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[BrandonFL]

I backup my system to an external hard drive. The root directory of that drive has a VProRecovery folder with two files: RestoreWizard.Dbg and VProRecoveryStorage.ini.

When I tested the Ghost 15 SRD, it showed a dozen or so backups, some dating back to 328 days ago. That's back in the NSR 2.0 days. I no longer have most of these backups, or the folders, on my system. I wondered where the SRD got that information, and I found it in VProRecoveryStorage.ini (dated yesterday when I did my last backup).

When I run Recover My Computer now, it only shows the current "active" backup locations.

How can I get rid of all those non-existent entries in the .ini file? I'm afraid to edit the .ini file.

If I delete the VProRecovery folder, will Ghost create a new one the next time I backup my system or will I really mess things up?

Or, do I have to uninstall Ghost 15, delete the VProRecovery folder, delete the backups (no problem), and start over?

Thanks in advance!
 

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

Hi BrandonFL,

Welcome to the forum. I believe what you are looking for is under the Tools tab in Ghost 15 main console window. From there select Manage Backup Destination. You should see the recovery points listed. You can delete ones which no longer apply.

Please let me know what happens.

Allen

[BrandonFL]

I tried Tools | Manage Backup Destination before, and it didn't show any of the non-existent backup files. It only shows the current, "active" backups.

When I click on Tools | Recovery Point Browser, all the non-existent files show up. But, the window doesn't allow me to do anything with them ... other than recover them which, of course, I can't do because they don't exist.

I'd think that Ghost should automatically update VProRecovery.ini when I backup.

I guess my problem is made more complicated in that I've had NSR 2.0, Ghost 15 beta, and Ghost 14 on my system before I installed Ghost 15.

Any other suggestions greatly appreciated!

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

HI Brandon,

Were these old recovery points previously located on a different backup drive? If so, that is probably why you don't see them listed. And if this is the case, can you temporarily set your backup destination to the same as you had when those old (now non existent) recovery points were created? This should allow them to show up in the history where you could then delete them.

What type of backup drive do you have now? At any earlier time?

Edit: One thing I wanted to add particularly considering your history of different Ghost versions and more importantly the fact that you ran Ghost 15 BETA. In the end I think we should not only uninstall and reinstall Ghost but also run the Norton Removal Tool. In fact Symantec highly recommends not running BETA on a production machine unless you are willing to do a system restore afterwards.

Thanks

Allen

Message Edited by AllenM on 11-22-2009 04:11 PM

[BrandonFL]

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Were these old recovery points previously located on a different backup drive? If so, that is probably why you don't see them listed.

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OH! All the backups were on my external hard drive. The problem is that I have a multi-boot system. The external USB drive is J: on my "normal" system. However, when I boot to the various multi-boot systems, the drive letter for my external USB drive changes! I noticed different drive letters in the VProRecovery.ini, but didn't think anything of it.

I'll have to try booting up the my multi-boot systems and see what happens.

Will let you know.

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

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BrandonFL wrote:

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Were these old recovery points previously located on a different backup drive? If so, that is probably why you don't see them listed.

---

OH! All the backups were on my external hard drive. The problem is that I have a multi-boot system. The external USB drive is J: on my "normal" system. However, when I boot to the various multi-boot systems, the drive letter for my external USB drive changes! I noticed different drive letters in the VProRecovery.ini, but didn't think anything of it.

I'll have to try booting up the my multi-boot systems and see what happens.

Will let you know.

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HI Brandon,

Please take a look at page 43 of the Ghost 15 users guide. You can assign a nickname to your external backup drive such that even when the drive letter changes Ghost will recognize it as the same drive. It is highly recommended to do this when using external backup drives.

If this works I'll leave it to you to decide if you want to run the Norton Removal Tool or not. Just understand that it is always possible there could be problems later, given that you had been running a BETA version of Ghost 15 before.

If you do want to do this, please let me know and I'll give you the procedure.

Thanks

Allen

[BrandonFL]

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AllenM wrote:

One thing I wanted to add particularly considering your history of different Ghost versions and more importantly the fact that you ran Ghost 15 BETA. In the end I think we should not only uninstall and reinstall Ghost but also run the Norton Removal Tool. In fact Symantec highly recommends not running BETA on a production machine unless you are willing to do a system restore afterwards.

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I should have been a bit clearer on how my system is set up. My multi-boot system is my old Dell XP. (I haven't tried to setup multi-boot yet on my Vista Home Premium 64-bit.) On the old XP system, there is my production partition and two other bootable partitions so I can beta two programs. All I have to do to wipe out betas on these partitions is to install a clean XP. I've had Ghost 14 and 15 on my new system, but not on the old one.

I'd never put a beta on a partition I use as my production system. I've seen the problems it can cause.

Thanks!

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

Hi Brandon,

Thank you for clarifying, I'm just trying to cover all the bases.

How did the rest of it go? Were you able to make progress in getting the old recovery points deleted from the history?

Thanks

Allen

[BrandonFL]

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AllenM wrote:

How did the rest of it go? Were you able to make progress in getting the old recovery points deleted from the history?

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No, and I haven't really tried. I've gotta let go of the old machine anyway, so I'll just reinstall a clean XP on it, delete all the Ghost 15 beta and N360 backups and the VProRecovery.ini on the external drive, and start over from scratch. I'll also run the NRT on my Vista system to uninstall Ghost 15 and any remnants of Ghost 14. That should clean things up pretty well.

Thank you for the tip on nicknames!

I have a question about nicknames, though. Does the nickname apply to the entire external *physical* drive or can I give nicknames to individual partitions on the external drive? The reason I ask is that maybe by adding Beta Test 1 Backup and Beta Test 2 Backup partitions to the external drive, I can avoid confusion in the future when I beta test 360 or Ghost. Wouldn't hurt to try. It couldn't be any more confusing than what I have at present.

You've been a great help! Thank you!

[AllenM Norton Fighter]

Hi Brandon,

I think the nickname will work on more than one partition on the USB drive, but I'm not 100% sure. Should be pretty easy to test it out and confirm though.

Also, if you were not able to get rid of the old history of recovery points then uninstalling Ghost and reinstalling will take care of that. Ghost will ask during uninstall if you want to retain history or some such question (forget the exact wording) and if you answer NO to this it will definitely clean out the history and start over. The trade-off is that it will also not show your valid recovery points. Rest assured though that all your recovery points are there and can still be used, they just would not show up in the history.

Allen