Hi,
after I made a successful backup recovery point with Ghost 15, I decided to see if I can restore it on another location but I didn't see any options to choose a different location and it says "Restore Anyware is not permitted for this recovery point". During the creation of the backup I didn't see any options for that.
I need Ghost to restore the data from my current hard drive to any other hard drive in case the current one becomes unusable. How can I do this?
Symantec uses to term "Restore Anyware" to mean a hardware independant or "universal restore"
It's how you would make an image on one system and be able to restore the image onto a different hardware platform.
It uses a type of sysprep and it is unavailible in the consumer version of Ghost.
It doesn't mean that you can't restore the image wherever you want, or onto another hard drive.
As for the description shown in the image information It may say "restore anywhare permitted" but your not going to able to do a hardware independant restore with Ghost anyway. On a data partition it says "not permitted" because you can't really sysprep a non-operating system partition.
Dave
Hi,
after I made a successful backup recovery point with Ghost 15, I decided to see if I can restore it on another location but I didn't see any options to choose a different location and it says "Restore Anyware is not permitted for this recovery point". During the creation of the backup I didn't see any options for that.
I need Ghost to restore the data from my current hard drive to any other hard drive in case the current one becomes unusable. How can I do this?
Ghost can do a restore over a network, no problems.
Startup123 wrote:Hi,
after I made a successful backup recovery point with Ghost 15, I decided to see if I can restore it on another location but I didn't see any options to choose a different location and it says "Restore Anyware is not permitted for this recovery point". During the creation of the backup I didn't see any options for that.
I need Ghost to restore the data from my current hard drive to any other hard drive in case the current one becomes unusable. How can I do this?
Here is a work around to restore to dissimilar hardware using Ghost 15. After you have made a backup open Ghost and under Tasks pick One Time Virtual Conversion. Now convert your backup to a vhd file and choose the option to run mini setup. Now you can restore from a vhd file instead of v2i.
H Folks,
The question was whether Startup123 still has the trial version of Ghost or now has a paid version which allows a restore operation.
Also I know what restore anywhere is but even though many believe you cannot use Ghost to restore to different hardware, you most certainly can. 
Please see this thread.
Allen
I'm still using the trial version. Is there some information that says what I can test and what not with the trial version? I'm reading the manual but I want to know certain things that I can't find in the manual. For example, if I create a restoration point backup with the trial version, can I restore it with the full version? Another thing that is even more important to know is, if I go to Tasks tab and choose One Time Back up, which I think is what I need, and complete the Wizard, at the end screen where the Finish button is, the wizard shows a summary of the backup where the very last line says: "Restore Anywhere is not permitted for this recovery point". The way I interpret this is that I can restore back only on the original hard drive and that probably will require erasing its content.
Here's what I want to be able to do. Make a backup of one of my hard drives that has Vista installed on it. Later this hard drive may have a different content or even not be anymore in the computer. I want to be able to restore the backup on another hard drive and use it in the same way as the original hard drive which could boot and run Vista. Is this possible and how?
I also have another question. When I make a backup of the entire hard drive like the one I described in my previous post, how is the size of the hard drive and size of the data handled by Ghost? For example if I make a backup of a very large hard drive that is half full, can I later restore it on another hard drive that is half the size of the original hard drive?
I made a search on Google and found this post.
It appears that the full version also shows this message:
"Restore Anywhere is not permitted for this recovery point"
Any ideas?
Hi Folks,
Please allow me to squelsh a few rumors. First regarding Restore Anywhere, Dave gave a pretty good explanantion above. HOwever, please do not confuse this with the ability to restore a computer backup image to another hard drive. That is however what Ghost is intended to do.
Restore anywhere is not supported but that has no affect on your ability to restore your image to a different hard drive.
Again, let me reiterate you can restore your image to another hard drive and to a hard drive in which other hardware is also different. Please refer to the thread I linked to earlier which explains how you would do this.
Let me state that I have personally done this quite a few times and the last time around, I restored my image to a system with radically different hardware and it worked fine. I have been a long time user of Ghost and have used every version since Ghost 9.
Regarding the question about restoring to a different size hard drive. Yes Ghost can do this, There is an option you can choose during restore to resize the image to match the size of the new target hard drive.
The thread I referred to also includes details on the resize option.
Restoring to a smaller hard drive is a bit more tricky but it can also usually be done. The issue you run into sometimes is that say you have a 500GB source drive and now you want to restore to a 250GB target drive. If the data placement of the backup image spans say 300 GB (due to fragmentation) then it will fail to restore to the smaller hard drive because it is replacing sector by sector which includes any fragmentation which might be present.
SO if you truly want to restore to a smaller hard drive, you must do a complete defragmentation of the source hard drive before running the backup to help ensure you won't run into the above scenario.
Restoring to a larger hard drive would not have this issue for obvious reasons.
Lastly, YES when you purchase Ghost 15 it can restore backup images you created with the trial version. The trial is only limited in that it does not allow you to do the actual restoral.
Hope this help and let me know if anything is still not clear.
Regards
Allen
Restore Anywhere is part of the enterprise version of Ghost-- Backup Exec System Recovery.
However, like I said in my post above, Ghost 15 CAN restore to dissimilar hardware by first creating a VHD file that has the Windows mini setup run on it. Then restore the VHD image file instead of the v2i file.
Here is a screenshot from the recovery environment..
HI redk9258,
This is all true but my point is that you can also restore the .v2i image directly to new hardware as well. You don't have to do the VHD route unless you choose to. E.g., there is an option.
Please see the following thread:
I am fully aware of BESR's more built in direct support of this, but it absolutely can be done with the consumer version of Ghost. I am living proof of that fact and many others have done this as well.
The key is that for it to work properly you have to force Windows to go through hardware enumeration first so that it recatalogs all of your hardware and instantiates the correct drivers. Essentially this means that you do a startup repair with the Windows DVD. This is the easiest way to get it to work because the consumer version of Ghost does not replace the HAL so unless you know a lot about Windows internals, the only way to replace the HAL is a startup repair.
The thread I linked to gives details on this process.
Restoring to a different hard drive in which all other hardware is the same does not require the startup repair with the Windows DVD.
Allen
Hi Allen,
It's always good to have 2 stones (or more) to kill one bird 
I personally have never had to move an install from one machine to another. I have been able to run a few converted images in Virtual PC though. It's kind of neat to see your PC from several years ago booting in a WIndow on a new PC. Of course the Home version of XP complains about activation in three days. I was able to get an Enterprise version of XP to run without problems though. All of the programs installed seem to work fine. It is good to know about this in case your motherboard burns out or something and you cannot get an exact replacement.
HI redk9258,
Hardware failures is one of the key reasons why I made the other post because it was clear to me that a lot of folks felt there was no option but to do a clean install if they had different hardware, more than just a new hard drive.
For many people having to reinstall Windows and all applications is not a big deal, for others like me (I have 200+ applications) it is a huge deal.
The other reason I started the other thread (apart from hardware failures) is to cover those who are simply doing a hardware upgrade. Same concept but for a different reason.
All but one of my restorals was done to restore my system after a moderate to major hardware upgrade. I define moderate as things like CPU replacement, video card and other peripherals and a major upgrade as multiple key components (usually including MB).
What I find lacking with Windows is that you cannot force hardware enumeration far enough back to replace the HAL without doing a startup repair. Unless again, you know a lot about the internal workings of Windows.
Of course the problem with startup repair is that it undoes all windows updates and forces you to go through that process all over again. But even though that is a pain, it is far less painful than me spending 2-3 months working nights/weekends reinstalling the OS and all my apps.
I think Microsoft should have offered a way of doing this within windows, as an advanced option. Being able to replace the HAL when needed and force the hardware enumeration back to the beginning of time would be a highly valuable feature.
But then I digress sometimes.
Allen
Hi, it's me again.
Now I have the paid version of Ghost but I still can't restore.
I made a computer backup from a 1.3TB large system hard drive that has only 100MB used space on it.
I tried to restore it on another hard drive that is 250GB. The resizing option was dimmed and next to it said that resizing is only for unallocated partitions. I don't understand that. I'm trying to use a completely empty fleshly formatted hard drive.
I will greatly appreciate some simple instructions how to achieve the following. I want to move my Vista installation form one hard drive to a smaller hard drive in the same computer. Is this possible and how?
This is the error:
I forgot to mention that Gost will start the recovering without this error if I select a larger hard drive.
Startup123,
In the recovery wizard you have to click Edit to get more options. You mentioned your 250 GB HD is formatted so it contains a partition. After clicking Edit you have to delete the partition. You want unallocated free space as the target. You will now have a resize option with maximum and minimum choices.
Edit... Ghost does a sector based restore so if that 100 MB of data is spread beyond the 250 GB mark on the old HD, it won't restore to a 250 GB HD. It's unlikely that the data spread is greater than 250 GB but it is possible.
Ghost does sector based restores so if your original partition was....( * is sectors in use, - is free space)
[---**----**--]
then the target partition to restore into can not be smaller than...
[---**----**]
Thanks for the quick reply Brian, very much appreciated.
I think it is possible that my data spreads beyond 250MB mark because the used space of drive was much larger than 250 with user files which I moved out.
As far as I understand this should be fixed by defragmenting? If so I have to find out how to do that with a system hard drive.
Any ideas?
Yes, you can defrag the drive if you can install it back into the system.
If your using windows 7 it has an option under drive management to shrink the partition. You don't need to necessarily do it but it will give you an idea on where the "unmovable" files lie on the drive.
If it will let you shrink it to below 250GB then your fine, you can cancel.
If your page file is in the way (it's usually the first unmovable file found after a defrag), you can temporarily disable it, reboot, and then re-enable it. On a defragged drive it will usually get re-written towards the front of the drive right after all the data.
Another option would be to use a tool like partition wizzard to shrink the partition. It's a free tool that works very well.
After the partition is shrunk you can re-image it and restore it onto your new drive.
http://www.partitionwizard.com/
Dave
Well, I tried again but the options are dimmed.
I'm
I'm not sure sure what that means.
I'm currently defragmenting the system drive with the Vista Disk Defragmenter and then will make another backup hoping that this will help.
Thanks Dave, just saw your message after I posted. I will check and try your suggestions.
Great forum.
