OK. I give up. Now I remember why I switched my AV program from Norton to McAfee.Norton has too many problems.
Since I can't seem to find an answer to my questions about why Ghost 15 continues to gobble up space on my external drive (even though I've configured it to take up only a certain amount of space, and Ghost advise me its exceeded that amount of space, and I've already told it to automatically do what it has to do, and notwithstanding that I then manually tell it...blah, blah,blah....) I've concluded I have to uninstall.
I'm still willing to give it a chance though. I'll uninstall and try a clean install and start over. So, is it enough to just "uninstall" Ghost. Will "stuff" still remain that will muck up perforrmance if I re-install?
How do I get rid of EVERYTHING so I can start from scratch? (FWIW, Ghost is the only Norton product on my computer...)
However, uninstall Ghost manually via the control panel first, and then run the removal tool.
Note: The Norton Removal Tool removes ALL Norton products on your computer. Since you have stated that Ghost is the only Norton product on your computer, this won't be a problem for you.
In addition to what Yaso stated can you please clarify a few things for me?
What type of backups are you doing? File and folder backups, image backups or both?
Please tell me specifically how you are configuring Ghost to automatically manage your backup drive. I have been using Ghost for at least 8 years and this should work if configured correctly.
Allen, Prior to reinstalling, I’d been having problems with both Computer backups and Files and Folders backups, in terms of having space on my desitnation driver (and external USB drive) gobbled up. Since reinstalling, I found how to limit the number of recovery point sets (to 1) for the Computer backup, and have done so. The problem with the Files/Folders backup is that even though I’ve set the number of versions of files to be saved to 1, and even though I’ve limited the amount of space on the destination drive, and have set it to automatic optimization, the destination drive gets overrun by folders named some variation of “fbfFIles_”. Each such subfolder has various fbf files. Ghost will tell me that I’ve exceeded the space threshhold, but won’t have done anything about it. Even if I tell it manually to do something, nothing happens. So now, I have Ghost doing the Computer backup, but am using another app (Second Copy) to copy the Files and Folders. But there must be a way to limit the space used by Ghost in Files/Folders backups, no? Thanks. Ken
Thanks for the update. I've heard several users complain about folders not being deleted properly but what about the files themselves? You might find this thread of interest. This thread seems to indicate that after renaming the catalog.dat file and rebuilding the Ghost catalog used for file and folder backups that things were working correctly after that.
One way to check if anything is being deleted is to go through Windows Explorer and do a right click and select Properties on the top level file and folder backup directory. See how many files and directories are reported before and after a clean up operation performed by Ghost.
Also want to ask you something else. Are the files and folders you are backing up on your C drive or another drive? Are you doing image backups (Backup My Computer) of your C drive? If not, you should be. Where I am going with this is that if your files and folders are on your C drive anyway then it really is redundant to do a file and folder backup. As long as you are doing an image backup of your C drive you can still restore individual files at will and it is actually easier to do so than with a file and folder backup.
Yeah, I went through the renaming of the catalog.dat file routine (which I'd seen on a different thread than the one you linked to), but that didn't seem to work.
The files and folders I'm backing up are on the C drive, and yeah, i'm aware that they get backed up when I Backup My Computer, but since the C drive is so much larger than the Files and Folders I need to back up, and since the Files and Folders change more rapidly than other things on the C drive (like newly installed apps, etc.), I back up my Files and Folders every day, while I back up My Computer only twice a week.
I remember with an earlier version of Ghost (Ver. 9, I think), the equivalent of the Files and Folders backup image files similar to the ones Ver. 15 creates for My Computer backups (with .v2i - like extensions, and with similar incremental files). Those seem to not be present in 15 for Files and Folders backups.
All in all, the problems with Files and Folders backups makes Ghost 15 undesirable for Files/Folders backups!
Thank you for the added information. How do things look after reinstalling Ghost? I guess it might be a little too early to tell yet?
I agree with about Ghost not being the best for file and folder backups. One reason among others why I do exclusively image backups on my system, and I also have 3 hard drives.
I used to create a new base twice per month with incrementals 3 times a week in between, however now I do bases only once per month with 3 incrementals a week. Serves my purpose.
If you schedule Ghost to do unattended backups, then perhaps image backups might still work for you? Obviously that is a personal choice. When I do sit and watch an incremental backup it typically runs pretty fast and I would say probably only slightly slower than file and folder backups.
Just so you know I do a fair amount with file and folder backups on my system but only for testing purposes and to help out on the forums.
Please let me know how it looks after some time has passed and whether things seems to be OK after reinstalling Ghost. Please be sure to compare number of files from Windows Explorer properties before and after Ghost optimizes storage. Then you can be sure how many files and/or folders are actually being removed.
Since reinstalling, I haven't tried the Files/Folders backup, as I find the other app I'm using more suitable. I'm using Ghost only for the Computer backup.
Perhaps if I understood a bit more about the Files/Folders backups, I'd try again. When I was using it, there were many, many folders named some variation of "fbfFIles_", and in them were lots of fbf files. Every time the backup ran, more folders, with more fbf files, were created. (And there was no end in sight.)
Can you tell me what the new periodic fbfFiles_ folders were, and what the fbf files in there were?
Does each new fbf file correspond to a particular document that's been backed up?
Or does the fbf file contain info relating to multiple files?
If Ghost is configured to save only one version of each file, at what point should fbfFiles_ folders, or fbf files, start vanishing from the destination drive?
Each .fbf file relates to a specific file and I understand this is counter-intuitive because the filenames are so cryptic.
Based on testing and information I have seen in the forums, if you specify the number of versions to keep it should remove the oldest version to enforce what you have selected. It is also advised to have Ghost set to automatically optimize storage for the file and folder backups. Further you can also configure Ghost to optimize based on amount of storage space taken by backups. Please see page 156 of Ghost 15 user guide for more details.
I do quite a bit of testing with File and Folder backups but I do not use them functionally so to speak. E.g., I rely on my image backups for any restorals which might be necessary.
I've asked one of my peers to respond further to your specific question as I feel he might be more familiar with the answer to your specific questions. Though I can do a bit more testing and research and be able to give you a better answer I think it is more expediant to ask him to chime in.
I've gotten a message back from my peer and he indicates my explanation covers everything he would have been able to explain as well.
I would suggest trying it out again after having reinstalled Ghost and see if you witness different behavior. Set your number of versions to 1 or whatever is desired and also configure optimization based on drive space taken by backups. I would recommend to set to automatically optimize for this test.
You can use Windows Explorer to right click on Properties for the top level directory and routinely watch the number of files and folders which it sees. Then after a scheduled Ghost backup, see if that number stays near the same.
E.g., say you set number of versions to 1. Assume no new files added but you have changes to existing files. Ghost backup runs, I would expect the number to stay at least close to the same since it should remove the old version when creating the new version.
Try this out for a couple of backup runs and let me know how things goes.
I am also going to do some more experimenting on this and I will be starting a thread myself after that to make recommendations to Symantec on a few user friendly changes which could be made. Number one in my mind is to have the filenames as seen in Explorer use the real filenames so that you can actually match then up to what is seen in Ghost. For tracking versions they could then just append a suffix or something to each file of the same name so you know it represents a different version of that file.
I'll let you know when I start that thread. Or if you wish, you can start one and provide a link to it here.
