Help using Ghost 6.0 with Windows XP in DOS mode

[Zebo]

I have been trying to Ghost the WinXP OS with Ghost V6.0 to no avail. Here is what I do.

1. Install XP, drivers and all software on computer
2. said somputer has one Harddrive (Master) partitioned NTFS 10G for C and 30G for D
3. My Ghost boot floppy has command (from win 98) ghost.exe and gdisk
4. Next I try boot from floppy and everything is fine
5. when I enter ghost copy>partition to Image it wll not allow me to copy the 10gig C partition image to the D partition?

Do I need another phyisical HD to copy the image to because the D partition on the same hard drive isnt working? All partitions on this disk are formatted NTFS. Anyone with any suggestions please help as installing everything is really time consumming compared to ghosting.

TIA

 

[Auric]

Does v. 6 support NTSF?

 

[Rob G.]

First of all, Ghost cannot write image files into NTFS partitions. This is because it runs under DOS and DOS can't see NTFS. You can clone NTFS partitions quite happily, but if you want to create an image file it has to be done to a FAT16 or FAT32 partition (or directly to a CD-R). Restoring back to NTFS is no problem because it is being done at partition level, but actually writing a file into NTFS cannot be done from DOS.

Now your next problem is that the version of Ghost you have will not support the XP version of NTFS. The only one that does is Ghost 2002.

If you had installed XP with FAT32 partitions you'd have no problems with Ghost 6.0.

Annoying, huh?

 

[Zebo]

<< First of all, Ghost cannot write image files into NTFS partitions. This is because it runs under DOS and DOS can't see NTFS. You can clone NTFS partitions quite happily, but if you want to create an image file it has to be done to a FAT16 or FAT32 partition (or directly to a CD-R). Restoring back to NTFS is no problem because it is being done at partition level, but actually writing a file into NTFS cannot be done from DOS.

Now your next problem is that the version of Ghost you have will not support the XP version of NTFS. The only one that does is Ghost 2002.

If you had installed XP with FAT32 partitions you'd have no problems with Ghost 6.0.

Annoying, huh? >>




Thanks. CDr sounds like the winner then. BTW. Whats the diff between other NTFS and XP NTFS?

 

[Zebo]

UhOH.. No CDR is too small. Yes this is annoying. Is it better to stay with NTFS or just go FAT32? I mean performance and security wise I heard NTFS is the DEAL.

 

[Rob G.]

I don't know, to be honest. It's still completely compatible with Windows 2000 so there can't be much of a difference. Ghost 6.5 (2001) spits out errors concering MFT tables if you try to use it on an XP NTFS partition.

 

[Rob G.]

Woah, don't panic!

Ghost 6.5 (2001) automatically spans multiple CD-Rs (as many as it needs). I never used v.6 but you *may* have to set the -span option manually. You may also need to set the -split option to make sure the individal parts of the image file fit onto the CD.

So, for example

ghostpe -span -split=635 -autoname -z9

would set to automatically span volumes (CDs) with a split size of 635mb per file. Autoname is so that you dont have to keep giving Ghost a new file name everytime it splits. -Z9 sets the compression to maximum (0 is no compression).

Again, I've never used v.6 so it's probably worth checking if you have to set -span and -split for CD-R writing.

Actually, does v.6 allow you to write directly to CD-R?

 

[Rob G.]

NTFS gives you greater security and allows proper permissions for folders and files. It's more efficient certainly, but speed differences are usually very small.

Unfortunately, you'll need to wipe and reinstall to use FAT32 now. There is no way of converting NTFS to FAT unless you use something like Partition Magic (even then I don't think they guarantee perfect results). Going from FAT to NTFS is dead easy.