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Did you create a custom recovery disk through Ghost or did you use the already supplied CD? More than likely the reason why the internal drive was not seen was due to the recovery disk not containing the needed driver for the controller in your XPS system. Are you still trying to restore or are you trying to ensure that you can restore in the future?
I create the recovery disk on the XPS computer using Roxio Easy Media Creator 10 on a Windows XP SP2 computer. Although I originally bought the program for my husband's computer which has Windows Vista, I create the CD on my computer because his does not have Roxio loaded. After my Ghost 9 CD did not work either to see those drives, naturally I tried the Ghost 14 CD and I was fully expecting that this would solve the problem.
I would still like to be able to boot to the boot disk and do a restore without having to go around in circles to accomplish that. This is the intention of the program? .
I just realized, that every time I was able to restore a ghost when it was not a boot drive, I did use the program and not the CD to restore. This might be why it worked. I will test the CD boot out. How should I create the CD. I need to be able to use XP and Vista for the restore.
So, the problem isn't that the drive is set to boot or not. The problem is the lack of a driver to load the drive. When you put the drive in the enclosure, a different driver is used. Ghost 14 has the ability to create a new Recovery Disk based on the drivers on your system. You also don't have to use any external burning program like Roxio or Nero as there is an integrated burning program with Ghost. The first step that I would do is to perform the driver validation (this will list the specific piece of hardware that you will need to download a set of drivers for - you'll be able to download from the dell website). You can do that from the Recovery Disk you already have while in Windows.
Once you have that list (pay particular attention for a Hard Disk Drive controller). Next you'll need to create your custom recovery disk. Do the following steps (the Tasks option from the menu on the top as opposed to the left):
Attach and turn on all storage devices and network devices that you want to make available.
Insert the Symantec Recovery Disk CD into your CD-ROM drive.
From the main Norton Ghost window, click Tasks > Create Recovery Disk, and then click Next.
If prompted, click Browse, select the drive that contains the Symantec Recovery Disk CD, click OK, and then click Next.
Do one of the following:
Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the wizard.
Once you create the disk, then test the new disk by boot from your new disk and testing if it can see your C: drive.
As Ghost is my bete noir, I make the following comments:
1. If you obtain Ghost 14 by download then you WILL have to use an external burning program. This is because despite any inference that Ghost has an integrated burning program it is unable to create the original System Recovery disk. The download provides the Recovery Disk in iso format and Ghost has no facility to then convert the iso image into a Recovery Disk. So without some third party software like Roxio or Nero one would be dead in the water.
2. Symantec support believe that there is no need to create the Recovery Disk from the iso file because Ghost can create one uniquely for your system and take account of the required drivers.
Here is a snippet from a chat session:
Mr. Clive Goldman: 1. As part of the download from Symantec shop today of Ghost 14 is an ISO file. I understand the iso file is to create a recovery disk, but I also understand that a recovery disk unique to one system can be created by Home, tasks, create recovery disk. Which should I produce; the one from the downloaded ISO file or the one using Ghost which I believe considers specific drivers used by the system?
Mr. Clive Goldman: You have not responded. Are you dealing with me or lots of other chat sessions at the same time, kindly advise?Mr. Clive Goldman: 14:24
Govinda: Please wait
Govinda: I am sorry for the delay as I am working concurrently
Mr. Clive Goldman: I think you mean "multi-tasking".
Govinda: If you create the Recovery disk using the product then it will have all the driver validation in built on it
Govinda: The one which you are creating from the ISO file is a simple recovery disc
Mr. Clive Goldman: OK, so I presume that I need ONLY create the one from the product at this time? Is that correct?
Govinda: Yes that is best for you.
However, when you go to produce the one from the product it requires access to the one from the iso image. So the answer is that for customers who download Ghost, they need to create two recovery disks, the original Recovery Disk from the iso image and the one from the product (Ghost) which takes account of any special drivers. Technical support is clearly wrong again.
I can confirm, that one needs a Norton Boot disk when trying to create a customized boot disk. I was not able to create one. There is an issue with the program to create the boot disk because it never informs you when to switch disks. When it goes to writing the data from the temporary location to the CD, it continues until it comes up with an error message that the existing Cd (the boot CD) is not writable and please insert a writable CD. At that point, it keeps rejecting every CD inserted.
I did get a list of of the missing drivers and they do not include the driver for the hard drive. It found missing drivers for the SD slot, wireless controllers and other items which had nothing to do with a hard drive.
Where do I go from here?
Let me do a little bit of research for you. That is not expected behavior and I’m more than a little surprised that your controller driver was not listed in driver validation.