Ghost 15 Freezes during computer recovery

Archive
1

My Windows Vista was having problems, so I backed up the enitre drive using Ghost 15 (which created .v2i files).

 

I tried to reinstall Vista, but it did a clean install, and put my old stuff into a Windows.old file. I tried to use a "Microsoft Fix It" to restore the Windows.old, but it didn't work. I tried to manually do it, but got confused quickly.

 

I decided to restore the entire backup from the Norton Ghost 15, put the computer back into the condition it was in with the Vista problems, and get a Windows 7 upgrade disc and just install the upgrade.

 

Here is the problem:  I booted from a Symantec Recovery Disc. I got into the menu, chose to recover my computer, and chose the backups that I wanted to recover, which were a C: and J: drive.

 

Yesterday, I noticed that the process was down to an estimated 102 minutes remaining.  A couple hours later, I went to see if the recovery was done, but it now said "2 hours remaing" and the status said that it was 83 or 86% completed. It stayed in that state for hours, and I could not cancel or stop Norton. I finally powered down the computer by holding the power button.

 

I again booted from the SRD, hoping to try the process again. It was running all night. I checked it this morning (about 6 1/2 hours ago) and it said there were 78 minutes remaining. I was psyched.

 

So, 6 1/2 hours later, I come home and check it, and there is 2 hours remaining, and 86% completed.

 

In other words, it is frozen.... again.

 

Now, when I chose the recovery files, I got a strange message reading, "Following backups were captured when your machine was under high load" and it had some cryptic message I didn't understand.

 

Help please, thanks!  If there is anything you need to know, please ask!

 

 

2

My Windows Vista was having problems, so I backed up the enitre drive using Ghost 15 (which created .v2i files).

 

I tried to reinstall Vista, but it did a clean install, and put my old stuff into a Windows.old file. I tried to use a "Microsoft Fix It" to restore the Windows.old, but it didn't work. I tried to manually do it, but got confused quickly.

 

I decided to restore the entire backup from the Norton Ghost 15, put the computer back into the condition it was in with the Vista problems, and get a Windows 7 upgrade disc and just install the upgrade.

 

Here is the problem:  I booted from a Symantec Recovery Disc. I got into the menu, chose to recover my computer, and chose the backups that I wanted to recover, which were a C: and J: drive.

 

Yesterday, I noticed that the process was down to an estimated 102 minutes remaining.  A couple hours later, I went to see if the recovery was done, but it now said "2 hours remaing" and the status said that it was 83 or 86% completed. It stayed in that state for hours, and I could not cancel or stop Norton. I finally powered down the computer by holding the power button.

 

I again booted from the SRD, hoping to try the process again. It was running all night. I checked it this morning (about 6 1/2 hours ago) and it said there were 78 minutes remaining. I was psyched.

 

So, 6 1/2 hours later, I come home and check it, and there is 2 hours remaining, and 86% completed.

 

In other words, it is frozen.... again.

 

Now, when I chose the recovery files, I got a strange message reading, "Following backups were captured when your machine was under high load" and it had some cryptic message I didn't understand.

 

Help please, thanks!  If there is anything you need to know, please ask!

 

 

3

HighLoad.jpg

 

 

If that was the error, it means the image was made without volume shadow copy.   I had that happen a couple times when I was having problems with VSS  but I was able to restore the images without any problems.

 

Dave

4

My restore is now still at 86% but remaining time has increased to 3 hours, instead of 2.

 

Dave, the image you posted is exactly the warning/error message I got, but my recovery is not working. Searching for that error message in Google only resulted in 2 results!

 

Redk, I backed up my entire computer onto an external USB 2 TB WD drive. I am booting to a SRD DVD, and it is seeing the external USB fine, but it just isn't finishing.

 

Thanks for the comments/questions.

5

Redk, more answers to our questions....

 

I am not sure what you mean about "Do the Recovery Points pass verification?"  Is that something that happens after the recovery is attempted, or something I should check BEFORE I try to recover? I am not getting any error message, it is just stuck at 86%.

 

I am trying to restore to a laptop.

 

The disk was partitioned to C: and J:, I believe. C: is the regular Vista OS and all other files, the J: is an HP recovery partition.

 

The recovery points are on the external USB WD 2 TB drive.

 

Thanks!

 

 

 

6

If it fails again, load the SRD and then click the Analyze tab. Click Explore My Computer and find your Recovery Point. Highlight the Recovery Point then click Verify. Do this for each partition you are trying to recover.

 

How big is the Recovery Point for the C: drive?

7

redk, thanks.

 

I had two drives ( partitioned as C: and J:) I wanted to recover. Also, the C: recovery point is 372,823,889 KB, and the J: is 9,504,660 KB. 

 

When I went to verify C: (the OS and all other files), I quickly got the following message:  "Recovery point Eric-Laptop_C_Drive 002.v2i is valid."

 

I am now trying to verify J: (the HP recovery partition), and it has been running for several minutes now saying "Verifying recovery point integrity." The progress bar has moved about 5% of the entire bar. I'll let it run for a bit, but it looks like there is probably something wrong with the J: recovery point.

 

I'll let the verify process run for a while, but I will probably cancel it in a little while, and try to recover ONLY the C: partition, as I could care less about J:.

 

Thanks for the help, I'll post back whether or not trying to recover only the C: drive was successful!

 

 

8

If I am doing my math correctly, your Recovery Point for the C Drive is 355 GB. That is huge! Did you check the box to Disable Smart Sector Copy when you made the backup?  Or is this drive really that full?

 

I was going to suggest creating a partition on the laptop to copy the Recovery Point to then restore from there, but I don't think you have room.

9

UPDATE:

 

I tried to recover the C: but it is stuck again at 86%.  The "time remaining" has increased from 83 to 88 minutes since I've observed it.

 

When I tried to verify the J: recovery point, it ran for a couple hours, with the progress bar not making more than 10% or so.  I cancelled the operation, and a pop message said that the J: recovery point was valid. Hmmmmm.....

 

The current stuck recovery was done just with the C: recovery. I ignored the J: because of the problem trying to verify.

 

Are there any other options at this point?

 

If there is nothing else to solve this, I have a backup that is about three weeks older than the one I am trying to recover (for me, that's amazing, I am awful when it comes to backing up).

 

If I recover the computer using Old C: (and hopefully it works), is there an easy way to compare the Old and New C: .v2i files to see what is missing from the 3 week gap?

 

Thank you again for any help, I appreciate it

10

Thanks Redk for the reply. I was typing my last post while you posted, that's why I didn't answer in the last post.

 

Yes, it is 355 GB, or thereabouts. It has many picture, music, and video files.

 

I'm not really sure what options were selected when I did the backup. I just chose the the option to back up the entire drive.

 

Do you think resotoring from a partition on the laptop HDD would work, even though it isn't working from the external HDD? I am not sure... it seems like something is wrong with the v2i since it keeps stopping at 86%. 

 

Also, when I verified the C: recovery point, it only took a couple of seconds. Should a verify of such a large file go that quickly?

 

Finally  (!) is there a way I can go browse into the v2i files and delete some of the data? Some of the stuff I could delete and maybe make room to fit it on a partition on the laptop HDD.

 

Thanks for sticking with me and helping on this so far, I appreciate it.

 

11

If your older Recovery Point restores OK, you should be able to mount the newer one as a drive letter and search files by date modified. You can then copy with Windows Explorer.

 

One more question, Are there any other USB items plugged in? Is there a USB hub involved?

12

It probably verified an incremental file (.iv2i) file. You may want to verify all of them in the chain, just to make sure it is all good.

13

Do you have access to another computer that has Ghost installed or that you can install Ghost on? I'm trying an experiment right now to see if we can mount the image as a drive letter and capture it with ImageX. ImageX is a MS tool that runs from the command line and is used for creating wim (Windows Image) files. The wim file could then be applied to your laptop harddrive.

 

Maybe this would get around Ghost hanging up. I wonder why that is happening. Maybe the image contains a corrupt file or something.

 

EDIT: I am able to cature a wim file from a mounted drive letter.

14

Another thought, I wonder if you could remove the optical drive from the laptop and use the SATA connector to connect the drive containing the Recovery Points directly. You would have to make a bootable USB Flashdrive or make the external drive bootable and copy the SRD to it. It does work though, I've done it.

 

All you do is use Diskpart to make the drive active and then copy the conents of the SRD to the external hard drive. Then instead of booting from the CD, you choose the external HDD.

 

 

15

I would try recovering the older image and then go from there.  You may have the same problem as the most recent, but if it recovers than yes, there are some ways to compare the 2 recovery points to see what has changed.

 

I can mount 2 as drives and compare them with either windiff or winmerge, both free tools.

 

Dave

16

RedK, thanks for all the advice. You rock.

 

I started to restore the older point, and it is just about done ---- I hope.  It no longer shows a "time remaining" status, and says "Copying volume data over existing data."

 

It's been doing that for a little while, maybe 15 minutes that I've noticed.  I hope this thing finishes!

17

DaveH, thanks a lot.  As I mentioned above, the old recovery point is almost done (I think).  It has progressed further than all my other attempts with the newer one.

 

If this works, I'll see if that comparison will work for me. Thanks!

18

We have our fingers crossed.

If it works, also let us know if it gave the same error as in that screenshot I posted.

 

Dave

19

Ahhh nuts, I got an "Error E0BB014B: Volume not found."

 

Noooooooooooooooooooo!

20

I suspect this has something to do with transferring so much data over USB. I don't think you answered my question above. Is there any unnecessary items plugged into USB? Is there a USB hub involved?