the amount of time lost in diagnosing the issue. Either way, I think I can squeak another 5 years out of my quad core beast :)  Take care and thanks again!