Ghost 9 Initializing Over Network...FOREVER!!!

[heap]

This seems to be the place to ask silly questions like this so here
goes!...
I have a home network connected over a Netgear router with XP Home and
Professional computers. Although I have third-party software
firewalls on all of them, for the below please regard them as OFF or
disabled. I also have set permissions up to allow the access/browsing
of subject drives (i.e., no passwords required)

Having just got Ghost 9, I wanted to backup my newest computer to a
drive on a different system. The system I plan on backing up will be
my new home theater system so I want to back up the baseline before I
start playing around with different configurations before I settle on
what works best.

When I go into the Ghost back-up interface, I'm given the option to
browse my network for the backup location. When I choose this
networked drive (such as "\\bigcomputer\t\backup"), a popup window
comes up asking for my Domain, Username, and Password. Since I don't
have a domain I tried my workgroup (@home) and blank passwords....this
isn't accepted (popup box just comes back) so I tried leaving the
domain blank and entered asteriks (*) in both the UN/PW fields. This
is accepted by Ghost and I'm allowed to point to the proper
drive/folder. I can then click through the remaining windows and the
program begins the backup.
Here's where I hit my problem....the program just keeps
"Initializing." The timer continues to progress so Ghost hasn't
locked up. I've left it sit for an hour like this with nothing else
happening. I can go to the target computers' folder and nothing is
being created in it.
Can anyone suggest some help here? I'm not sure how to troubleshoot
this one.

Also - not exactly related but sorta....I figure I'll ask while I'm
here....
I've played around with the Ghost recovery environment to experiment.
I've created a Ghost image on this home theater computer on it's own
drive...then moved the image to the network folder mentioned above (on
"bigcomputer"), and then checked to see if I could browse to this
location through the Ghost recovery. I'm not able to simply browse to
it as Ghost will not see my group (@home)...it only sees
"workgroup"...HOWEVER, if I use that computers IP address instead I
can point to it (the location of the image that is). When I do this
I'm asked for the domain/UN/PW again....this time the only way I can
get though is by putting in "@home@home" for the domain and leaving
the UN/PW fields blank (different from the above you'll note)....after
which I can browse the networked drive....strange, and if someone can
fill me in on what the deal on this is I'd appreciate it. I haven't
actually restored this way (yet) as I don't want to do it until I
figure out why it's doing this..

Well thanks for reading this long post. I hope someone can fill in
the holes in my brain

 

[Rod Speed]

This seems to be the place to ask silly questions like this so here goes!...

Yes, Ghost does get discussed here quite a bit.

I have a home network connected over a Netgear router with XP Home
and Professional computers. Although I have third-party software
firewalls on all of them, for the below please regard them as OFF or
disabled. I also have set permissions up to allow the access/browsing
of subject drives (i.e., no passwords required)

Having just got Ghost 9, I wanted to backup my newest computer to a
drive on a different system. The system I plan on backing up will be
my new home theater system so I want to back up the baseline before I
start playing around with different configurations before I settle on
what works best.

Yes, thats the best approach.

When I go into the Ghost back-up interface, I'm given the option to
browse my network for the backup location. When I choose this
networked drive (such as "\\bigcomputer\t\backup"), a popup window
comes up asking for my Domain, Username, and Password. Since I don't
have a domain I tried my workgroup (@home) and blank passwords....this
isn't accepted (popup box just comes back) so I tried leaving the
domain blank and entered asteriks (*) in both the UN/PW fields. This
is accepted by Ghost and I'm allowed to point to the proper
drive/folder. I can then click through the remaining windows and the
program begins the backup.
Here's where I hit my problem....the program just keeps
"Initializing." The timer continues to progress so Ghost hasn't
locked up. I've left it sit for an hour like this with nothing else
happening. I can go to the target computers' folder and nothing is
being created in it.
Can anyone suggest some help here? I'm not sure how to troubleshoot
this one.

I supply a proper username and password which in my case
is a blank password, and that works fine. Dont get that effect.

Thats the username and password on the
PC where the image file will go, obviously.

Also - not exactly related but sorta....I figure I'll ask while I'm
here....
I've played around with the Ghost recovery environment to experiment.
I've created a Ghost image on this home theater computer on it's own
drive...then moved the image to the network folder mentioned above (on
"bigcomputer"), and then checked to see if I could browse to this
location through the Ghost recovery. I'm not able to simply browse to
it as Ghost will not see my group (@home)...it only sees "workgroup"...

Yeah, Ghost is rather braindead there. It will only browse properly in the
workgroup WORKGROUP. You can use other workgroups but you need
to explicitly name the share name in the \\bigcomputer\t\backup format.

HOWEVER, if I use that computers IP address instead
I can point to it (the location of the image that is).

You can use the \\bigcomputer\t\backup format too.

When I do this I'm asked for the domain/UN/PW again....this time the
only way I can get though is by putting in "@home@home" for the domain
and leaving the UN/PW fields blank (different from the above you'll note)....
after which I can browse the networked drive....strange, and if someone can
fill me in on what the deal on this is I'd appreciate it. I haven't
actually restored this way (yet) as I don't want to do it until I
figure out why it's doing this..

Its basically just rather braindead on that workgroup stuff,
particularly when browsing in other than the workgroup WORKGROUP.

Least the original distribution is, I havent bothered to live update it
since I have changed over to using True Image instead, because its
got a lot of advantages over Ghost 9, one of which is getting rid of
that crap with PCs on the lan. You just browse to them in True Image.

Well thanks for reading this long post.
I hope someone can fill in the holes in my brain

With concrete or epoxy cement ? |-)

 

[heap]

Well I finally gave up on Ghost. I managed to get a cracked copy of
True Image to try it out...worked like a charm on two different
systems and easily over my network with practically no problems.
Bought a copy for about 30 bucks to make myself "legal" so I'm happy
now!

 

[Rod Speed]

Well I finally gave up on Ghost. I managed to get a cracked copy of
True Image to try it out...worked like a charm on two different
systems and easily over my network with practically no problems.
Bought a copy for about 30 bucks to make myself "legal" so I'm happy
now!

Thanks for the feedback, too rare in my opinion.