XP and Norton Ghost

[Bob Davis]

I'm now running Win98SE and performing a weekly clone with Norton Ghost
2001, rotating four drives each Saturday for that task. When cloned, that
drive remains attached to the computer as drive D: in a Mobile Rack and
important files (business databases, email, etc.) are copied from C: to D:
using a batch file automatically every night. I've found it to be a very
efficient backup procedure. At any time I can swap drives and boot without
losing any or much data.

I would like to use the same procedure when I upgrade hardware and move to
WinXP in the near future. A friend running XP and having experience with
Ghost says that XP cannot tolerate a second drive with an active partition
and a cloned OS running on the same computer. I will be upgrading to Ghost
2003, which is compatible with NTFS. Will I be able to hit f8 after POST,
enter a clean DOS prompt, and run Ghost from a floppy as I do now, or must I
create a Ghost boot disk.

If anyone has any experience with Ghost and XP, especially running the
cloned drive in the same system as another drive letter, I'd like to know
your experiences. TIA.

[Len]

Although I have used Ghost with XP as far as cloning a drive or making an
image, having two cloned versions of XP in the same machine was a problem.
If the same SID is used then it appears that XP gets "confused" and begins
to see both installations as system drives.

It can cause some strangeness in things like path locations and I have noted
XP using system files interchangeably between the new drives! However, on
another note... a customer purchased a system with a RAID 0 array and a
removeable bay and drive. We had no problems in running Ghost from floppy
and cloning his Raid array to the backup drive.

After the clone was completed under DOS, we booted into XP SP1 and renamed
the volume for the BU drive. We then shutdown, unlocked the bay and removed
the BU disk just enough to clear contact. This works OK.

FWIW,
Len

"Bob Davis" > wrote in message
. ..
> I'm now running Win98SE and performing a weekly clone with Norton Ghost
> 2001, rotating four drives each Saturday for that task. When cloned, that
> drive remains attached to the computer as drive D: in a Mobile Rack and
> important files (business databases, email, etc.) are copied from C: to D:
> using a batch file automatically every night. I've found it to be a very
> efficient backup procedure. At any time I can swap drives and boot
without
> losing any or much data.
>
> I would like to use the same procedure when I upgrade hardware and move to
> WinXP in the near future. A friend running XP and having experience with
> Ghost says that XP cannot tolerate a second drive with an active partition
> and a cloned OS running on the same computer. I will be upgrading to Ghost
> 2003, which is compatible with NTFS. Will I be able to hit f8 after POST,
> enter a clean DOS prompt, and run Ghost from a floppy as I do now, or must
I
> create a Ghost boot disk.
>
> If anyone has any experience with Ghost and XP, especially running the
> cloned drive in the same system as another drive letter, I'd like to know
> your experiences. TIA.
>
>
>
>
>

[Bob Davis]

Len, thanks for the reply, but please help me understand this. I have the
same system that you describe, a RAID0 array for C: and four D: drives in
mobil racks swapped weekly. They remain in the machine at all times in
Win98SE, which has been happy with the coexistence.

If you clone, then remove the BU drive, what's the point of renaming the
volume when the drive won't remain in the system? What I'm trying to do is
keep the clone in the machine and let it accept daily backups (copies of
only updated files in critical folders) through a batch file. You say that
you "had no problem in running Ghost from floppy and cloning his Raid array
to the backup drive," but does he keep that BU drive running in XP at all
times or remove it?

If my previous practice doesn't work I've got an idea to clone, then remove
the drive before it is rebooted into XP. A second drive (D:) would then be
permanently added that will accept the daily backups of only files that have
changed in the selected folders. This would accomplish the same thing, but
I would rather have access to all files on C: and the clone, like I have
now.

FWIW, I called MS last night and after an arduous effort at trying to
explain what I was trying to do, they said that it would work as long as the
cloned drive was not in the machine at the time XP was installed. They said
to install XP, then do the cloning, reboot into XP, and after XP sees and
accepts the new drive it "should" coexist without any problem. I don't like
the "should" part of the sentence.


"Len" > wrote in message
...
> Although I have used Ghost with XP as far as cloning a drive or making an
> image, having two cloned versions of XP in the same machine was a problem.
> If the same SID is used then it appears that XP gets "confused" and begins
> to see both installations as system drives.
>
> It can cause some strangeness in things like path locations and I have
noted
> XP using system files interchangeably between the new drives! However, on
> another note... a customer purchased a system with a RAID 0 array and a
> removeable bay and drive. We had no problems in running Ghost from floppy
> and cloning his Raid array to the backup drive.
>
> After the clone was completed under DOS, we booted into XP SP1 and renamed
> the volume for the BU drive. We then shutdown, unlocked the bay and
removed
> the BU disk just enough to clear contact. This works OK.
>
> FWIW,
> Len
>
> "Bob Davis" > wrote in message
> . ..
> > I'm now running Win98SE and performing a weekly clone with Norton Ghost
> > 2001, rotating four drives each Saturday for that task. When cloned,
that
> > drive remains attached to the computer as drive D: in a Mobile Rack and
> > important files (business databases, email, etc.) are copied from C: to
D:
> > using a batch file automatically every night. I've found it to be a very
> > efficient backup procedure. At any time I can swap drives and boot
> without
> > losing any or much data.
> >
> > I would like to use the same procedure when I upgrade hardware and move
to
> > WinXP in the near future. A friend running XP and having experience with
> > Ghost says that XP cannot tolerate a second drive with an active
partition
> > and a cloned OS running on the same computer. I will be upgrading to
Ghost
> > 2003, which is compatible with NTFS. Will I be able to hit f8 after
POST,
> > enter a clean DOS prompt, and run Ghost from a floppy as I do now, or
must
> I
> > create a Ghost boot disk.
> >
> > If anyone has any experience with Ghost and XP, especially running the
> > cloned drive in the same system as another drive letter, I'd like to
know
> > your experiences. TIA.
> >
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>