Defragging ghost files

Ghost seems to create very large files, so if you save all of your files on a usb hard drive. one day you'll notice that if you try to defrag that drive, you simply can't . windows xp and windows 7 will not defrag a large drive with ghost files on it.

 

is there some other program that will do this or should I not worry about this at all.?

 

Just asking

 

 

Another thing to note about the backup files on the USB drive, It probably doesn't hurt to be more fragmented than the drive with your OS on it. And, because the V2I files are so big, there are still large chunks that are continuous. In other words the drive is not as fragmented as it really looks.

Ghost seems to create very large files, so if you save all of your files on a usb hard drive. one day you'll notice that if you try to defrag that drive, you simply can't . windows xp and windows 7 will not defrag a large drive with ghost files on it.

 

is there some other program that will do this or should I not worry about this at all.?

 

Just asking

 

 

I don't see how a v2i file could be any more fragile than any other file on the system.

But since they can be so big, it takes an awful lot of continuous free space to be able to defrag them.

 

I also notice that a partition being used just to hold images gets pretty fragmanted because each new base image is usually larger then the last so when old images are deleted the free space is not big enough for a new base image so it gets fragmented.

Doing incrementals in between the base images add to the fragmentation because they fill in blocks of otherwise free space.

 

On one system I actually got concerned about how fragmented it would become because I didn't have a lot of free space left on the drive.  I set the images to split into smaller pieces so my defragger could do a better job moving everything around.

 

But I wouldn't be too concerned unless it was extreamly fragmented.

Dave

If one is desperate to defrag the drive where the backup files are located, it might be quicker and safer simply to move them to another drive, if possible, then defrag what's left, then move them back.

I have been using Ghost since the late 90's and have loved its usability.  My new desktop (Purchased in March 2011) has Ghost 15 installed.  I have Ghost configured to automatically backup my computer.  The hard drive has four partitions; unlettered Recovery, unlettered System, C and D.  C drive is for software and D drive is data storage.

The automatic backups are: M, W, F at 8:00 PM = Drive C and System.  Tue, Thur and Sat at 8:00 PM = Drive D.  Sunday at 8:00 PM = the entire physical C drive.  I keep 3 of each for Drive C/System and Drive D,  and 2 of each of Sunday's.  All this data is being stored on an external USB 2.0 1.5TB Seagate drive.

I have been doing this for the past 5 years with no problems first under Ghost 2003 and now Ghost 15.

 

The problem....within the last two weeks I have been receiving the following error message: and my backups have not taken place.

 

Error EC8F17B7: Cannot create recovery points for job: Drive D.Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file.Error EBAB03F1: The requested operation could not be completed due to a file system limitation.Error E7D1001F: Unable to write to file.Details: Source: Norton Ghost

 

Can anyone tell me what the largest individual file size can be that Ghost 15 can create and write to?  My largest file so far  is BigRabbit_D_Drive005.v2i  91.2 GB (97,978,044,416 bytes).  Is there a limitation?  If so, is the limitation within Ghost or Windows 7, 64 bit?  I know that the external drive has sufficient storage space to create each file since I just purchased a new 2TB external Seagate and had the same error message presented to me while attempting to backup C drive and the System.

 

I am currently attempting to backup C drive and the System after changing the the procedure to write to smaller individual files with a maximum length of 9180 Mb.  I'll let you all know if the smaller file sizes solve my problem.


harkawy wrote:

I am currently attempting to backup C drive and the System


harkawy ,

 

It will be interesting to see if these succeed in the absence of the D: drive backup. Have you run a chkdsk /f on the D: drive? Any bad sectors in the report?

 

How large is the C: drive .v2i?

Check the permissions on the destination location and make sure everyone has full controll, not just your user account.

Right click on the folder or drive and select properties.  Then look under the tab "security".

 

Dave


DaveH wrote:

Check the permissions on the destination location and make sure everyone has full controll, not just your user account.

Right click on the folder or drive and select properties.  Then look under the tab "security".

 

Dave


I don't believe the target destination has to have full permissions for every one.  In fact I've deliberately modified mine so that other normal users do not have access to the folder for security reasons.  The permissions I have on Windows 7 are:

SYSTEM - full

my account - full

Administrators - full

 

Ghost finished at 3:00.  Everything went well.  This is what shows on the external drive....


 Volume in drive G is Seagate Replica Serial number is 58c9:8d6a 

 Directory of G:\Norton Backups\Drive C\*

10/16/2011  15:02         <DIR>    .

10/16/2011  15:02         <DIR>   ..

10/16/2011  14:57           6,063  BIGRABBIT.sv2i

10/16/2011  12:55   9,625,724,206  BigRabbit_C_Drive001.v2i

10/16/2011  10:38   9,625,862,944  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s01.v2i

10/16/2011  10:56   9,625,712,640  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s02.v2i

10/16/2011  11:14   9,625,851,082  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s03.v2i

10/16/2011  11:30   9,625,719,858  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s04.v2i

10/16/2011  11:44   9,625,842,615  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s05.v2i

10/16/2011  11:57   9,625,771,960  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s06.v2i

10/16/2011  12:09   9,625,728,629  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s07.v2i

10/16/2011  12:23   9,625,802,031  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s08.v2i

10/16/2011  12:36   9,625,795,707  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s09.v2i

10/16/2011  12:49   9,625,837,658  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s10.v2i

10/16/2011  12:55   4,021,278,707  BigRabbit_C_Drive001_s11.v2i

10/16/2011   9:58      11,968,246  BigRabbit_SYSTEM0-1_Drive001.v2i

109,916,902,346 bytes in 15 files and 2 dirs    109,916,934,144 bytes allocated

1,878,495,141,888 bytes free

 

I guess I will need to wait until tomorrow morning to see if the Sunday Night backup functions properly as well.

This backup took about 5 hours.  It normally took about 2 1/2 hours.  Maybe the extended time had to do with the fact that I had Ghost verify the backup.

I made no changes to permissions or anything on the new drive.  Never did in the past either.

Good. The D: drive seems to be the problem partition.

I won't know if the D drive partition is the problem until Monday morning.  The entire C drive with its four partitions is supposed to backup Sunday night. The backup of just the D drive partition won't take place untill Tuesday evening.

You could try running a One Time Backup of the D: drive now.

Yes, I could.... But with the full drive backup starting in a few hours, I didn't want to have a conflict in time.  I'll know better in the morning.

The Sunday night backup didn't complete.  I am doing it manually right now.  The Progress and Performance window says that it will take about 10 hours.  After an hour it changed to 6 hours.  If it completes properly, then I may have the answer as to why it didn't function properly last night.  I have Task Scheduler set to shut off the computer approximately 1 hour after the backup is supposed to be finished....  I was figuring a 5 hour backup so the shut down was set for 2:00 AM.  I've eliminated the automatic shutdown for now and will see what happens for the next week.  I'll keep you all informed.

 

In the mean time, has any one figured out if the super large file size caused Ghost to stop or is it a problem with Windows 7?

If it turns out to be a large file size limitation, I would suspect it's nothing to do with Windows or Ghost but your external drive.

USB does not have direct BIOS support, it's software driven and it's relying on a little tiny controller chip in the external drive.

 

Do you have an internal drive with enough space to test that?

You could do a "one time backup" onto an internal drive and see if it works and I'm sure it will be much quicker.

 

Dave

 

Thanks, Dave for the suggestion.  To answer your question.... No, I do not have an internal drive large enough to accomplish the task.  But what you say makes sense!

 

Now for the latest.   The backup just crashed.  I went into the "Advanced" portion of the edit and found that I had failed to break the files into smaller pieces.  I started the backup again....  I'll keep you informed.

On one of your earlier posts, it shows the drive as a Seagate Replica.

 

Taking a quick look, it seems like that drive does not use external power and it gets all it's power through a single USB connection.

 

Is that how it works?

I also only see it listed as 250 or 500GB, do you have another model of external drive that is 2TB?

 

You also might want to try disabling USB selected supend.  It's a power saving option in windows 7.

Especially if your using a desktop and the Seagate drive, you don't want it to lower the USB voltage mid transfer.

 

http://maximumpcguides.com/windows-7/disable-usb-selective-suspending-in-windows-7/

 

Dave

Once again, I thank you for your comments.

The drive has its own power supply and doesn't require power via the USB port.

The drive....

Seagate 2TB

FreeAgent® GoFlex™

Desktop Hard Drive

Automatic Continuous Backup

Powerful Encryption Software

GoFlex Desk USB 3.0 Desktop Adapter

Available through CostCo at $99.99

 

 

Thats strange, in message #10 it says:

Volume in drive G is Seagate Replica 

 

But I'm sure it's just reading that info from the drive.