This is kind of important, it is my tax computer. I really need it.
I have ghost 10 and have made a backup every year on a tax computer. last week the system crashed and I tried to reload last years image. I can reload 3 years and 2 years ago. What I gather is I had put Vista on a different drive last year and later took it off. My guess is the boot order changed so that when I try to recover last years image it seem to show my windows drifve as F: and not C: like year 3 and 2 do.
I recovered it to 2 years ago and looked at the SV2I file.
Is is possible to fix last years SV2I file with data from the test backup. I thought I edited it and it still fails. Is there some other way to get last years image to restore?
I have tought about ntbackup of mounded image, I at least can still mount it. Not sure if it would restore that way either.
Do I need to try to recreate a Vista install to fix this?
The .sv2i file won't help. I don't even keep them.
so that when I try to recover last years image it seem to show my windows drifve as F: and not C: like year 3 and 2 do.
I'm not sure what you mean by this. Does Windows boot as F: drive? Was it F: drive when you created the image? Did you have a Microsoft multi-boot when you created the image? Where do you see the F: drive letter?
Can you extract your data by mounting the image or do you need to boot into the OS?
I have not double clicked files but I can mount them so I assume it is the same.
I have 3 backup's. two work fine but are way old.
Boot from cd says invalid invalid but I can browse to v2i files.
This is my best guess.
What seems to have happened is that last year's image was perfomed differently. The system bios boot order was set from one drive to another. I installed Vista on a different drive and it's new boot loader allowed me to boot to the old xp install. When I then did a ghost backup it somehow changed how the images are being saved/made. I have since removed Vista so I directly boot to xp as the original two images were. It doen't boot from the last image. Seems the drive letter is off. Instead of C: it be now F:
I now see that I should have returned bios to the original drive and performed backup. ( my guess again)
I can restore to either older images and mount the problem image in ghost explorer as a mounted drive. All the data seems to be there.
I would like to return the system to that date as in the mounted last image.
Any clues as to how to fix it either before the restore or after?
Copy registry and changed files?
Ntbackup or xcopy/robocopy or dd or figure out how to correct the last image with some editing or re-install vista?????
Unfortunately you are locked into a Microsoft Multi-Boot. That's why you are experiencing drive letter issues. Vista was probably F: drive all along. It is not a Ghost problem. When you installed Vista, the Vista booting files went to the WinXP partition. So for Vista to boot it needs to be restored into a setup the same as when the image was created. Maybe the same WinXP needs to be restored too.
These Microsoft Multi-Boots are a pain. And so hard to describe in a forum. Sorry, but could you describe your system in great detail. Hard drives, partitions, drive letters. Could you post a screenshot of Disk Management.
A dell server with 2 scsi drives are the xp install. It has add on card sata and ide raid and a ide drive Total of 5 partitions and 6 drives.
Xp of course had C drive being system as I install xp to the first scsi drive and the boot order was set to motherboard scsi controller.
This ran good for a number of years but I never has to use the newer ghost (powerquest). I have always used the older ghost.
Last year I suspect I considered trying Vista. I switched boot order and installed Vista on the sata drive. This in every other install I have done leaves the original drives untouched. Unfortunately my guess is I booted the system to the now boot ordered sata and the bdc offered boot to vista or xp. XP in this case is not the first bootable partiton marked active. I then ran Ghost backup from xp to make the last backup file. I later removed vista and changed boot order back to xp. It worked exactly like it did before Vista. Upon an update either from the tax software or MS or so other issue it did not boot. My choice was to try to recover last years install instead of makeing a copy of the damaged partiton with a bootable linux cd.
So, is it possible to edit some part of the v2i file? Should I return a known good year and look at partiton information to compair to the bad image install?
As for how do I know it is now F: is I tried a "repair" using xp's cd. The text scrolling says it is deleting F:\ such and such but they are normal C drive files and folders. Somehow ghost had system information that is causing the restore to ( I actually don't know how it can view that drive as F:)
What I am going to try next is a live clone of the mounted image and copy it that way.
I never made an image of the Vista so I can't recover that.
I guess since I can still mount the last XP image, it isn't a total loss. Ghost did save me some.
Unless there is a way to somehow diag what is wrong with the recovery of the last image? Tried to use shadow copy from runtime.org to shadow the mounted last year's image to C:\ but run into some other issues. Was able to use ntbackup from that mounted image to a .bkf file. Not sure I can return it that way. Maybe a barts PE cd and then restore the registry from the mounted image file.
My mistake. I misunderstood your post. So it is a WinXP image you are trying to restore. The WinXP image won't reference F: drive. If WinXP was C: drive in the beginning, it will never become F: drive when another OS is installed. When WinXP is booted it will be C: drive. It may be seen with another drive letter in a dual boot situation when the other OS is booted but that doesn't matter.
So what happens when you restore that WinXP image? Describe the boot sequence.
This is kind of important, it is my tax computer. I really need it.
I have ghost 10 and have made a backup every year on a tax computer. last week the system crashed and I tried to reload last years image. I can reload 3 years and 2 years ago. What I gather is I had put Vista on a different drive last year and later took it off. My guess is the boot order changed so that when I try to recover last years image it seem to show my windows drifve as F: and not C: like year 3 and 2 do.
I recovered it to 2 years ago and looked at the SV2I file.
Is is possible to fix last years SV2I file with data from the test backup. I thought I edited it and it still fails. Is there some other way to get last years image to restore?
I have tought about ntbackup of mounded image, I at least can still mount it. Not sure if it would restore that way either.
Do I need to try to recreate a Vista install to fix this?