Restore ghost from External USB HDD ?

[chrbar]

Hi,

I've created different ghost to support the workstations of a small school,
but my ghost are too big (20GB) and I can't deployed them via the network
(LAN)!

Do you know a if there is a cd ou USB boot solution, that I could use to
deploy my ghost from External USB HDD?
I have to finalize that for tomorrow evening and I'm in panic mode!!!

Thanks a lot for your help
Chris

 

[Zaphod Beeblebrox]

Hi,

I've created different ghost to support the workstations of a small
school,
but my ghost are too big (20GB) and I can't deployed them via the
network
(LAN)!

Do you know a if there is a cd ou USB boot solution, that I could use
to
deploy my ghost from External USB HDD?
I have to finalize that for tomorrow evening and I'm in panic mode!!!

Thanks a lot for your help
Chris

Have you tried using Ghost to read from an external USB HDD? It works
fine for me to read from USB thumb drives, but I've never tried a USB
HDD to see if it will work. Another possibility would be a Windows PE
boot CD. If it doesn't work "out of the box", you can add drivers. For
a how-to on building your own customized Windows PE boot CD, go to
www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/.

 

[Dave R.]

Have you tried using Ghost to read from an external USB HDD? It works
fine for me to read from USB thumb drives, but I've never tried a USB
HDD to see if it will work. Another possibility would be a Windows PE
boot CD. If it doesn't work "out of the box", you can add drivers.
For a how-to on building your own customized Windows PE boot CD, go to
www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/.

Symantec Ghost 11.1 reads external USB HDDs just fine (or at least the
ones I have) on Dell Optiplex PCs. YMMV with other versions of Ghost,
other models of PCs and other drive enclosures. I had to boot to floppy
or CD rather then a bootable USB stick to do it though, because the Dell
seemed to find the USB HDD and try to boot from it instead of the USB
stick when both were connected. FYI, I use Win 98's DOS for my boot
media (and no USB drivers loaded), but it would probably work with most
any version of DOS. Ghost doesn't doesn't seem to care about DOS
version, nor does it seem to need USB drivers as long as the BIOS sees
the drive.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Symantec Ghost 11.1 reads external USB HDDs just fine (or at least the ones I have) on Dell Optiplex PCs. YMMV with
other versions of Ghost, other models of PCs and other drive enclosures. I had to boot to floppy or CD rather then a
bootable USB stick to do it though, because the Dell seemed to find the USB HDD and try to boot from it instead of the
USB stick when both were connected. FYI, I use Win 98's DOS for my boot media (and no USB drivers loaded), but it
would probably work with most any version of DOS. Ghost doesn't doesn't seem to care about DOS version, nor does it
seem to need USB drivers as long as the BIOS sees the drive.

Are you saying by "the Dell seemed to find the USB HDD and try to boot
from it instead of the USB stick when both were connected" that your Dell
PC can boot from an external USB hard drive?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Dave R.]

Are you saying by "the Dell seemed to find the USB HDD and try to
boot
from it instead of the USB stick when both were connected" that your
Dell
PC can boot from an external USB hard drive?

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. External USB hard drive,
external USB Floppy drive, and even external USB CDROM drives if the
BIOS alternate boot menu is to be believed.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Timothy Daniels" asked:

Yes, that's exactly what I'm saying. External USB hard drive, external USB Floppy drive, and even external USB CDROM
drives if the BIOS alternate boot menu is to be believed.

Wow, that's a new development! I've been reading so far
that booting from USB external hard drives needed a fairly
serious degree of hack. What make and model of PC is it that
has this feature of its BIOS?

*TimDaniels*

 

[John John - MVP]

Wow, that's a new development! I've been reading so far
that booting from USB external hard drives needed a fairly
serious degree of hack. What make and model of PC is it that
has this feature of its BIOS?

Booting from USB devices is nothing new, it's been around for a few
years. You're probably thinking of booting a Windows installation on a
USB device, Windows Embedded can boot from a USB device but other than
that it is not a supported boot method for "regular" Windows operating
systems, you have to hack the Windows boot process to make this happen.

John

 

[Dave R.]

Wow, that's a new development! I've been reading so far
that booting from USB external hard drives needed a fairly
serious degree of hack. What make and model of PC is it that
has this feature of its BIOS?

Dell Optiplex 755, and I'm pretty sure some previous models are able
to as well. No idea how far back it goes in the Optiplex line,
though, nor if other Dell models are similarly capable. That said,
I'm talking about DOS or Linux boot, NOT Windows - MS hasn't made that
available in their products outside of XP Embedded, and that is even a
recent addition.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Dave R." explained:

Dell Optiplex 755, and I'm pretty sure some previous models are able to as well. No idea how far back it goes in the
Optiplex line, though, nor if other Dell models are similarly capable. That said, I'm talking about DOS or Linux
boot, NOT Windows - MS hasn't made that available in their products outside of XP Embedded, and that is even a recent
addition.

OK, thanks. I guess I don't have to run out and buy a USB external HD
to boot my Vista and XP Pro. I sure would like to be able to boot Vista
onto my laptop from an external HD, though. I have an eSATA adaptor
which I thought might do it from an eSATA external HD, but not joy.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Booting from USB devices is nothing new, it's been around for a few years. You're probably thinking of booting a
Windows installation on a USB device, Windows Embedded can boot from a USB device but
other than that it is not a supported boot method for "regular" Windows
operating systems, you have to hack the Windows boot process
to make this happen.

John

Yes, I boot a minimal Linux from a USB "thumb" drive for my laptop.
But I was interested in booting an entire Windows Vista and XP Pro
from an external HD. I didn't know that Windows was the limiting
factor, though. Is it fear of pirating that causes Microsoft to not enable
booting from USB devices?

*TimDaniels*

 

[John John - MVP]

Yes, I boot a minimal Linux from a USB "thumb" drive for my laptop.
But I was interested in booting an entire Windows Vista and XP Pro
from an external HD. I didn't know that Windows was the limiting
factor, though. Is it fear of pirating that causes Microsoft to not enable
booting from USB devices?

It's just an issue with the way the USB stack is initialized, the stack
and its drivers are not loaded or started during the early booting
stage, ntldr doesn't load these drivers so the Session Manager cannot
make use of the devices, the stack is only initialized long after the
Session Manager has started the Windows session. Microsoft has never
supported this booting method and they have never made this a priority
for their "full" Windows versions. Windows PE and Windows Embedded can
be booted on USB devices.

John

 

[Timothy Daniels]

It's just an issue with the way the USB stack is initialized, the stack and its drivers are not loaded or started
during the early booting stage, ntldr doesn't load these drivers so the Session Manager cannot make use of the
devices, the stack is only initialized long after the Session Manager has started the Windows session. Microsoft has
never supported this booting method and they have never made this a priority for their "full" Windows versions.
Windows PE and Windows Embedded can be booted on USB devices.

John

Thanks for the explanation on why it doesn't work for "full" Windows
OSes. It's still strange why Microsoft doesn't implement it for them, though.
If it has gone to the trouble to develope the technique for Windows PE and
Embedded, it would be easy to extend it to larger OSes. Judging by the
inquiries that have appeared in the windowsXP newsgroups, it's obvious
that there's an interest in it. Yet, Microsoft doesn't do it.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Stefan Kanthak]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is that really YOUR mail address?
If not: why do you abuse someone else's domain?!

:

Thanks for the explanation on why it doesn't work for "full" Windows
OSes. It's still strange why Microsoft doesn't implement it for them, though.
If it has gone to the trouble to develope the technique for Windows PE and
Embedded, it would be easy to extend it to larger OSes. Judging by the
inquiries that have appeared in the windowsXP newsgroups, it's obvious
that there's an interest in it. Yet, Microsoft doesn't do it.

The technique to boot PE/Embedded from USB devices is not straightforward!
NTLDR creates a RAM disk, loads the .ISO (or .SDI) image from the USB
device into the RAM disk, turns on an CD-ROM emulation and then starts
PE/Embedded from the emulated CD drive.

Stefan

 

[Timothy Daniels]

The technique to boot PE/Embedded from USB devices is not straightforward!
NTLDR creates a RAM disk, loads the .ISO (or .SDI) image from the USB
device into the RAM disk, turns on an CD-ROM emulation and then starts
PE/Embedded from the emulated CD drive.

Stefan

It appears that you imply that the reason is that little OSes fit into a RAM
disk and the "full" OSes cannot fit into a RAM disk. That assumes that the
entire OS image must fit into the RAM disk for a single loading step. Why
couldn't the OS be loaded in stages?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Stefan Kanthak" scolded:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Is that really YOUR mail address?
If not: why do you abuse someone else's domain?!

Thanks for pointing that out. "SpamMeNot.com"
wasn't taken when I adopted it, but it is now. So how
about this: (e-mail address removed) ?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Stefan Kanthak]

"Stefan Kanthak" scolded:

Thanks for pointing that out. "SpamMeNot.com"
wasn't taken when I adopted it, but it is now. So how
about this: (e-mail address removed) ?

THATS ABUSE TOO! You don't own that domain -> don't use it!
Use your own mail address, or provide a mail address which
can simply and clearly be recognized as invalid, like
<timothy.daniels@invalid>, AND provide your REAL address as
"Reply-To: ".

Stefan

 

[Stefan Kanthak]

It appears that you imply that the reason is that little OSes fit into a RAM
disk and the "full" OSes cannot fit into a RAM disk. That assumes that the
entire OS image must fit into the RAM disk for a single loading step.

Right. That was the part I left as exercise for the reader.-)

Why couldn't the OS be loaded in stages?

NT normally loads in stages. But the second stage can't access USB.
That was already described in this thread.

Stefan

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Stefan Kanthak" scolded:

THATS ABUSE TOO! You don't own that domain -> don't use it!
Use your own mail address, or provide a mail address which
can simply and clearly be recognized as invalid, like
<timothy.daniels@invalid>, AND provide your REAL address as
"Reply-To: ".

Stefan

Yeah, right. Ptoooy!!

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

"Stefan Kanthak" opined:

NT normally loads in stages. But the second stage
can't access USB.
That was already described in this thread.

Stefan

So? That doesn't explain why WinPE/Embedded
can load and WinXP/Vista cannot load. How about
something more substantial than vague implications?

*TimDaniels*

 

[Stefan Kanthak]

"Stefan Kanthak" opined:


So?

Yes! Read it! 1. stage = NTLDR, 2. stage NT-Kernel, ...

That doesn't explain why WinPE/Embedded
can load and WinXP/Vista cannot load. How about
something more substantial than vague implications?

The RAM disk NTLDR creates is limited to about 500MB.
<http://msdn.microsoft.com/> and <http://technet.microsoft.com/>
host a wealth of information to find and read. And no, I don't
have the link handy which explains the USB boot process for PE
and Embedded.
Start reading
<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/09/WindowsPE/>
and
<http://www.microsoft.com/technet/technetmag/issues/2006/10/WindowsPE/>

Stefan