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Why is Norton Ghost 2003 (DOS fdd) hanging at the blue and gray startup screen?

M

mshan

Diamond Member
I have used Norton Ghost 2003 from DOS / floppy disk without problem.

I moved my computer to a new computer case (Antec Solo) and also swapped out an two optical drives for two others (have checked to make sure all master slave jumpers are correct).

Now whenever I boot into Ghost from floppy (DOS), PC DOS starts and Ghost seems to load, but hangs at the initial blue and grey screen where the text about Norton Ghost is supposed to appear.

All I get is an hour glass symbol for a cursor?

What is going on, and how do I fix it?
 
In my experience with Ghost the hanging usually has to do with a drive it's having an issue with optical or HD. There are some command line arguments that may be able to help. Google or check the help/support.

Is your floppy disk set as Read/Only?
 
"Is your floppy disk set as Read/Only?"

I don't know how to check or set this?

I've double checked the jumpers on my optical drives and they all seem ok.

I've got my WD3200KS powered up via it's Molex connector, rather than it's SATA power connector. Could this make a difference?
 
I'll try to remember that -noide switch. It's command line when running the program? I've had that "hang" issue when wanting to clone SATA drives. Sometimes I've just let the program sit there and once it actually got past that spot after about 10 minutes or so - seriously!
 
What exactly do I type and where do I type it to add that command line (creating new DOS Ghost floppy) with Norton Ghost 2003 (as part of Norton Systemworks 2003)

Do I have to type Ghost -noide, or just -noide?
 
Another great reason to use Acronis TrueImage. None of that is necessary. 🙂
 
Originally posted by: mshan
What exactly do I type and where do I type it to add that command line (creating new DOS Ghost floppy) with Norton Ghost 2003 (as part of Norton Systemworks 2003)

Do I have to type Ghost -noide, or just -noide?
Click to expand...

Your boot disk should contain an Autoexec.bat file, just modify the Ghost line and add -noide after Ghost, just as you guessed above.
 
Tried adding the -noide parameter while creating a new Ghost DOS disk on a newly formated floppy and it works! 🙂

Now I take it I can't directly burn a Ghost image to DVDR (?). But do the disk images also not contain any of my IDE optical drives?

EDIT: just restored from a previous Ghost image, and right before it completed I got a "boot sector write virus" error message. I've always used AVG free and previous scans have always been negative, but is this virus in the disk image or on the current hard drive? And will doing a fresh install of Windows destroy this write virus?

EDIT #2: did a full disk scan with AVG Free Edition and got no viruses detected. Do you think Ghost just thought whatever was left over from that previous attempt to image from Windows (Ghost apparently creates a virtual partion of som sort) is why I got that error message? And will a fresh install of a new C: partition eliminate it? Or do I also need to wipe out the V: data and media storage partition?
 
Tried restoring from another, earlier Ghost image and got the same exact error message at 99%:

"BootSector Write!! Virus: continue (y/n)?:

Under current file, it says "14900 unnamed MFT table entry"
 
Could that just be your motherboard BIOS protecting against ALL boot sector writes?

I think a full image in Acronis includes the boot sector, Ghost might as well.
 
Aborted Darik's Book N Nuke and rebooted into BIOS.

BIOS Write protection is enabled, but it has always been and I've never had problems with Ghost till recently.

Anyways, partially wiped all partitions on the hard drive and gonna try a fresh partitioning and Windows install on a new C: drive.
 
Just started to do a fresh install of Windows and got the same error message a couple screens in:

"BootSector Write!! Virus: Do you want to continue (y/n)?"

What the heck is going on? I wiped the hard drive. Did some virus get written into my BIOS?
 
Wrote zeros to the whole hard drive and still got the same error.

Turned off the dsl, went into bios, turned off boot sector protection, rebooted, then didn't get the error message.

Went back into bios, turned boot sector protetion back on, rebooted, and again didn't get the error message on a new install of windows. 🙂

The Ghost DOS without the -noide parameter still hangs, but the one with -noide does not. Wondering whether it's due to the PCI Express video card I added over the holidays (turned off on board video too)
 
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