Strange Symantec Ghost Behavior

[tokeer.port5.com]

Need an expert on Ghost 7.0 Enterprise edition.

OK, this is a little tough to explain so here it goes:

I have an Emachines T2240 and when I try to roll out the factory cd
that came with it (it uses ghost 7.0) the PC shuts it self down in the
middle of the ghost operation. In effect rendering the HDD useless.

So, I took out the hard drive and put it into my HP as a slave and used
the restore to successfully ghost to the emachines 40GB HDD. Good? no
not really, when I try to boot up with it in the emachine pc it hangs
upon startup. Never passes the little white blinking cursor in the
upper left hand corner.

Now, I suspect the hard drive may be bad, so I take it out and using an
old 2GB HDD that I had laying around with WinXp already installed on it
I was able to boot up into the emachine PC.

I put the 40GB into my HP and ran a chkdsk using WinXp pro Cd, ran an
error check in windows and it still wouldn't boot up with the emachine
pc. Now getting a little annoyed, I tried to boot it up in my HP pc
and it worked fine!!! GRRRRR.

So, in summary the only combination that doesn't work is the 40GB drive
that came with the emachine pc. All other combos seem to work.

Sorry for the long post but I needed to vent a little.

L8R
T.P5.C

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

Still looking for some advice, anyone have any thoughts?
Seems like the shutdown isn't just Ghost, tried to run a HDD diagnostic
tool, and it shutdown midway again.

Today, I tried change the IDE cable, reseating the memory chips,
swithing mem chip to other socket, tried to ghost HDD to HDD, tried
another cd-rom, resetting the BIOS, scanned the boot sector for
viruses. Still no luck.

Thanx again,
t.p5.c

Please reply to the group, the email addy has been spammed to death.
I forgot to mention that in my original post.

 

[Rod Speed]

Still looking for some advice, anyone have any thoughts?

Looks like a hardware problem, particular the bit just below.

Seems like the shutdown isn't just Ghost, tried to run
a HDD diagnostic tool, and it shutdown midway again.

Which HDD diag did you get that with ?

Today, I tried change the IDE cable, reseating the memory
chips, swithing mem chip to other socket, tried to ghost
HDD to HDD, tried another cd-rom, resetting the BIOS,
scanned the boot sector for viruses. Still no luck.

Still no luck with what exactly ? Presumably with restoring
from the CD with the 40G drive in the emachine.

If thats the case, you could try a new power supply.
It may be failing under the load of the full restore and diag.

If it isnt that, it isnt that easy to prove where the fault is
unless you can swap the motherboard for a known good
one. Does the motherboard have visibly bad caps ? These
are the blue or black usually, plastic coated post like things
sticking up from the motherboard vertically. If any of these
have bulging away from their proper cylindrical shape or have
bulging tops rather than the correct flat tops, it could be that.

 

[Michael Cecil]

Still looking for some advice, anyone have any thoughts?
Seems like the shutdown isn't just Ghost, tried to run a HDD diagnostic
tool, and it shutdown midway again.

Today, I tried change the IDE cable, reseating the memory chips,
swithing mem chip to other socket, tried to ghost HDD to HDD, tried
another cd-rom, resetting the BIOS, scanned the boot sector for
viruses. Still no luck.

What does SMART tell you? You can read it with Everest which is free for
home users: http://www.lavalys.com/

If the hdd maker's diagnostic shuts down, then it's probably bad though.

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

Thanx for your reply Rod & Michael,

Today I ruled out the 40GB (WDC) hard drive, by swapping with a 20GB
seagate. The PC still shuts down during the ghost operation. And, I
was able to ghost another image successfully to the 40GB WDC. Still no
luck in successfully restoring the emachine cd to the 40GB WDC (or any
HDD for that matter)

To answer Rod's questions, I was using ultimate boot CD which comes
with HD diag for multiple manu, I used the one for WDC. It may not be
the power supply however, mainly, because I tried to run the restore on
another pc and then transplant the HDD to the emachine. I don't have
much experience with MB, can you give some pointers?

Michael, I need a tool like everest, that runs in DOS. Because the
Ghost operation hangs, I cannot boot into windows.

Tnx,
Tokeer

 

[John .]

Did you check to be sure you have the latest BIOS and motherboard
updates? Might be a motherboard/controller issue.

 

[Rod Speed]

Thanx for your reply Rod & Michael,

Today I ruled out the 40GB (WDC) hard drive, by swapping
with a 20GB seagate. The PC still shuts down during the ghost
operation. And, I was able to ghost another image successfully
to the 40GB WDC. Still no luck in successfully restoring the
emachine cd to the 40GB WDC (or any HDD for that matter)

To answer Rod's questions, I was using ultimate boot CD which
comes with HD diag for multiple manu, I used the one for WDC.

OK, looks very like a hardware problem.

And it clearly isnt just some quirk with ghost and that motherboard
when two completely different apps produce that shutdown.

It may not be the power supply however, mainly, because I tried to run
the restore on another pc and then transplant the HDD to the emachine.

That may well just be a separate problem.

The main reason for changing the power supply is that
its a lot cheaper to try that than the motherboard.

I don't have much experience with MB, can you give some pointers?

There are really only those two possibilitys. Look for visibly bad
caps like I suggested, or try swapping it for a known good one.

Michael, I need a tool like everest, that runs in DOS. Because
the Ghost operation hangs, I cannot boot into windows.

Trouble is that you need to monitor the SMART temp
during the operation that causes the shutdown and
that just isnt possible with single tasking DOS.

Havent noticed any TSR type SMART monitor and
it wouldnt be trivial to use it with ghost anyway.

 

[Michael Cecil]

Did you check to be sure you have the latest BIOS and motherboard
updates? Might be a motherboard/controller issue.

You'd think that those would match the factory CD ghost images though.

I wonder if Tokeer ever tried the Ghost function "check integrity" on the
image he's trying to restore. Maybe that is the culprit. If it's corrupt
he might be able to use Ghost Explorer to extract the contents to a folder
on his other computer, if there are files he needs from it.

Hmmm. Can't think of any free ones. Not much call for DOS these days. I
use a Windows PE disc mostly myself. There is the old MSD program that
used to come with DOS. Might be able to get it at bootdisk.com

 

[Rod Speed]

You'd think that those would match the factory CD ghost images though.

I wonder if Tokeer ever tried the Ghost function "check integrity"
on the image he's trying to restore. Maybe that is the culprit.

Unlikely given that the WD diag shuts the system down too.

MUCH more likely to be a hardware problem.

If it's corrupt he might be able to use Ghost Explorer to extract the contents
to a folder on his other computer, if there are files he needs from it.

Everest is on one of the universal boot CDs for Win and runs fine from that.

But thats not going to be very useful since the drive temp
when booted from a CD doesnt prove anything much
unless its stinking hot all the time which isnt very likely.

Stinking hot all the time shouldnt shut the system down either.

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

Hi guys,

All hardware is factory, So updates shouldn't be a factor here.
I did do an intergrity check on the ghost images, mainly, to see if pc
shuts down (which it didn't)
I do have my own license for ghost explorer, but I need to restore the
entire OS.

The weird part of this experiment is that I was able to boot up with a
2GB quantum HDD.
I mentioned that I ran chkdsk using my HP, last night I tried it within
the emachine, and was asked for admin password !! (after I restored
using my HP)

Starting to run out of ideas, my next step is to try a clean install of
Win xp and hope that it doesn't bomb.

Thanx for your ideas, and keep 'em coming.
Tokeer.port5.com

 

[Rod Speed]

All hardware is factory, So updates shouldn't be a factor here.

It can be, particularly if its a gigabyte motherboard.

You can get subtle fixes which only affect
unusual problems like you are seeing.

Certainly worth trying before a new motherboard.

I did do an intergrity check on the ghost images,
mainly, to see if pc shuts down (which it didn't)

I do have my own license for ghost explorer,
but I need to restore the entire OS.

The weird part of this experiment is that I was
able to boot up with a 2GB quantum HDD.

That may just be because its a lot smaller so the system isnt
worked as hard with that drive and so doesnt shut down.

I mentioned that I ran chkdsk using my HP, last night I tried
it within the emachine, and was asked for admin password !!
(after I restored using my HP)

Starting to run out of ideas, my next step is to try a
clean install of Win xp and hope that it doesn't bomb.

I doubt its a software problem, smell much more like hardware.

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

although I couldn't find the root hardware problem, I was able to do a
clean install of win xp sp2 successfully. Weird huh? I will try to
ghost it over the weekend.

 

[Rod Speed]

although I couldn't find the root hardware problem, I was able
to do a clean install of win xp sp2 successfully. Weird huh?

Thats sort of problem can be very sensitive to what you do.

I will try to ghost it over the weekend.

Thats the most useful test, ghost that to CD and try
restoring that from CD and see if that still falls over.

Its unlikely that the shutdown when running the WD diag is
irrelevant, thats the evidence that its a hardware problem.

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

Here's the latest and probably final entry in this saga. The pc is
running ok with the WinXp sp2, however I wanted to try to create a
ghost image.

The PC shut itself off during the format of the slave drive as well. I
think I will have to live with this PC without having a backup of it.

tnx to all for your help and contributions.

Regards,
t.p5.c

 

[Rod Speed]

Here's the latest and probably final entry in this saga.
The pc is running ok with the WinXp sp2, however
I wanted to try to create a ghost image.

The PC shut itself off during the format of the slave drive as well.
I think I will have to live with this PC without having a backup of it.

Thats quite dangerous with a PC with an obvious problem.

 

[tokeer.port5.com]

Yeah it is dangerous, but I can't identify the root of the problem.
I tried to format my 2GB hdd from using DOS command, and the pc shut
itself down again.

I don't have another motherboard to try with.

 

[Rod Speed]

Yeah it is dangerous, but I can't identify the root of the problem.
I tried to format my 2GB hdd from using DOS command, and the pc shut
itself down again.

I don't have another motherboard to try with.

At least copy the stuff you'll slash your wrists
if you lost onto CD or DVD manually.