"Generic Mount Point Devices" in Device Manager - New question regarding erik_carlstrom's reply

Hi Experts,

 

Last year we had a post abotu a generic mount point device in Device manager we noticed with Norton Ghost 15.  A symtantec technical manager (erik carlstrom) seemed to clarify what it was at the time.  We have noticed it again on more than one machine, it seems whenever the NG software is uninstalled and reinstalled it occurs.  Going off what the Symantec employee (Erik) originally said, is it best to remove it or leave the irrelevant entry (or entries) there?

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Two-quot-Generic-Mount-Point-Devices-quot-in-Device-Manager-one/td-p/239791

 

Seems like it only occurs on machines that have had an uninstall/reinstall of NG 15 so it seems like it's something left behind (even the Norton Removal Tool didn't seem to get rid of it).  On machines that only had NG installed once (and no other Ghost varients such as older versions, BESR, etc) it seems only the hidden one is there.  However, each uninstall/reinstall seems to add one with a yellow exclamation point.

 

Should they manually be removed?  Is it of concern or can it impact backups in anyway? 


Thanks!

It's likely due to not wanting to cause a bigger problem.  When you generate the problem driver message (sometimes called a splat) do you notice any problems (other than the yellow exclamation mark)?  When you run the removal tool, is it with the latest version?  You say you see it when running the removal tool, but does the same thing occur when you uninstall Ghost through add/remove programs? 

Hi Erik,

 

We did some follow-up testing.  This occurs everytime on Windows 7 and is easy to duplicate, but does not occur on Windows XP at all.  Yes, we believe we are using the up to date Norton Removal Tool downloaded that day from www.symantec.com/nrt as told by Norton Support. 

 

Windows 7 allows you to take a look at the driver install date in Windows Device Manager.  it shows the original date there.  Anotherwords after uninstalling Ghost (via the removal tool) you go to Device manager and there are NO Generic Mount Point Devices (hidden or non-hidden), but then after reinstalling Ghost all of a sudden the new one is there (you can tell its the new one based on the driver install date) with a yellow exclamation point and you also have the hidden one functioning normally and it has the original ghost install date and time.  Anotherwords, it seems like it comes back once Ghost is installed, and the original generic mount point device from the first install becomes the working copy again.  We have used the Norton Removal Tool because Norton Support  told us this was the best way to remove Ghost 15.  Following that advice we have machiens setup (with this generic mount control device issue) that already have complex backup jobs and histories setup and didn't want to uninstall again (via add/remove programs) unless instructed by Norton support, hence why we are trying to find out if the generic mount point issue is a problem.  If so, we would do what Norton advises as we need to make sure these backups are succesful as they backup very important data.  We just didn't do that yet as we already have complex jobs/histories setup on multiple drives and are not sure how reliably Norton can keep and re-import those after an uninstall/reinstall.

 

We recieved this response from Norton Support via e-mail: "I will need to let you know that the generic mount points in the Device Manager can be disabled and it will not cause any issues in the backup."

 

Interestingly enough, we just tried some other things on a test machine.  If you remove either of the two generic mount point devices, for example we tried removing the working copy that showed no errors and was hidden and leaving the yellow excalamation point copy which is the newer copy and restarted and upon reboot the other non deleted one will settle in as the hidden copy without error.  It seems like it just can't have more than one of the same thign maybe and some how it sticks around after running NRT and reinstalling?

 

We do not notice any other problems (since you asked) other than the fact it shows up in Windows Device Manager with a yellow exclamation point.  The Ghost backups run (with verify checked) and complete succesfully.  We just don't know if the fact this is happening with the Generic Mount Point Device in Device manager can in anyway impact the success of the backups on some other level? 

 

What do you think Erik?  Can this service device impact backups in anyway?  Should we delete it, uninstall/reinstall from add/remove programs and hope our jobs stick, etc?  Since this post e-mail support has said they can be "disabled from device manager" but that was it, see above.

 

Thanks Erik

I think I may know what you're referring to now.  I apologize for not following sooner.  When you look in the device manager, sometime a program will have two drivers.  One will be in use always and another will be installed but not in use.  For example, if you have the Cisco VPN installed but aren't actively using it you can see a network adapter with a red x over it (disabled).  It doesn't mean there's a problem, but that it's merely not in use. 

 

The Generic Mount Point Devices driver is only going to be used when you mount an image from within the Recovery Point Browser.  This driver is not used by the backup process at all.  I would not uninstall the driver.  A good test, though you don't have to do this, would be to mount an image and see if there's a problem.  Be sure you unmount the image when done though. 

Hi Erik,


I think we are on the right track, but we are still missing each other a bit.  Whenever you install Norton Ghost 15 (or BESR 2010 I believe) it will add a HIDDEN Generic Mount Control Device in Windows device manager.  It's hidden by default, you must click View and then Show Hidden Devices to see it.

 

When you mount a recovery point image, you will then get a VISABLE "Generic mount point" under the same area of Windows Device Manager, but the Generic Mount Control Device stays hidden unless your clicking "show hidden devices."  Now, once you unmount that recovery point then the temporary Genric Mount Point disappears from Windows Device manager and you do NOT end up with any exclamation points, etc. 

 

You can test this on any install of NG15 on either Windows XP or Windows 7 (we didn't test Vista).  It's NOT normal behavior from a fresh NG15 install to have this extra exclamation point bearing copy.  But we will explain how it occurs below.

 

Now, take this same (Windows 7 only, Windows XP doesn't have this issue) machine and run the Norton Removal Tool (www.symantec.com/nrt) which according to Norton Support is the BEST way to uninstall Norton Ghost 15.  You now should have NO hidden Generic Mount Control Device in Windows Device manager anymore.

 

Now go ahead and reinstall Norton Ghost 15 (tried the latest version and the original 15.0.0) and after it's installed and you've restarted.  Go ahead and check Device manager.  You will now see the original Generic Mount Control Device is back and hidden AND unhidden is a new copy of the generic mount control device with an exclamation point.  They both point to the same driver files.  However, what's interesting is if you check the first driver install date under the details tab in Device manager, you will see that the one WITHOUT the exclamation point (that is hidden) is the original from BEFORE running the Norton Removal Tool. The new version is the one with the exclamation point thats driver installation date matches the reinstallation (post NRT) of Norton Ghost 15.

 

Hopefully all that makes sense.  It's clear as day to me but that' because I've become familiar with the process.  Norton Support ended up telling us they have no idea.  They kept saying that the Genric Mount Control Device was because a USB device was attached, etc.  I finally explained (and demonstrated via a test machine) that this issue can be duplicated on a machine with NO usb devices attached in the whole process (NG15 install, NRT, NG15 reinstall). 

 

The issue we have is that Norton Support told us NRT is the best way to remove NG 15 so we've used it on a handful of machines (when upgrading versions, when replacing destination drives and having a corrupt backup history, etc) and thes machines now have complex jobs and job histories and starting from scratch to set them up would not be convenient, but if this issue can impact the backup process in anyway we'd be willing to.  We just can't get a straight answer from Norton Support, they are supposedly going to have the Norton Engineering Team call us tomorrow. 

 

Again, for what it's worth, our backup jobs run and return a succesful result (with the verify option checked) and to answer your newer question we CAN mount them to a drive letter.  We have also test restored a few files and they restore "okay."  Our only concern is it's not practical to restore the whole PCs and as such, could this issue be causing an underlying problem in the Backup anywhere.  I guess it depends on how thourough a check NG does before reporting "Backup successful" ?

OK.  I believe I understand the gist of things now.  What it looks like you've run into is a minor artifact from using the removal tool.  I'll pass it along to the team so they know and to test it out to see why what happens occurs.

 

That said, what you're seeing is purely cosmetic.  When you have the image set to verify it does a full check of the image integrity using the main Ghost service.  That driver is never used as a part of the imaging process.  The only time it is used is when you mount.  Since you don't receive an error during that process then there is no true problem.  Another test you could try would be to mount and try to copy a file from the mounted image.  There are really only two actions that you will typically do with mounting.  The act of mounting/unmounting, and copying data from the image so you don't have to restore the entire image. 

 

Does that help clarify things?

Hi Experts,

 

Last year we had a post abotu a generic mount point device in Device manager we noticed with Norton Ghost 15.  A symtantec technical manager (erik carlstrom) seemed to clarify what it was at the time.  We have noticed it again on more than one machine, it seems whenever the NG software is uninstalled and reinstalled it occurs.  Going off what the Symantec employee (Erik) originally said, is it best to remove it or leave the irrelevant entry (or entries) there?

 

http://community.norton.com/t5/Other-Norton-Products/Two-quot-Generic-Mount-Point-Devices-quot-in-Device-Manager-one/td-p/239791

 

Seems like it only occurs on machines that have had an uninstall/reinstall of NG 15 so it seems like it's something left behind (even the Norton Removal Tool didn't seem to get rid of it).  On machines that only had NG installed once (and no other Ghost varients such as older versions, BESR, etc) it seems only the hidden one is there.  However, each uninstall/reinstall seems to add one with a yellow exclamation point.

 

Should they manually be removed?  Is it of concern or can it impact backups in anyway? 


Thanks!

Thanks.  Did you see what I said though about the OLD genric mount control device being the one that gets restored?  That was 15.0.0.  When reinstalling we had the newer installer (15.0.1) so the version that still sticks around for the generic mount control device (and it's underlying driver GenericMount.sys in windows\system32\drivers) is from the original install of 15.0.0 and the non working version is the 15.0.1.  That means the old version from the 15.0.0 install is being used with the 15.0.1 program.

 

Is that of conern?  One other interesting tid bit of information, we noticed on a test machine that no matter how you uninstall Norton Ghost, the Symantec driver GenericMount.sys is never removed windows\system32\drivers.

 

 

At the moment I can't answer why, but we will take a look into it. 

Thanks.  Norton Engineering said they would pass it on to the development team, but it seemed like an issue with the Norton Removal Tool.  Their proposed solution was to use the normal uninstaller to remove Ghost, and then run the Norton Removal Tool, and then reinstall Ghost (if we don't mind losing our backup jobs, if we do then we would have to skip  NRT in this step).  Do you concur?  After all the work with Norton support, this will be the 4th or 5th time going through the uninstall/reinstall steps. 

 

Assuming you do agree, then perhaps the better question is, as long as Ghost says the backups are succesfull, then do the other quirks matter much (regardless we want to get it sqeauky clean since it's not that big of a deal to do once more).

 

 

At this point I'd leave it alone.  To clarify the NRT step, you wouldn't lose your backups.  You'd lose the backup schedule and jobs.  The backups themselves are not touched. 

 

Could you send me a private message with your case number?  I'd like to follow up with support.

 

Sure thing, I will PM that to you now.