Is there a way to clear the Backup History under the Advanced tab?
I have numerous file & folder backup jobs that have been done over the last year (from Ghost 14, recently upgraded) that show a question mark next to the backup job. This is due to me having to manually delete the files on my USB drive because Ghost 14 never managed the backup space properly and would alway run out of space. As far as I can tell Ghost 15 does the same.
Under "Manage Backup Destinations", I have always had the "Automatically Optimize Storage" checked, and have the limit set to 1.3TB (on a 1.5TB drive). File limite set to 1.
Nope, didn't work. I did exactly as you said. All the old backups back to April, 2008 still show in the history. April 2008 to September, 2009 show with questions marks.
As for your other question, I didn't pick an choose which files to delete. I deleted them all and started over with a new files & folders backup.
are you sure the rename was successful? This process completely rebuilds the catalog file.
It sounds like either the rename failed or there are things in the backup folder you are not aware of.
Try this for me. Do the process again but this time before you do the import verify if ghost has anything in it’s history. It should be empty at that point. After confirming this then please do the import again.
What OS do and SP level do you have to include 32 or 64 bit? Also what path did you find the catalog.dat in?
Did you by any chance upgrade your OS from say something like XP to Vista or Windows 7? I'm asking because between XP and Vista the path of this file changed so if you previously had XP for example then you might have renamed a catalog.dat which might be in a different location than the one Ghost currently uses.
The path of this file should be exactly where I stated for the OS indicated. If you found it in a different path then you may have renamed the wrong one.
If this is not it then obviously we'll look further, but I don't see how Ghost can possibly have anything in the file and folder backup history once you have deleted this file. Also, just to make sure you should click on Recover My Files from the Tasks tab. Then make sure File and Folder is highlighted under the Search In section. The without typing anything in the Find Files to Recover box, hit Search.
Once you have deleted the catalog file (before doing the import) Ghost should tell you that nothing was found.
I just did this test once again on my system and it worked as expected.
Catalog.dat at C:\\ProgramData\Symantec\FileBackup. I just checked and that dirctory is currently empty. However there are "Previous Versions" available. I clicked on the properties for the folder, then clicked on the "Previous Versions" tab. Could these be causing the problem?
I updated from Xp to Vista about 3 years ago when Vista first came out. I didn't run Ghost under XP so this odesn't apply.
I am also running Norton 360 if that has anything to do with it. Version 3.5.2.11
There is a directory at C:\\ProgramData\Symantec\Norton Ghost. Under that there are directorys, including one that says "History". Could this be the files to rename? There is not a file names "Catalog.dat" in that directory.
There are some files in the History directory, most are related to Image backups but a couple are related to file and folder backups. However those are not the ones which contain the file and folder catalog. I'm not even sure what those are used for but definitely not what we are trying to accomplish.
And the plot also thickens because you have the exact same OS I do so there are no differences there either.
I've done this test numerous times and this is the first time there has ever been an issue like this either on my computer or to my knowledge from anywhere on the forums either. This is strange.
I don't use file and folder backups on my computer for actual usage but I do testing quite extensively since I help out on the forums here and many questions and problems are in this area.
The previous versions should not make a difference unless you actually restore a previous version.
You could try renaming the directory itself just in case. Also, please make sure Ghost is actually not running at all. FYI: the reason for stopping the Norton Ghost service is because otherwise you won't be allowed to rename the file since it is kept locked by Ghost. But to make sure I would actually shut down Ghost with the red X in the upper right corner after you've stopped the service.
Just to cover all the bases, you can try restarting the computer after you've renamed the file and then check Ghost history again from Recover My Files and see if it is then empty.
If none of this does the trick we might want to uninstall and reinstall Ghost to cover the possibility of some sort of internal problem with the Ghost installation.
Question: do you also do Image backups (Backup My Computer) with Ghost? These are actually the best backups anway, by the way.
Prior to deleting the Catalog.dat file I made sure that Norton Ghost in the Services directory was stopped. I have tried restarting, renaming, deleting, etc.
I uninstalled and reinstalled the program yesterday and now the problem is gone. Prior to reinstalling it I wiped everything from my external USB drive.
I also do recovery point images to the same USB drive, but since these take 6-8 hours I only do that once a month. I do the files & folders backup once a week to keep changed files current.
Thanks for the update. I would have preferred that you did not delete your actual backup directory on the USB drive when you uninstalled and reinstalled Ghost. When you uninstall Ghost it should have asked you if you wanted to keep your backup history and such to which you should have answered NO. But this would not delete your actual backup directory.
Once reinstalled we could have re-imported again to see if it cleared up. Most likely this would have done the trick.
I just would not have wanted you to lose the actual backup folder or any image backups.
In either case I'm happy that it is working now. Please make sure you get some fresh backups so that you are protected.
Still I found the simple way to delete the old backup history ..
The program does it by it self , I did one right click on the Drive that keeps my backup jobs, menu "manage backup destination" drive .... and there was all the history, and you can delete any entry by date that you do not like.
The method you outline is for deleting Image backups (Backup My Computer) from Ghost history. This does NOT remove file and folder backup history. The orginal poster was asking how to delete file and folder backup history, not image backups.
There are two different methods depending on which type of history you want to remove from Ghost.
True ... About the "file and folder" backup history there is a separete setting to limit you backups to only one ,
the Ghost will handle this aytomaticaly .
I did that , but I run in another problem .... The files folder backup , did not backup the active user account ,
but the " ALL Users" ..One .
I manualy adjust is so all the folder Documents and settings with all profiles to be backed up,
and now I have two "file and folder" backup reports , the last....that was not complete , AND the latest that is complete , and both look good to go at their status !!
But the point are that I had delete manualy the files from the first backup ( on the hard drive ) , and with the second backup , the files look in place to the first ( Half backup ) ..
Is there a way to clear the Backup History under the Advanced tab?
I have numerous file & folder backup jobs that have been done over the last year (from Ghost 14, recently upgraded) that show a question mark next to the backup job. This is due to me having to manually delete the files on my USB drive because Ghost 14 never managed the backup space properly and would alway run out of space. As far as I can tell Ghost 15 does the same.
Under "Manage Backup Destinations", I have always had the "Automatically Optimize Storage" checked, and have the limit set to 1.3TB (on a 1.5TB drive). File limite set to 1.