I have used various versions of Ghost for a long time but am not familiar with the terminology, so please excuse this problem description.
I used Ghost 15 to back up some images of a new laptop after installing a lot of data and programs from my old computer. I created the image on one of my USB hard drives. However the new laptop turned out to have some defects so I exchanged it for a working version of the same make and model laptop at Best Buy.
When I got the exchanged laptop home, I reinstalled Ghost 15 and created images of that system on a 2nd (different) USB hard drive. I then booted the recovery environment and restored the images of the laptop I had exchanged to get my data and programs back.
When I brought up Ghost 15 on the restored system, I expected the status window on the console to show me the original images I had made because I restored the entire system drive which also contained Ghost and all its files. However Ghost was still looking for the 2nd USB drive, and did not recognize the 1st USB drive. The console's status window only showed the set of backup images I had made before restoring the original image. So it looks like the Ghost data from the new Ghost installation was retained when I restored the system; the Ghost data from the original install was not brought back with the original image.
I understand I can still use the original images in the restore environment and / or mount the images to restore individual files, but I would still like the console to show me the statuses of the original backups and be able to access them for restores from the console.
So how to I recover the original Ghost data regarding those images?
I'm a little confused because I don't see how that is possible.
Your saying that you restored the image of your original system onto the replacement system and it's showing the Ghost history of the replacement system?
Is everything else really the operating system of the original system, all your original programs and data are there?
Dave
Edit- or is it that your only missing the history of the original system that happened after the time that the image was created?
I am as confused as you are. Yes, everything else -- programs and data from the original operating system was restored. Only the Norton backup data remains from the replacement system.
Could that data have been kept in the HP "Recovery Partition" that was shipped with the computer itself? But why would Norton write data to that partition? I did not see any Norton directories in that partition. Also no programs or users are supposed to write to the "Recovery Partition." It's used to restore the operating system image shipped with the laptop. I did create an image of that partition from the defective version of the laptop but saw no reason to restore it. They should be identical on every instance of the same model laptop produced in the same period. Best Buy buys these up in batches.
We see a lot of people here saying that the Ghost history is not complete because they don't realize that Ghost can't somehow "look into the future".
For instance, say that I have been creating an image every day and continue to create one every day until the end of the month.
Next month if I restore the image from today, the Ghost history will not show all the rest of the history for the rest of the month because those were future events that did not happen yet at the time of todays image.
It also will not even show todays image in the history because if I make an image right now it's not going to show in the history until after the image was created. Right now the history can't show that I'm about to make an image so if I restore that image it also can't show that I was about to make an image.
Are you sure thats not whats happening?
Please don't get the idea I'm doubting you, it's just that the Ghost history should be located under:
C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Norton Ghost\History
And if your system restored correctly it must have replaced that folder and I have no idea how it could possibly retain the history of another installed operating system.
I really don't think this is addressing the question.
This is the same operating system on an identical computer. It should have restored the backup history of the volume it was restoring. If anything, Norton is showing the backup history of the volume that was over-written rather than the backup history of the restored volume.
I haven't commented on this thread because I don't really understand why the OP is having such a hard time. Like you said the history is in the backup with the exception of the very last one. That is because Ghost freezes the information, runs the backup, then updates the history file after the backup has run. In other words, if you are running incremental backups and you restore C_Drive001_i015.iv2i, C_Drive001_i015.iv2i will not show in history because Ghost did not know about it when the backup ran. The next file name will be C_Drive001_i016.iv2i and C_Drive001_i015.iv2i will no longer be part of the Recovery Point set. C_Drive001_i016.iv2i will rely on C_Drive001_i014.iv2i and the files before it.
I agree with what you said, the history should be in C:\ProgramData\Symantec\Norton Ghost\History for a Vista / Windows 7 machine. The files should exist in the backup and should restore.
When you restore from a Ghost image, it should be just like the time the backup was run. Any backups that were run after the restored image file will not show in history because they are in the future. I know of no way to import them to show in the GUI.
I tried restoring the history folder itself this morning, but that did not change anything. Ghost updated the history folder as soon as I started it; it still showed the status of the the backups I took of the new computer prior to restoring the older system to the new computer. It also was still looking for the 2nd USB drive I used for those backups. It still did not show any of the earlier backups on the status window. My conclusion is that Ghost probably stores that status someplace else than in the history folder.
By the way, the backup images were independent rather than incremental backups.
In any case, I've given up on attempting to get that status data back. I simply took new backups of the restored system to synch up status with reality.