Desperately need help/advice with Ghost recovery of crashed drive

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.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice.

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.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions or advice.

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.

Thanks.

 

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.

 

Dave

Does this post help at all? Note that you don't have the SRP, but you did mention you have two partitions, so the restore will be similar.

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-15-on-Windows-7-to-clone-and-replace-Boot-Drive/m-p/357030#M29934

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.

 

Deric

 

 

There is no Disk Management because the machine will not boot.

These are the settings you needed

 

For the C drive:


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.

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Ghost-15-options-for-recovery/m-p/218202/highlight/true#M21280

 

I don't understand what you said about "restore mbr" not being active.

But if you can verify the C partition is active and write the correct MBR the system should boot.

Or you can start over, whatever you feel is easier.

 

Dave

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.

You sometimes have to run the startup repair twice for it to fix the system.

If that still does not work, click the option to open a command prompt and then type:

bootrec.exe /fixmbr

 

 

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.

You shouldn't have to blank out the drive but that could be done from the recovery disk as well.

 

Try just restoring the C partition again.

Boot to the Ghost recovery disk and select "restore my computer".

On the next screen, change the box to search by filename and then browse to and select the image for the C drive.

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.

Highlight the C drive if it is not already by clicking once on it.  "that tells ghost you want to restore into that first partition".

 

Then see if you can select those settings.  If "restore mbr" is greyed out you can cancel the restore.

I actually have no idea why it would be greyed out in the first place unless maybe the partition is in the wrong place.

 

Dave


randysea wrote:
There is no Disk Management because the machine will not boot.

Sorry it's me getting cross threaded and forgetting your first post.

 

Deric


DaveH wrote:

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.

 

Deric

 

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.

That's a pity because Ghost 12 is far easier to use, that is why I stick with it.

 

Deric

I could probably try a new restore with a12 cdrom if I can figure out how to de-allocate the drive.

What about the SRP? There is no boot files, right?

 


Nevermind, you upgraded from Vista so it doesn't exist.

randysea,

 

Do you still see the black screen with flashing cursor when you try to boot?