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rj1127

141 Posts

23701

August 4th, 2005 23:00

Saving Ghost Image

Dell Inspiron 700m. I'm about to nuke the default XP Home installation and start fresh using XP home setup CD from Dell. Before I do that, I'd like to save the ghost image from the 4GB (hidden) partition to another machine/CD/DVD. I have ghost 8. Has anyone done it successfully?

I tried booting from CD, run Ghost (DOS mode). I can see 2 large files (2GB and 1GB). I suppose those 2 files are the only ones I need to restore the image. Am I right?

farmer70acre

1 Rookie

 • 

124 Posts

August 11th, 2005 06:00

sorry, I meant do the image with acronis true image and restore it using it also, is what I need to know, just the dell partition.
 

rickmktg

2 Intern

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11.9K Posts

August 11th, 2005 12:00


@farmer70acre wrote:
sorry, I meant do the image with acronis true image and restore it using it also, is what I need to know, just the dell partition.
 
You want to backup a partition that includes only content created with a Norton product (Ghost), using True Image.  Then you plan on restoring that partition and repairing your MBR to use that partition to put the computer back the way it came?
 
Why don't you do this:
 
1) Use True Image to backup your C drive.
 
2) Use CTRL F11 to restore the computer to "as shipped".
 
3) Use True Image to backup your C drive "as shipped".
 
4) Reformat the computer, gain back the 3-4gb of space, and use True Image to restore your current C drive.

farmer70acre

1 Rookie

 • 

124 Posts

August 11th, 2005 12:00

I was told that if I reformat then restore my computer with true image that it will remove my formatting and make the drive in the format it was saved which is one big drive. I want a C,D and E drive and have the original content that was installed by Dell.
Not sure if I made myself clear enough??
 

rickmktg

2 Intern

 • 

11.9K Posts

August 11th, 2005 12:00


@farmer70acre wrote:
I was told that if I reformat then restore my computer with true image that it will remove my formatting and make the drive in the format it was saved which is one big drive. I want a C,D and E drive and have the original content that was installed by Dell.
Not sure if I made myself clear enough??
 
I don't use True Image, I use Ghost.  With Ghost, you can image an entire drive, or just a partition.  So, if I image the C partition which is 40gb in size, then reformat the computer into three partitions (20/10/10), I can then restore the C partition to the 20gb partition quite easily.  I can also resize partitions during the restore.

dg1261

623 Posts

August 11th, 2005 23:00

"I was told that if I reformat then restore my computer with true image that it will remove my formatting and make the drive in the format it was saved which is one big drive. I want a C,D and E drive and have the original content that was installed by Dell."
 
farmer70acre,
 
When you say "reformat" you mean repartition, right?  (Reformat means to reinitialize the file system on a given partition.)  If I understand correctly, you want to dump the DellRestore partition, keep the hidden DellUtility partition, divvy up the rest of the disk space into three partitions accessible to Windows, and have the contents of the C partition as originally shipped from Dell.  Have I got that right?
 
I don't use TI, but I've also heard third-hand that you have to do a full-disk image, not just individual partitions.  And of course, creating/restoring a full-disk image means you can't use Rick's steps #3-4.
 
What you might want to do is:
  1. save the original Dell image from the restore partition (per steps outlined to rj1127, earlier);
  2. restore system to "as shipped" condition;
  3. use PartitionMagic (or similar) to eliminate the restore partition, shrink the XP partition, and create the two new partitions you want;
  4. use TI to image the whole disk as customized.
At that point, you'll have a TI image of the original XP with custom partitioning, plus a Ghost image of the original XP saved elsewhere (make sure you also save recover.exe so you can use that Ghost image, if need be).  You won't ever be using Ctrl+F11 again, but you wouldn't anyway if your main backup is via TI.
 
 

farmer70acre

1 Rookie

 • 

124 Posts

August 12th, 2005 10:00

Partition majic won't mess up my programs will it? (I never used it) I checked partition majic 8 since it says for XP

someone posted- The only problem that I could find is that I had to convert the ntfs system to fat 32 the program called bootmagic does not do this automaticly so you have to do this your self and its a bit tedious and irratating but once that is done it seems that everything would be fine.(Why would it have to be converted since XP is usually ntfs?)

some had problems using it on XP also. I have xp pro sp2

 

another angle to attack-- I also have Ghost 2003

See www.goodells.net/dellrestore(this site is hard for me to understand, I'm not a real techy person).  Boot from a real-DOS boot disk(how do I make this?), run ptedit, use it to change the "type" of the dellrestore partition from "DB" to "0C". (I don't understand how to do this???) Now reboot into your existing XP and it will assign the dellrestore partition a drive letter.  Once it does that, just access the two files (*.gho and *.ghs) like any other files, burn them to DVD.  Also save recover.exe from the dellrestore partition--that's the utility to restore the image file when the time comes.  (You can use Ghost 2003 if you have it.  If not, then make sure you save recover.exe.)

If you copy the partition you would have to put it back then rebuild the MBR (how do I rebuild the MBR?)
 
This was in the sticky above--- (no dell cd)
  1. Create a boot disk
  2. Create the ghost image
  3. Copy the .gho image over to a DVD
  4. Restart and boot from the boot disk pointing to the image on the DVD

The image should be re-installed providing you have the correct boot drivers and the program can read from the DVD drive. (what are the correct boot drivers? and I am currently using the sonic that came with my computer (dell installed, no install CD) so if I lose sonic my dvd won't be readable? I have nero5.5 but not sure if it will do dvd's because dvds are not listed in the program itself just cds for burning.)

Sorry so many questions, I'm really dumb about this.. It would be so much easier if Dell would just make the restore more easily copied (ie make a restore cd instead of an OS cd) or have the restore on a provided cd (I had a computer (IBM) that had this, the cd would take the computer back to out of the box state.

Message Edited by farmer70acre on 08-12-2005 07:36 AM

Message Edited by farmer70acre on 08-12-2005 07:38 AM

Message Edited by farmer70acre on 08-12-2005 08:06 AM

Message Edited by farmer70acre on 08-12-2005 08:09 AM

dg1261

623 Posts

August 13th, 2005 01:00

"(Why would it have to be converted since XP is usually ntfs?)"
 
I'm going to guess that comment was specifically related to BootMagic, not PartitionMagic.  It's been years since I used BootMagic, but IIRC it had to be installed in a FAT/FAT32 partition, not NTFS.
 
"See www.goodells.net/dellrestore  (this site is hard for me to understand, I'm not a real techy person)."
 
Then you shouldn't try it.  Making a broken DSR functional again is not a simple task and requires above average technical knowledge.  (If it was easy enough for anybody to do, Dell Support would probably be guiding people how to do it.)  My dsrfix.com expects enough intelligence behind the keyboard to interpret what's on the screen.  It's not an automatic fix-all, and can be dangerous to use if you don't have enough technical background to recognize when dsrfix's report doesn't look right.
 
 

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