Customized recovery disk won't boot (Ghost 14)

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1

PROBLEM:  My customized Symantec Recovery Disk won't boot.

DETAIL: I downloaded the Symantec Recovery Disk .ISO from the Symantec web site and burned it to a CD. It would not cold-boot. I used Ghost 14 to make a customized recovery disk. Ghost 14 said the customized disk had all the drivers I needed, but it failed in the same manner, as follows:

The first screen ("Windows is loading files…") completes and switches to the second screen, which shows a small progress thermometer with green bars moving through it. After a few seconds the green bars freeze and nothing further happens. I waited five minutes to be certain it was frozen.

If I can't solve this problem, I must return to Ghost 3. Suggestions, please.

MY COMPUTER:

Windows XP Home Edition with SP3
ASUS A7N8X-E motherboard
AMD x86 Family 6 Model 10 Stepping 0 ~2191 MHz processor
3Gb memory
ATI RADEON X850 Series video card
Two SATA HDD
One IDE HDD
One 3.5-inch floppy drive
One DVD/CD burner
One CD burner
Various USB flash drives
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The Ghost SRD is based on Windows PE (Preinstall Environment). Can you boot the Windows install disc? How about disconnecting anything that is not needed, flash drives, printers, etc.

3

My Windows installation disk boots up with no problems.

redk9258 wrote:

The Ghost SRD is based on Windows PE (Preinstall Environment). Can you boot the Windows install disc? How about disconnecting anything that is not needed, flash drives, printers, etc.

 

4

Regardless of drivers it should still boot all the way.

 

Try taking the original ISO and burn it again to a CD at a slow speed.

 

Edit- I just noticed you have 2 optical drives, try it on both drives as well, hopefully one of them is not USB.

 

5

Both my optical drives are internal.

 

I UNinstalled Ghost 14, rebooted, then REinstalled it.

 

Using the burner I hadn't used before, I burned a new recovery disk from my ISO (v.14.05). It would not boot on either drive, freezing at the same point during the loading of Windows PE. I used the new CD to make a customized recovery disk, but it froze at the same point.

 

A friend has Ghost 15, and he said his installation disk also acts as a recovery disk. He brought it over and I tried to boot it. At the point where the Ghost 14 recovery disks froze, the Ghost 15 disk consistently brought up a blue screen:

IRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

Technical information:

*** STOP: 0x0000000A (0x0000003C, 0x00000002, 0x00000000, 0x8B459BC)

As I said before, my Windows installation disk boots fine.

 

I thought my downloaded ISO might be corrupt, but if so, why wouldn't the Ghost 15 installation disk boot? If you think it would be useful to try, I could download a fresh copy of the ISO. I can't recall using the old copy before, so I don't know whether it ever worked.

 

I can't find the download URL on the Symantec web site. Do you know where I can download it?

 

Before I throw in the towel and return to Ghost 3, are there any more suggestions?

6

emmons92627,

 

I suggest you contact Symantec Support. They should have an ISO that works on your hardware.

7

You can download the disk here, but like you said the Ghost 15 retail disk should have worked.

http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20091016094409EN&pvid=nghost_15&selected_nav=5

 

You might want to try temporarily disconnecting all USB devices, including any USB printer.

When windows is at the point logo and animation it is scanning the system hardware and something is making it hang.

 

Dave

8

That stop error wasn't there while I was looking for that link.

 

Brian- I'm curious (as always) they have a special disk availible for hardware incompatibilities?

9

 

DaveH wrote:

 

 I'm curious (as always) they have a special disk availible for hardware incompatibilities?

Yes. I've seen several reports of people getting a special ISO from Symantec.

 

10

I disconnected all USB peripherals and disconnected the printer, which was plugged in to the parallel port. Made no difference.

 

The URL you gave me is for downloading the Ghost 15 recovery disk ISO. I'm downloading it now, but is it backwardly compatible with Ghost 14?

 

 

DaveH wrote:

You can download the disk here, but like you said the Ghost 15 retail disk should have worked.

http://us.norton.com/support/kb/web_view.jsp?wv_type=public_web&docurl=20091016094409EN&pvid=nghost_15&selected_nav=5

 

You might want to try temporarily disconnecting all USB devices, including any USB printer.

When windows is at the point logo and animation it is scanning the system hardware and something is making it hang.

 

Dave

 

11

Thanks, i didn't know that. I wonder whats different.

 

Maybe an updated hal,  I can see that there is a Vista hotfix for stop 0x0A errors

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/929777

 

Edit- Yes, the Ghost 15 recovery disk is backward compatable.

But if that doesn't work you should take Brian's suggestion and contact support

 

 

 

 

12

The Ghost 15 recovery disk made no difference.

 

Thanks, guys, for all your effort. I'll try to e-mail Norton Support, but I've just about run out of hope on this one. I don't mind going back to Ghost 3 if necessary, but I will lose two backups, one of them somewhat important.

 

Ghost 14 was a gift, so at least I didn't lose any money.

 

Thanks again.

 

13

If your in a bind or support can't help you, you may want to try removing a stick of RAM

I know I saw that error before, this is a long topic that was never resolved but the person said that they could boot with no errors after remving some RAM but always got the same stop error with all the RAM

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Unable-to-Boot-from-Custom-Ghost-14-0-Recovery-Disk-BSOD/td-p/210470/highlight/true

 

Best of luck,

Dave

14

Could try to build the SRD on Win PE 3.0.

15

Dear Dave,

 

It gives me great pleasure to report that YOU NAILED IT!

 

A little while ago I switched memory chips, and I should have known to check that the first time I saw a blue screen.

 

A friend gave me three 1 Gb memory sticks (Kingston KVR400X72C3A) to replace my two 512K sticks (Kingston KVR400X64C3A).

 

The computer seemed to function OK, but when I tried the recovery disk several days later, I got the blue screen that tipped you off. If I want to increase my memory, I'll get larger versions of my original model.

 

Life looks bright again. Thanks to everyone for the help.

 

 

 

16

Excellent! glad you figured that out.

However I wouldn't give up yet.   When you get some free time you might want to try and see if you can find a combination of 2 of those new sticks that will work.  The new and old RAM are both PC3200 and should be compatable.  Chances are just one of the "new" sticks has a problem and it seems like 2GB is a "sweet spot" for using XP, I'm sure you noticed an improvement over 1GB.

 

Thorough RAM tests take so long to run, booting to the recovery disk might give you a quick way to find if 2 of those sticks will work for you.

 

But either way I'm glad you got it working and was able to figure out the cause.

Dave

 

Edit- I was mistaken.  Both are 400MHz PC3200 but the bigger ones are ECC and you would have to check that Mobo to see if it supports ECC, a lot or most really don't as far as I know.