Million dollar question system/drive

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle the
drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or would
limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as j:\.
the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a way to
change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use for an
image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself. But
my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit with the
standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will be lost or
words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to the partition
being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to users.

Thanks

--
JimL

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle the
drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or would
limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use for
an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit with
the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will be
lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to the
partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

Thanks

--
JimL

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle the
drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or would
limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use for
an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit with
the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will be
lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to the
partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

Thanks

--
JimL

Thanks for that. In the 15 minutes I was there I never found the Chat.

JimL

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle the
drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or would
limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use
for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit
with the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will
be lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to
the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

Thanks for that. In the 15 minutes I was there I never found the Chat.

JimL

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle the
drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or would
limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use
for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit
with the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will
be lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to
the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

You were not able to connect?
No response?
Could you clarify?

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
Thanks for that. In the 15 minutes I was there I never found the Chat.

JimL

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or
would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use
for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit
with the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will
be lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to
the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

You were not able to connect?
No response?
Could you clarify?

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
Thanks for that. In the 15 minutes I was there I never found the Chat.

JimL

"JS" @ wrote in message ...

Symantec Live Chat:
http://www.symantec.com/techsupp/hom...t_form_cs.html

So far they have been helpful.

--
JS
http://www.pagestart.com



"JimL" wrote in message
...
"JS" @ wrote in message ...

at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes) or
would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed as
j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't find a
way to change it. I have space right at the front of the drive to use
for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material itself.
But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording seemed to fit
with the standard notice you get when formatting a drive - all data will
be lost or words to that effect. (I realize that IS referring only to
the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.

"JimL" wrote in message

"Twayne" wrote in message
...
"JimL" wrote in message

IBM ThinkPad T42. I really don't know when it was first made, but
the processor is in the 1700MZ range. One T42 was the first to have
fingerprint ID if I'm not mistaken.

HD Tune does show several bad blocks on the old drive. Altho they
appear to be off the system partition I don't want to wait too long.

I'm very curious how this effects the function of Ghost - whether it
will destroy everything on my external drive.

A growing number of back blocks indicating a failing drive and it's
important to keep it backed up until you replace it. It could fail

Don't know right now. Last night I moved the contents and
reformatted the partition. As of now HD Tune shows fewer bad blocks
than before the format.
I don't quite understand why the bad blocks would cause the thrashing
given that they are not on the system partition and, for that matter,
not used in the tiny amount of data on that partition.

Blocks being marked as Bad wouldn't cause thrashing. Blocks that are
questionable might, but it would take a lot of them. An extremely
fragmented drive (partition) might, but that's still not a given. And
while it's idle, unless you have a lot of background tasks running, it
would stop after a few minutes, too. Background tasks could be anything
from indexing to AV doing checks during idle times, anything else you
have that works during "idle" times.
But no, bad blocks wouldn't cause thrashing.


It's possible that the suggestion to get more memory is valid. Or
maybe just getting the new drive in will stop it ... Time will tell.
Or not.

Any chance you could move everything to a different drive? Using an
"image", NOT a clone, would not destroy data on the disk. The machine
would simply be returned to the state it was in at the time the image
was made. Any changes to that partition after that point would of
course be lost; it's like backing up in time.
Cloning is essentially the same, but everything on the intended
partition is replaced with whatever the machine is when the clone was
made. Cloning DOES the equivalent of a format to that partition.


The best measure of a drive's health is to run the manufacturer's
tests on it; those are usually pretty accurate and aimed at that
specific drive's design parameters. Go right to the drive mfr site
for the diag; nowhere else.

The very first thing I did was get the company's utility. It
declared and still declares everything to be glorious. But that is
only a readout of SMART. Perhaps the fact that the bad blocks are
not being actually "called upon" keeps the SMART readout looking good.

Hmm, the mfr's utility SHOULD check the ENTIRE disk's surface! If it's
not doing that (it takes some time to do, also), it's either not the
right utility or they aren't supplying one.
What brand/model/size is the drive? Seems like you said 360G but
that's only part of the puzzle.

Silly questions:

-- How did killing pf, defrag, turning pf back on work; any help?

-- How about the tool MSConfig? Use it to boot up without any of the
background tasks running.

It might be worth your while to add a post to th is thread re-describing
the problem as precisely as you can and listing what you've tried in
troubleshooting.
Use bullet style as much as you can and put the prose elsewhere. You
would have less "I already did that" types of suggestions and by putting
it all together it might tick somethin in someone's memory and turn into
an "AHA" moment.

Twayne`

"JimL" wrote in message

"Twayne" wrote in message
...
"JimL" wrote in message

IBM ThinkPad T42. I really don't know when it was first made, but
the processor is in the 1700MZ range. One T42 was the first to have
fingerprint ID if I'm not mistaken.

HD Tune does show several bad blocks on the old drive. Altho they
appear to be off the system partition I don't want to wait too long.

I'm very curious how this effects the function of Ghost - whether it
will destroy everything on my external drive.

A growing number of back blocks indicating a failing drive and it's
important to keep it backed up until you replace it. It could fail

Don't know right now. Last night I moved the contents and
reformatted the partition. As of now HD Tune shows fewer bad blocks
than before the format.
I don't quite understand why the bad blocks would cause the thrashing
given that they are not on the system partition and, for that matter,
not used in the tiny amount of data on that partition.

Blocks being marked as Bad wouldn't cause thrashing. Blocks that are
questionable might, but it would take a lot of them. An extremely
fragmented drive (partition) might, but that's still not a given. And
while it's idle, unless you have a lot of background tasks running, it
would stop after a few minutes, too. Background tasks could be anything
from indexing to AV doing checks during idle times, anything else you
have that works during "idle" times.
But no, bad blocks wouldn't cause thrashing.


It's possible that the suggestion to get more memory is valid. Or
maybe just getting the new drive in will stop it ... Time will tell.
Or not.

Any chance you could move everything to a different drive? Using an
"image", NOT a clone, would not destroy data on the disk. The machine
would simply be returned to the state it was in at the time the image
was made. Any changes to that partition after that point would of
course be lost; it's like backing up in time.
Cloning is essentially the same, but everything on the intended
partition is replaced with whatever the machine is when the clone was
made. Cloning DOES the equivalent of a format to that partition.


The best measure of a drive's health is to run the manufacturer's
tests on it; those are usually pretty accurate and aimed at that
specific drive's design parameters. Go right to the drive mfr site
for the diag; nowhere else.

The very first thing I did was get the company's utility. It
declared and still declares everything to be glorious. But that is
only a readout of SMART. Perhaps the fact that the bad blocks are
not being actually "called upon" keeps the SMART readout looking good.

Hmm, the mfr's utility SHOULD check the ENTIRE disk's surface! If it's
not doing that (it takes some time to do, also), it's either not the
right utility or they aren't supplying one.
What brand/model/size is the drive? Seems like you said 360G but
that's only part of the puzzle.

Silly questions:

-- How did killing pf, defrag, turning pf back on work; any help?

-- How about the tool MSConfig? Use it to boot up without any of the
background tasks running.

It might be worth your while to add a post to th is thread re-describing
the problem as precisely as you can and listing what you've tried in
troubleshooting.
Use bullet style as much as you can and put the prose elsewhere. You
would have less "I already did that" types of suggestions and by putting
it all together it might tick somethin in someone's memory and turn into
an "AHA" moment.

Twayne`

JimL wrote:
"JS" @ wrote in message
...
at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes)
or would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed
as j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't
find a way to change it. I have space right at the front of the
drive to use for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material
itself. But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording
seemed to fit with the standard notice you get when formatting a
drive - all data will be lost or words to that effect. (I realize
that IS referring only to the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.
Thanks

A word of caution if you do go ahead: be careful to boot to the new drive
with the old one completely disconnected *first time*. Even if the computer
should "know" which is bootable, if the old one's attached for the first
boot it can cause all sorts of problems down the line - not always
immediately making themselves known. I've been there.

JimL wrote:
"JS" @ wrote in message
...
at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes)
or would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed
as j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't
find a way to change it. I have space right at the front of the
drive to use for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material
itself. But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording
seemed to fit with the standard notice you get when formatting a
drive - all data will be lost or words to that effect. (I realize
that IS referring only to the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.
Thanks

A word of caution if you do go ahead: be careful to boot to the new drive
with the old one completely disconnected *first time*. Even if the computer
should "know" which is bootable, if the old one's attached for the first
boot it can cause all sorts of problems down the line - not always
immediately making themselves known. I've been there.

"Olórin" wrote in message
...
JimL wrote:
"JS" @ wrote in message
...
at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes)
or would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed
as j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't
find a way to change it. I have space right at the front of the
drive to use for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material
itself. But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording
seemed to fit with the standard notice you get when formatting a
drive - all data will be lost or words to that effect. (I realize
that IS referring only to the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.
Thanks

A word of caution if you do go ahead: be careful to boot to the new drive
with the old one completely disconnected *first time*. Even if the
computer should "know" which is bootable, if the old one's attached for
the first boot it can cause all sorts of problems down the line - not
always immediately making themselves known. I've been there.

I'll definitely keep that in mind! I've had some _really_ strange things
going on since Comcast's Desktop Doctor got hold of my current system.
Right now at apparently random times something is dialing up my dial-up,
which I still need for a little while - during all kinds of operations:
browser, news reader, email, no operation at all ...

Comcast seems to have turned on every possible service relating to
networking, ethernet, wireless, dial-up, etc. A thing called WAN miniport
(ethernet) gave me fits for a couple days.

Thanks

--
JimL

"Olórin" wrote in message
...
JimL wrote:
"JS" @ wrote in message
...
at least a possibility that your laptop does not support
48Bit LBA (Large Drives more than 137GB in size)

It handles 320GB fine via USB.

You need SP1 or later even if your laptop's hardware

I'm on SP3 and updated within days.

Exactly were in the 9 step process did Ghost issue the
warning message and the exact wording please.

I would not start a 9 step process until I know if Ghost would handle
the drive as a single entity (thus wiping out everything as it goes)
or would limit the save to a partition of it.

Just looking at the process isn't encouraging. The target is listed
as j:\. the last and busiest partition on the big drive and I can't
find a way to change it. I have space right at the front of the
drive to use for an image.

I read the idea elsewhere, possibly somewhere in Ghost material
itself. But my searches have come up emoty so far. The wording
seemed to fit with the standard notice you get when formatting a
drive - all data will be lost or words to that effect. (I realize
that IS referring only to the partition being formatted.)

I just wish these big companies weren't so determined not to talk to
users.
Thanks

A word of caution if you do go ahead: be careful to boot to the new drive
with the old one completely disconnected *first time*. Even if the
computer should "know" which is bootable, if the old one's attached for
the first boot it can cause all sorts of problems down the line - not
always immediately making themselves known. I've been there.

I'll definitely keep that in mind! I've had some _really_ strange things
going on since Comcast's Desktop Doctor got hold of my current system.
Right now at apparently random times something is dialing up my dial-up,
which I still need for a little while - during all kinds of operations:
browser, news reader, email, no operation at all ...

Comcast seems to have turned on every possible service relating to
networking, ethernet, wireless, dial-up, etc. A thing called WAN miniport
(ethernet) gave me fits for a couple days.

Thanks

--
JimL