I have been using Ghost for many years with many operating systems. However, it hasn't been for at least 8+ years since I've actually needed to do a restore. Now my Windows 7 laptop drive has crashed and I really could use some advice about what may be a complicated recovery.
My Panasonic Laptop CF-W8 came 2 years ago with a 160gb Vista drive. I reconfigured it to Windows 7 Ultimate, two partitions, with Win7 and most programs on C: (40gb), and most data and some programs on D: (120gb). Then I installed many panasonic drivers and much software and data. I have been diligently making Ghost 12 backups to two USB external hard drives. The most recent backup was an incremental done 10 days ago, before I left on the trip where the drive crashed.
Panasonic warranty support is sending me a replacement drive with that same old 160gb Vista partition. I would take days and many hours to reinstall Windows 7 and all the custom drivers, plus all the software (if I can even find all the cdroms). I am hoping I can do a full restore of both partitions using the Ghost cdrom and the external drive. I am just not sure how to do it.
I don't even know for sure what questions to ask. Possibles: Do I need to create the two partitions before I use Ghost? Do I need to upgrade to Windows 7 before starting the Ghost recovery? Or what?
I am also wondering about the EFS folders I had. If I can do a full restore of C & D, will the EFS folders work normally when I log on to Windows 7? I did export the keys to a USB stick also. But maybe that's a question for a different forum.
I have been using Ghost for many years with many operating systems. However, it hasn't been for at least 8+ years since I've actually needed to do a restore. Now my Windows 7 laptop drive has crashed and I really could use some advice about what may be a complicated recovery.
My Panasonic Laptop CF-W8 came 2 years ago with a 160gb Vista drive. I reconfigured it to Windows 7 Ultimate, two partitions, with Win7 and most programs on C: (40gb), and most data and some programs on D: (120gb). Then I installed many panasonic drivers and much software and data. I have been diligently making Ghost 12 backups to two USB external hard drives. The most recent backup was an incremental done 10 days ago, before I left on the trip where the drive crashed.
Panasonic warranty support is sending me a replacement drive with that same old 160gb Vista partition. I would take days and many hours to reinstall Windows 7 and all the custom drivers, plus all the software (if I can even find all the cdroms). I am hoping I can do a full restore of both partitions using the Ghost cdrom and the external drive. I am just not sure how to do it.
I don't even know for sure what questions to ask. Possibles: Do I need to create the two partitions before I use Ghost? Do I need to upgrade to Windows 7 before starting the Ghost recovery? Or what?
I am also wondering about the EFS folders I had. If I can do a full restore of C & D, will the EFS folders work normally when I log on to Windows 7? I did export the keys to a USB stick also. But maybe that's a question for a different forum.
That seems pretty straightforward. I did read a lot of the post you linked to, which was a bit more complicated.
Just to be sure I understand, I clear the hard drive into totally unallocated space, i.e. Vista gone, no operating system yet. Then Ghost will actually create the two partitions and update the MBR. The Windows 7 operating system that I previously backed up should be restored in what is now the boot partition?
What do I do if I find a hidden partition? I sort of remember there was one I deleted when I first installed the update from Vista to Win 7.
You won't have the hidden extra windows 7 partition because you upgraded from Vista. Your operating system will just be that one partition. (C).
Your new hard drive mau come with a hidden recovery partition or a diagnostic partition and you may or may not want to keep those. You can tell us whats on it when you get it.
Don't bother to even boot the new drive and go through the Vista setup.
Put the new drive in, boot it to the Ghost recovery disk and tell us what is on the drive.
You also may want to image the Vista partition as a backup at that point.
That other post may be a little confusing, what your doing is not going to be very difficult.
Still not working. I installed the new, presumably unallocated, WD 500gb drive. I booted from the Ghost 15 cdrom, with the USB external drive attached. Ghost booted found my backup images for C and D. I first restored C. “Restore original disk signature” was checked. However, it grayed out an unchecked “fix MBR,” which did get me a bit nervous. It appeared to complete the restore without error. I then looked at restoring the D partition. I don’t want to try booting with just C restored because Windows will be looking for some files in locations on the D drive and may change registry entries if it doesn’t find a D drive. Ghost showed me both C and D checked for restore. I decided to let Ghost do what it wanted, rather than uncheck C. When doing C, Ghost gave me a message about overwriting or replacing existing data. The restore appeared to complete without errors. However, when I shut down and restarted the machine, all I got was a black screen with a blinking white cursor. I then tried to boot from a system recovery CDROM I created a year or so ago for Windows 7 Sp1. It isn’t booting. I suspect the cdrom, since I was able to boot from the Ghost disk. Next is to create a full Windows 7 install disk from the ISO I have. Or to look for an MBR fix utility on the WD website. Any other suggestions appreciated!
Can you post a pic of your disk management by right clicking the computer icon and click manage and then open disk management.
You can use the little green tree to post the pic.
When you create an image you may need to tick the box "show hidden drives" in the Ghost UI then if there are hidden drives create another recovery point with the "One Time Backup" option and highlight all drives that Ghost can see relating to the O/S.
Posting the disk management will be very helpful to us to guide you through the process because we need to know exactly what your set up is.
Edit: you say presumably unallocated space, if the drive came as new from the manufacture then it may have been formatted ready for use.
In that case the drive needs to be deleted in disk management to create the unallocated space.
Also make sure when booting to the new drive ensure that the drive is first boot device in the bios.
Verify recovery point before restore Resize drive after recover (unallocated space only) (ONLY if you want to) Partition type : Primary Check for file system errors after recovery Set drive active (for booting OS) Restore original disk signature Restore master boot record
For the D drive:
Verify recovery point before restore Partition type : Primary Check for file system errors after recovery
Thanks to Brian, those settings are from his post here.
Right now I’m running Windows 7 install in repair mode, looking to fix startup problems. It did appear that my files are there, but maybe there are two copies of what used to be my C partition. I’d try completely de-allocating the drive and starting again, but I’m not sure how to do it unless Ghost or the Windows install disk will do it.
Thanks, Dave. Following earlier posts here, I did look at Brian's post that you linked to before I started. The settings matched, except for the critical "Restore MBR" option grayed out in Ghost. I wonder if I had had any way to de-allocate the new drive before I ran Ghost if that would have made a difference in Ghost restoring an MBR. Or did Ghost simply not ever make a backup of the MBR, so it had nothing to restore?
I have had that Win 7 repair utility running for a half hour so far but nothing seems to be happening. I will give it until UPS shows up today with a SATA to USB connector for my laptop hard drive. Then I should be able to hook the drive up to my desktop and completely unformat and unpartition it. Then I'll go back to the laptop and try Ghost again.
On the next screen click the "edit" button and verify that the existing C drive is on top and the D drive is below it.
Dave
Dave,
If I remember rightly there is no "edit" function with Ghost 12 when transfering an image. It is much easier than Ghost 15, I can give it a run through to check it out if necessary.
I was mistaken when I said Ghost 12. That was because I have three copies of 12. In fact, I forgot that I had a 4th copy of Ghost I've been using on my Windows 7 laptop. It is version 15. My restore was done with 15.
When I give up on Win 7 repair, I may try again with Ghost. Or I may first try a commercial, bootable MBR fix utility.