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Ghost 12 (on Vista) seems to have stopped doing incremental images for me. I defined a new backup, I specified that it should create recovery point sets (recommended) and not Independent recovery points. I set it to start a new recovery point set every year.
I unchecked Limit The Number of Recovery Point Sets, but it still seems like it makes a complete backup every time, instead of just incremental.
I made the first backup image, it took 22 minutes. Then I did some Windows Updates (about 40 MB worth) and when I ran the backup again it took 23 minutes. And the two files it created for the second backup are about 1 GB larger in size than the two files for the first backup.
Any ideas?
Thanks
I've experimented a bit with this issue, and it seems like I am able to do an incremental image as long as I have not restored the base image since it was created.
In other words, if I create an image of C:, then later restore the drive using that image, I am no longer able to create an incremental recovery point on that base image.
Is this normal behaviour for Ghost 12?
Thanks
Depending on the data, Ghost is capable of that type of compression.
If you restore an image, you are essentially recreating your environment. It will take an incremental only if it has minimal changes to resolve (actual data content is not the key piece in this equation for your experience - look to data layout on the sectors of your hard drive itself - Ghost is sector based).
After I restored the image, I did make new changes to it. But when I then ran Ghost expecting to see an incremental image created, it instead create a new base image. Is this because some history or configuration files are no longer present on C: after the restoration, so it has no record of ever making a base image previously, so it makes a new base image?
Is there a way around this?
Thanks
No. Ghost will compare on a sector by sector, bit by bit basis. If there has been a significant enough change on that level a new base is created. It’s by design as you do not want an increment created if there is too much of a difference.
I've done several tests here. It seems that whenever I restore an image, the next image I create will always be a full image, not incremental, no matter how little the amount of changes I've made.
Is this not the behaviour that you see?
Thanks
This does seem odd, but then there may be some information about your actions with Norton Ghost 12 that you are leaving out. How often are you restoring your base image, or an incremental? This too might affect the creation of the next scheduled creation.
I restored it about 3 weeks after I created it.
And I have it set to make a new base image yearly.
By the way, when I make the initial base image it calls the file *drive001.v2i. After I restore that image and create what I expect to be an incremental, it instead creates a new base image called *drive002.v2i.
This has always been my experience with Norton Ghost 9.0 and I see no reason why Norton Ghost 14.0 wouldn’t do the same. In every situation where I have recovered a drive from a backup set, be it incremental or baseline, the very next attempt to make an incremental backup produces a baseline image for that drive. If you are recovering the system drive and that recovery does not contain the latest history, etc. for your other drives, they are also affected. For this reason I always backup the system drive last when doing scheduled incremental backups. I have found it pays off; the incremental backups for the other drives carry on as expected after a system drive recovery. I must admit I have yet do a recovery using Norton Ghost 14.0, but I don’t see why it should behave any differently.
OK thanks.
I do restores quite a bit, so I find this causes me to use a lot of extra space.
I am wondering if saving the history folder before I do the restore, and then replacing it after the restore, will allow me to do the incremental image.
It’s certainly worth a try.
This would not be a recomended idea. When you restore an image you are restoring the computer to the state that existed at the time of the backup. The best practice is that the next image taked should be a base image as part of a new recovery point set. Then after that start taking incrementals.
Part of this is due to the nature of the backup which Ghost is doing. The normal backup method for Ghost is a sector based backup. Base backups get every used sector on the drive. Incremental backups only get the sectors that were changed since the last backup. So, when you restore from a backup, let's say it was an incremental backup, the restoration process needs the base recovery point that started the set plus every incremental backup upto and including the incremental you are restoring from. If any one piece is missing, Ghost can not restore that drive to the state it was in when the backup took place. Pieces of different recovery point sets cannot be mixed and matched.
The other part of this is the history files help the user interface keep track of the backups that have been taken. If you put back history files from before a restore, you put Ghost into a bad state where the information presented to the user is wrong and does not match the state of the system.
I'm also seeing something that seems odd to me. My C: drive has 16 GB of data on it, but the image files that were created were 2 files totaling about 4.2 GB for the first backup, and two files totaling about 5.2 GB for the second backup. Is Ghost capable of that much compression? (It was set on High compression).
Thanks