My computer caught fire…

David,

It seems that I only got part of your message and I replied with a lenghty post and have lost it when I tried to check out a forum site for you.

I do know that a "cold" copy can't run with trial software and it seems "transfer anywhere" will not be allowed.

Here is my e-mail address if you want a more private chat:- deric.stain@ntlworld.com.

I can give you further advice with your issue and suitable third party software that I use but it is more complicated than Ghost.

If you log onto www.community.nortom.com, "support" and then "community" and log on as a newbie I have 3 friends there that will help sort it out.

I am more than positive that we can get you sorted, to be honest I am not a big lover of this site, the Ghost forum is far better. My friends have been helping users with problems such as yours for years and most have been successful.

Deric

David,

When you installed the Win7 O/S with your DVD disk and you look in disk management does it show just the C: drive? If the SRP is present then the DVD is not a full retail version. All my O/S DVDs are full retail versions and the boot instructions are included so I don't get a SRP.

If you get it to boot after the transfer only boot with the 1 drive in the pc because you will get Windows confused and it will try and add drive letters.

If it asks you to insert the DVD to run a repair Windows will quickly search for the boot files on the DVD and install them, then it will work after a reboot but you may have to do it twice.This will only work though if the DVD is a full retail version.

Play with the spare drive and use the backups from G12 (the file system is Fat 32) that may be a problem I don't know.

Only have the one drive connected at any time so you don't get confused.

There is another way and that is to try the "Copy My Hard Drive" option by connecting your existing drive (the one you are on now) and the spare drive containg the unallocated space on the pc.

Go to the "Tools" tab and select "copy my hard drive" and follow the screens, you should see the SRP do that first and then do the C: drive

It will see both drives and the copy will go into the unallocated space one at a time SRP then C: try it should work ok.

I do it on a laptop with only one dive in the machine, the target is fitted in an enclosure with a USB connection, then I swap the drives over.

Edit:

David, why don't you log onto www.community.norton.com and go to Ghost forum click "support" and then  "community" and the likes of BrianK, DaveH and RedK can help with the error messages, I haven't a clue why you get the error. They are the GURUs for Ghost and I have learnt a lot from them.

Create a thread and I am sure they will help, I will also be there to help if I can.

Deric

 

Deric,

I actually posted a reply to your penultimate message but it seems to have been removed. I don't know why that would be – I wasn't particularly rude about Symantec products…

In that message I confirmed that when I tried to do an image transfer using SSR 2013 "restore anywhere" was greyed out and, presumably as a consequence of this I was unable to transfer the backup from the USB drive to the new SATA drive. I also said in the posting that has been deleted that because I have as yet been unable to restore the backup I paid for somebody to clone the contents of the original IDE drive to a SATA drive.

Even after doing a repair with the Windows 7 installation disc this new drive will not boot. If I install another drive on the same machine and install a copy of Windows 7 I can see most but not all the data on the copy of the original C drive but most of the applications won't work.

I also said that the backup on the external drive doesn't have any partitions just lots of backup files so I wasn't clear exactly how I should proceed and asked for your further help

Maybe Symantec remove this posting because I said that their product wouldn't work and I was trying a workaround…

I could only find a trial copy of SSR 2013. It is fully functional and simply stops working after 60 days

If a full copy was necessary and can be located then I would be happy to buy it but only if it was capable of restoring my backup. The failure of the backup has already cost me very dearly and I will be reluctant to pour even more good money after bad.

Anyway, presuming that you can manage to read this post before it is removed I would, as always, be grateful for your further advice

David

Deric,

I actually posted a reply to your penultimate message but it seems to have been removed. I don't know why that would be – I wasn't particularly rude about Symantec products…

In that message I confirmed that when I tried to do an image transfer using SSR 2013 "restore anywhere" was greyed out and, presumably as a consequence of this I was unable to transfer the backup from the USB drive to the new SATA drive. I also said in the posting that has been deleted that because I have as yet been unable to restore the backup I paid for somebody to clone the contents of the original IDE drive to a SATA drive.

Even after doing a repair with the Windows 7 installation disc this new drive will not boot. If I install another drive on the same machine and install a copy of Windows 7 I can see most but not all the data on the copy of the original C drive but most of the applications won't work.

I also said that the backup on the external drive doesn't have any partitions just lots of backup files so I wasn't clear exactly how I should proceed and asked for your further help

Maybe Symantec remove this posting because I said that their product wouldn't work and I was trying a workaround…

I could only find a trial copy of SSR 2013. It is fully functional and simply stops working after 60 days

If a full copy was necessary and can be located then I would be happy to buy it but only if it was capable of restoring my backup. The failure of the backup has already cost me very dearly and I will be reluctant to pour even more good money after bad.

Anyway, presuming that you can manage to read this post before it is removed I would, as always, be grateful for your further advice

David

David,

another thought, did you download the Trial version of SSR 2013 because that may be the reason that the "restore anywhere" button is greyed out. Also with the trail version I don't think you can run a "Cold" backup.

Deric

David,

we really enjoyed the two quarter finals and a semi final at the Crucible, fantastic, nice to know you are a fan.

Sorry to hear about your failure, G12 will not restore "anywhere" that is why Symantec introduced SSR 2013 which is in effect Ghost upgrade.

So what you are saying, correct me if I am wrong, you tried a "Image Transfer" using the G12 .v2i files with SSR 2013 and "restore anwywhere" button was greyed out.

Did you manage to transfer the image created with SSR 2013 onto the spare drive?

I did a bit of research on SRP partitions and that has to be made active and the origional disk signature and the MBR ticked. Then don't tick the same boxes in C: drive.

I may have advised wrongly the reason is I don't use SRP partitions.

Deric

 

 

Deric, Every matching the world championship snooker is shown live here in Hong Kong together with repeats to allow for the time difference. Although I don't play snooker I really enjoy watching it and this year's World Championship produced some of the best snooker I have ever seen. Sadly my attempts to restore my computer have not been similarly successful. The restore anywhere button is greyed out so the restoration fails. Between watching the snooker I have been trying to get some response from Norton's support and finally received a telephone call which simply confirmed that it is impossible to restore to different hardware. This is the email that I sent to support. ============================================= A few years ago I purchased Ghost 12 to backup my Windows 7 system. Ever since I have been religiously carrying out backups. A couple of weeks ago my computer suffered a major hardware failure. I bought a new machine secure, as I thought, in the knowledge that all my data and applications work contained on the external hard drive to which they had been backed up. It turns out that I have been completely wasting my time. It is apparently impossible for Norton Ghost to restore data and applications other than to an identical computer. I would never have bought your product if I had known this to be the case. It seems to me that your policy virtues on the fraudulent. As you should know such is the rate of advance in computer hardware that the motherboard, memory, drives, etc, computer bought only a few years are now no longer obtainable. Rather than tell your customers that they have to buy new versions of your software every six months you apparently find it more commercially profitable to leave your customers in ignorance until they suffer the final catastrophe. The support engineer that phoned me told me that there was no way that I could recover the information from my external hard drive and that while he was sorry for me it was totally my own fault for not buying the latest version of your software. You may rest assured that I shall make it known to all my friends and colleagues that they should replace Norton backup software with a product from another manufacturer if they want to avoid the fate that I have suffered. ====================================== I am grateful for your attempts to help me but it seems that if one screw is different on the machine to which you are trying to restore Ghost will work. David

David,

I am away for a few days now, going to watch snooker in Sheffield, back Friday.

Deric

David,

all things being equal it should work, you mean use your G12 recovery points once you have copied the spare drive?

You should be able to select the G12 recovery point and so long as the srp is not present then tick the box "recover anywhere" and it will work. It will be a simple re-image but if the srp is present then you will have to do "image transfer" one partition at a time.

To be honest the SRP partition is a pain in the backside that is why I don't have them. You have the right idea to keep your data seperate to the O/S and apps.

Keep trying with the spare drive because it is good practice, no damage done and you will learn a lot from it.

Deric

 

Deric,

"If it asks you to insert the DVD to run a repair Windows will quickly search for the boot files on the DVD and install them, then it will work after a reboot but you may have to do it twice.This will only work though if the DVD is a full retail version."

My version is Windows 7 Home Premium Upgrade so presumably this will not work?

I looked on another machine on which I had installed Windows 7 and this does not have a SRP presumably because I installed it over XP…

I installed Windows 7 on this machine from the upgrade DVD without having XP present so maybe that is why it has got a SRP?

If I do the "Copy my hard drive" as you suggest and then use the SRD to restore my backup to that drive will it work?

I'm not actually too worried about the error messages because they were only caused when I was trying to backup the drive I am using at the moment but now I am proposing to use another hard drive I don't think this is any longer necessary.

Your suggestion that I should, "Only have the one drive connected at any time so you don't get confused," is well taken. When I was messing about with Ghost 15 I installed some things on the wrong drive!

David