Desperately need help/advice with Ghost recovery of crashed drive

Archive
21

Thank you, thank you all.

 

I am back in business. Without going back through the thread to single people out, let me say that the advice here gave me the clues I needed. It also pointed out how reliable Ghost is, if sometimes a bit confusing.

 

Here's how it ended up. The biggest mistake I made in the beginning was going ahead with the Restore when "Restore MBR" was grayed out. I should have stopped right there, taken a deep breath, and started over. Instead, I plowed on. This, plus somehow doubling up on choosing partitions to restore, left me with a hard drive that had two identical copies of my original C partition and one of my original D. It was not bootable. Then I spent hours trying to add an MBR, using a Windows 7 installation disk in Recovery Console mode, and then in Command mode. Nothing got my new drive into a bootable mode.

 

This afternoon UPS showed up with a SATA to USB connector kit. I was then able to hook up my new laptop drive to a working Windows 7 machine. I could then do what someone above recommended. I just deallocated the whole drive. I couldn't do this before because I had no way to access the drive. However, I had assumed that since it was brand new, it would have been unallocated, but I couldn't be sure.

 

Then I booted up the Ghost 15 cdrom. I chose Restore and it found my Ghost recovery points for C and D but only let me choose one, as it had the first time. Obviously, I chose C. Again, it showed with Restore MBR grayed out. But this time I did not execute the restore and then restart Ghost to get D restored. That was my mistake before, that resulted in two C partitions being created, and no MBR.

 

Somehow, I'm not sure, I got to a screen with both C & D checked in a box. I saw that C gave me the Edit option. It was there that I could check Copy MBR.

 

My first post may have led some of you astray when I said it was Ghost 12. The latter doesn't have the Edit mode that 15 does. Maybe it defaults to Restore MBR, where Ghost 15 defaults to graying it out.

 

Anyway, at this point I just let Ghost do its thing. After an hour and a quarter, I was able to boot up normally.

 

Again, thanks to you all.

 

 

 

 

 

22

Nice work.

 

Just a comment about Restore MBR. Most people have a Standard MBR (generic). If you select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. If you don't select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. Yes, it's the same.

 

Some people have a custom MBR, eg a third party boot manager. These people need to select Restore MBR so their new HD gets the custom MBR. But for the majority of users, it doesn't matter if you select Restore MBR or not.

23

All I can say is that after the first restore, the disk didn’t boot even to the point of giving an error message.There was no boot record, but I have no idea why.

24

Brian,

Maybe because it's a new drive and never had one?

 

Here is an example, it happens every time I restore an image onto a new virtual hard drive in VirtualPC.

I have also seen it happen before on a real phsical drive after trying to do a startup repair with windows 7.

 

The symptom is a black screen with a blinking cursor, however the cursor is not actually in the top left "home" location, it is always about 2 spaces down from the top.

 

Here I just made a new Virtual hard drive and restored an image of XP into it .  All I have handy is XP, I still have not replaced windows 7 since my hard drive crash.

 

Anyway, I made a new VM and restored an XP image into it without using the option to restore the MBR.

 

I couldn't figure out how to run partinfo from the recovery disk so I had to attach the VHD to another working virtual pc.

Here in this partinfo it is HD2 and now lettered H.

You can see the MBR is almost entirely empty.

 

I know from experiance I can get that VHD to boot normally by booting a: fdisk /mbr from a DOS disc.

(it's XP, that will not work for vista\7 and the only reason why I use a DOS disc is because it's very fast).

 

HD0 has grub installed in the MBR if you wonder why it looks funny.

 

Dave

 

 

25

The symptom is a black screen with a blinking cursor, however the cursor is not actually in the top left "home" location, it is always about 2 spaces down from the top.

 

Exactly what I got.

26

Here is the fixed on to compare.

I have the non-booting virtual hard drive here as HD0, so I can boot it.  It's the same drive as HD2 in the partinfo above.

I fixed it here the "correct" way instead of the fast way. LOL

I booted it to a XP installation disk, entered the recovery console and typed: fixmbr

 

Now it boots into windows without hanging on the blinking cursor.

 

Dave

27

I have a feeling Brian is right and Microsoft and Symantec are wrong.

 

28

Dave,

 

I don't have a computer to test this with at present (my previous tests were some years ago) but I recall Ghost won't recognize a HD unless it has been Initialized. Once Initialized it will have a Standard MBR.

 

Will your Ghost Recovery CD see a target HD without a MBR? Ghost complains about Initialize in Windows.

29

I have to let Ghost "initilize" every new drive, either phusical or virtual.

 

The reason I said in my last post that I think you are right and MS and Symantec are wrong is because I think what they are calling a "MBR" isn't really the MBR?

 

When I use the XP disk to do a "fixmbr"

or a Windows 7 disk to do a bootrec /fixmbr

It may or may not be writing or fixing a MBR, it's the Boot Sector that was missing isn't it?

30

Dave,

 

I added another HD to one of the kids' computers. The MBR was then zeroed.  From the Ghost CD I imaged the OS on HD0 and restored the image (no options were selected) to the new HD that didn't contain a MBR. During the restore process in Ghost I had to Initialize the new HD.

 

After the restore completed I checked the MBR and you are correct. There was no bootstrap code. Just a Disk Signature and a partition table. When I've Initialized in Windows, bootstrap code is written in addition to a Disk Signature. The Recovery Environment must be different.

 

I tried to boot the new HD and saw a flashing cursor. Just like Randysea experienced. So my test years ago must have been on an empty HD with bootstrap code.

 

fixmbr writes Standard bootstrap code. But not a Disk Signature.

Ghost defines the MBR as the First Track. Restoring the MBR in the Recovery Environment restores LBA-0 to LBA-62.

The boot sector is the first sector in a partition. There is a boot sector in every partition and every HD has a MBR.

 

31
randysea wrote:

Thank you, thank you all.

 

 

 

My first post may have led some of you astray when I said it was Ghost 12. The latter doesn't have the Edit mode that 15 does. Maybe it defaults to Restore MBR, where Ghost 15 defaults to graying it out.

 

Anyway, at this point I just let Ghost do its thing. After an hour and a quarter, I was able to boot up normally.

 

Again, thanks to you all.

 

 

 

 

 

Pleased that it is sorted,

I have adaptors and docking stations to prepare my drives and just to add that Ghost 12 will work flawlessly with NO edit available, it just does it all automatically.

I would strongly recommend that you use Ghost 12 and run a "One Time Backup" of your computer now and highlight all necessary drives/partitions and hidden drives. I can then guarantee that your next restore or recovery will NOT fail.

 

Deric

32

Deric, your advice is spot on. I have two external drives. I alternate between them. One gets incremental backups for 3-4 times. The other gets a one time backup each time I use it. One drive is always "offsite." When I worked, it was in my office. Now my offsite location is in a bank vault.

 

I try to do backups at least every two weeks. Plus my files that change the most often (Quicken, contacts list, encrypted password file whenever I do make changes), go more frequently onto an Ironkey.When I had the hard drive crash that started this thread, my last backup was around 6 days old. That was the day before I left town for 10 days. My drive crashed while out of town.

 

Speaking of losing data, this board is weird.I log on and tell it to save my logon info. Then I hit Reply to your message and composed my message. When I hit Post, I had to logon again. Sometimes doing replies my whole drafted reply has been gone and has to be retyped. Just now it happened but apparently the board software had saved a copy.that it allowed me to reload.

 

 

 

33
randysea wrote:

 

Speaking of losing data, this board is weird.I log on and tell it to save my logon info. Then I hit Reply to your message and composed my message. When I hit Post, I had to logon again. Sometimes doing replies my whole drafted reply has been gone and has to be retyped. Just now it happened but apparently the board software had saved a copy.that it allowed me to reload.

 

 

 

That's weird, the board auto saves every minute so I can't explain that.

Good to see that you have an excellent backup strategy, (Ghost 12 ?).

 

I don't have any data on my primary drive only O/Ss (6) and my main data drive is separate to the computer in a docking station and is only on when I write to it.

I do have data on the secondary drive but that is only used for testing purposes.

 

I run "One Time Backups" as and when necessary with Ghost 12 highlighting all 6 partitions including the O/Ss and apps.

The data is backed up on a daily basis with a third party software (Retrospect 7.5)  the "Backup" actually is a duplicate so that I can easily identify the files if I want to recover them at anytime, just my simple way of computer management.

 

If I run a recovery with Ghost 12 from another drive in a docking station, my multi boot machine is re-imaged / recovered in 40 minutes.

 

Deric

34

My strategy has always been C drive for OS and key programs, D for Data, E for secondary programs, F for archiving, big intall files (Windows, WordPerfect, MS Office, etc.).

 

On my laptop, I have only two partitions. C for OS and key programs, D for data, secondary programs, and some archiving and install programs. Since I just replaced a defective 160 gb drive with a new, 500 gb drive, there will be more room for archiving, older photos, etc.

 

I really can't be sure I don't have data on C. For example, Thunderbird has always stumped me.I have tried every suggestion I could find online for moving my Profile and data storage. I still end up with my Profile in c:\appdata. That profile has a Mail folder that is 1gb right now, and files in it update whenever I use Tbird. I also have a Tbird folder on D: with a Mail subfolder. That subfolder is 2.4 gb and also updates whenever I use Tbird. I even uninstalled and reinstalled Tbird, but could not find a way to keep Profile and data files all on D:.I considered just switching to Tbird portable but that had some difficulties, too. So I gave up.

 

Meanwhile, this time I switched to Preview and back to Rich Text. I didn't lose any of my message. Guess I'll give up on trying to figure that one out, too.

35

randysea,

 

I use Thunderbird Portable without issues.

 

If you want to "move"  folders from C: to D: drive you can use  junction points.

 

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb896768

 

The app works well but the instructions on the above page are terrible. Ask if you would like to try it. I use junction points on the kids' computers to move iTunes to a data drive. I use junction points on my Win7 computer to move big mapping apps that won't install on a non C: drive.

36

Just a comment about Restore MBR. Most people have a Standard MBR (generic). If you select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. If you don't select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. Yes, it's the same.

 

Some people have a custom MBR, eg a third party boot manager. These people need to select Restore MBR so their new HD gets the custom MBR. But for the majority of users, it doesn't matter if you select Restore MBR or not.


Excellent work, guys! Glad this all worked out.

 

Dell and HP are infamous for creating non-standard boot combinations. Many of my restore escalations involve people backing up these types of systems, then get stuck on a restore\reboot after an unusual partition was laid down with some propriertery boot process. 

37

Andy,

 

Thanks for reminding me Dell and HP have custom MBRs. So custom MBRs are to as uncommon as I indicated.

38
andreash_utah wrote:

Just a comment about Restore MBR. Most people have a Standard MBR (generic). If you select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. If you don't select Restore MBR your new HD gets a Standard MBR. Yes, it's the same.

 

Some people have a custom MBR, eg a third party boot manager. These people need to select Restore MBR so their new HD gets the custom MBR. But for the majority of users, it doesn't matter if you select Restore MBR or not.


Excellent work, guys! Glad this all worked out.

 

Dell and HP are infamous for creating non-standard boot combinations. Many of my restore escalations involve people backing up these types of systems, then get stuck on a restore\reboot after an unusual partition was laid down with some propriertery boot process. 

Now thats what I call "complicated" partitions for want of a better term.

 

If my friends and family have any problems with their setup and if they have the necessary installation CDs I just wipe them clean, reinstall O/S and apps and rely on their copy of Ghost to backup, then I don't get any niggling problems afterwards.

I find that simple strategy much better to manage, it has worked for me for a couple of decades.

 

Deric

39

Hi Community

I have just recovered from a hard disk crash and used this thread as a means of understanding how to perform a Ghost 15 system recovery.  The process worked fine when I had read what needs to happen.  So this morning I have my old system up and running again.

 

Something that I have found is that there is a lot of misleading information about what can be achieved in this situation.  Especially PC repair shops who have no idea what Ghost can do.  Often they think that a hard drive failure can only be recovered by rebuilding the system.  They think that a new hard drive has drivers that cannot be recovered and so the system has to be built from scratch.

 

I have been using Ghost for a few years now and this is the second crash I have recovered from.  Although, from what I remember, Ghost 15 seems to do it differently to Ghost 14.

 

So after I read the post last night and printed out Deric's step by step guide (on another PC), I pulled out the new drive, plugged it into the second PC, unallocated the new drive, replaced it in my PC  and just did a restore (using SRD) of the C drive overnight and a D drive this morning.  Then I got the message about a missing bootmsg which I fixed running Windows repair utility ( a couple of times).

 

It's a joy to see your old system come back to life.  I can't see any problems with system or data as yet and don't expect to.

 

Congrats on a very useful forum.

 

40
russghostlover wrote:
.  Then I got the message about a missing bootmsg which I fixed running Windows repair utility ( a couple of times).

 

russghostlover,

 

It's likely you had a System Reserved Partition which you didn't know about. It is the Active partition.