Why can't I image to a USB hard drive, with Ghost?

Has anyone met an "Abort:3600 General Exception" error when using Norton Ghost 2003 to image a partition to a USB-connected external hard drive?

I recently bought myself a USB 2.0-connected 250GB external hard drive, for making Norton Ghost partition-to-partition backups and for archiving copies of photos, files, etc. I reformatted the external drive to NTFS, so as to be compatible with my existing file system and to handle large files, making three primary partitions at the same time. The drive itself works wonderfully well and I've already copied across a large number of photofiles and also copied across a Ghost image into its own dedicated partition (using drag n' drop).

However, I cannot seem to make a backup imagefile (ie. a backup of the root partition on my PC) to the external hard drive in the normal way, using Ghost. I start the backup procedure by using Ghost in the Windows environment and then it correctly switches to PC-DOS. But it then bombs out and simply gives the following DOS error message:

"ABORT: 3600 A General Exception occurred. Abort details output to GHOSTERR.TXT. Please contact Symantec Tech Support at http://service.symantec.com. General Protection Fault in RMCB at eip=33abf; flags=3016

eax=000a0001 ebx=00001246 ecx=00000000 edx=0000000a
esi=00001861 edi=000a8e48 ebp=0000000d esp=000a8db4
cs=af ds=3b es=8f fs=33 gs=bf ss=8f error=0000".

It does indeed write an error log, which is found in the Ghost application, once you've got back into Windows. That file would, I guess, be useful to send to a Symantec techie, but since direct support from Symantec has long since expired on this product, I can't do that.

I've used Ghost 2003 for several years now to make and restore partition images but hitherto have not tried making images to a USB storage device.

I've tried altering the 'ext drives' option in Ghost's Options section from USB2.0 to USB1.1, with the same result. As far as I know, anyway, all my external devices are USB2.0. All ports on the PC are USB2.0. Have taken all the usual precautions - stopping screensaver, disabling Ethernet connection on Internet router, etc.

Has anyone ever hit this problem with Ghost? If so, what's the cause?

This version of Ghost being three years old, I can't get any one-to-one e-mail support from Symantec, and I've been right through Symantec's KnowledgeBase and found nothing on this particular error.

It seems that Ghost gets as far as writing a 1KB file to the external partition but then just bombs out for some reason, being unable to start the copying of the actual partition contents from the PC to the drive.

I'm using Win2KSP4 and fully-updated Microsoft USB2.0 drivers. What am I doing wrong? Have I got something wrongly configured in Ghost? Would the imaging be more likely to work if I started it in the Ghost DOS environment rather than the Windows?

From hereon, I can't get away with making backup images on my PC and then using drag n' drop to transfer them to the external hard drive because there won't be enough space for them, increasingly, on the PC. That's why I got myself a large-capacity external hard drive!

In short, ........ HELP!

I can't help with the Ghost problem since I stopped using Ghost a LONG time ago. Probably since 2003.

Acronis is the better solution. For those cases where I MUST use ghost then I use Ghost32 which runs on BartPE.

I can't imagine someone still using DOS to backup their images in this day and age.

You said that your formated your external drive as NTFS and that you are saving your disk image to this drive. AFAIK, Ghost doesn't come with an NTFS driver so you'll need to buy NTFSDOS from sysinternals to have the ability to write to a NTFS formated drive. If you don't want to do that then your only other option is to create a FAT32 partition on your external drive and then ghost can write to that just fine.

Considering that you are having to load USB drives on your DOS bootdisk I'm not sure how well the NTFS driver will work especially since they usually chew up alot of memory.


Seriously get Acronis. If money is a problem then download a Linux Live Distro and use the many free imaging solutions out there.

I've read and re-read the Ghost 2003 user's guide and it is definitely capable of making images on external NTFS partitions. I already make and restore NTFS images on the PC.

You seem to be deriding the fact that Ghost 2003 uses its own pseudo-DOS environment for cloning disks and imaging partitions. Well, as far as I know, that's pretty common with a lot of backup applications that are around these days. Perhaps you misunderstood and thought I meant MS-DOS. Shudder the thought!

I don't doubt that Acronis is good.

I think that the answer to your question is here?

I'm afraid not, danleff. I've followed through all the nested links on that Symantec webpage but have found nothing that explains why the imaging aborts at the very start and why I'm getting the error message I've described.

If you read that webpage carefully - and I do mean carefully - it confirms that not only is Ghost 2003 compatible with USB1.1 and USB2.0 but also that it can write to NTFS partitions on external USB drives (not peer-to-peer arrangements, though). So, certainly all of my hardware and their connections are compatible. It's just that, as soon as the Ghost PC-DOS screen appears, the action just aborts and I then get the error message on a black screen.

Ghost is recognising the destination partition and indeed it seems to even write the first file to it which formulates the succeeding imagefile, but it won't then start to write the imagefile across.

From reading the above, it seems you start your backup from inside windows. Have you tried making the Ghost boot disks/CD and starting in PC-Dos from scratch.

It sounds like more trouble that it's worthtrying to go from windows back to dos.

No, I've not yet tried to do the backup directly from PC-DOS because I've not had this scenario before, with backing up to an external drive. But I'm about to give it a go. Actually, with Ghost 2003, it's normally no more difficult to start backups in Windows, rather than from PC-DOS. In fact, because of having full mouse control in Windows, it's less awkward. Also, doing it from Windows means you don't have to mess around with a bootdisk and having to change the BIOS setting for that each time.

My Ghost 2003 is fully updated and in the time that I've owned and used it, I've always been able to perform backups of my root partition solely within the PC, ie I've kept a reserved partition on the PC for various versions of root images. Making the backups from Windows, and restoring, has always worked like a dream.

I've had to call on a backup a number of times over the years and it's been a godsend. However, my current setup is hardly secure, because I'd still have a catastrophe if the hard drive on the PC completely and permanently failed. So, it's important for me to have removeable backup as well.

I've successfully backed up to CDs with Ghost 2003 but, despite Symantec stating that it can successfully write to DVDs, it never did to mine. As my root partition continues to expand in used size, a bigger destination storage size is required; CDs are too small a capacity and you quickly end up with at least half a dozen CDs. Thus, it's made sense to get an external hard drive.

Curiously, cloning the PC's hard drive, which I do from time to time, only works when done directly from PC-DOS, never from Windows. I spent a long time finding that out the hard way, as well. So maybe backing up a partition to an external USB drive will also only work when started from PC-DOS?

Wish I could say but DOS sucks (and so does Ghost). I would run some testing scenarios on VPC for you since I think I have every DOS version but it would really be a PITA and Norton is on everyone SH*T List....and for good reason.

Success! It's worked!

Danleff and Felix,

I tried it instead from PC-DOS, using the Ghost Bootdisk. Once into the menu, I chose 'Partition > Image File'. From thereon, it was quite straightforward. It nicely recognised and displayed the NTFS partitions on the USB drive. It took just over 5 mins to image my 6GB root partition contents (that's using no compression).

After Quitting in PC-DOS, I was still left in the Ghost directory of A: and wasn't sure how to then boot back into Windows, but I typed "cd\", thus:

A:>GHOST\cd\

which got me to A:>

I then removed the bootdisk from the drive and hit Cntrl/Alt/Delt and, hey presto, my machine booted back into Windows. Did I use the correct procedure for getting out of Ghost's PC-DOS and back into Windows? It's Win2K, BTW.

I've checked that the image was successfully written to the destination partition on the ext USB drive.

Many thanks for your indulgence in this matter. It rather looks like this is another case of imaging not working from the Windows environment, only the PC-DOS environment.

DosFreak,

You've a very appropriate forum username. Heh, heh, heh, just joking. You're clearly not a Ghost fan, especially with using its DOS domain. Whilst Norton Ghost has undoubtedly been a bit of a pig for a lot of people, Ghost 2003 has arguably been one of the best versions issued and isn't quite as bad as you make out. The unfortunate thing is that it's pretty old now and official support for it from Symantec has long since expired. I don't doubt that there are much better backup programs around now, Acronis being one of them, but Ghost 2003 still seems to work well enough for my own purposes. I'm not exactly overflowing with cash these days and that's an incentive to make do with what I've got (providing it works). Thanks for your input, anyway.

I'm just pissed that Symantec ruined Ghost like it has for so many other programs. It's a shame. If you ever get around to buying another imaging solution then please stay away from Symantec (only if they continue to suck of course).

Imaging from DOS was fine back in the day but it's 2006. If your imaging your modern computer with MS-DOS then you should REALLY upgrade to a better solution. With that said if what you are using now works fine for you then so be it but at least take a look at imaging solutions @ Acronis and see if it will make your life any easier. Acronis is well known for it's ability to back up Windows while Windows is running so right there is a reason for you to buy it.

I'm afraid you're way off beam, Dosfreak and I do wonder about the premise of your arguments against Norton Ghost. As I pointed out before, Ghost is absolutely nothing to do with MS-DOS (unless you especially install MS-DOS, which most people don't). So, please eradicate this idea that I and other Ghost users are using an old, primitive DOS.

Ghost uses a simple 'semi-graphical environment' that Symantec calls 'PC-DOS' - and, for imaging and restoring and the like, it works quite well. I've used other backup programs in the past, like Drive Image, and that too uses a similar form of DOS. But, again, it's nothing to do with MS-DOS. In the case of Drive Image, it was Caldera DOS. These forms of DOS were developed and adapted in recent years for backup programs. My guess is that, if you look carefully at how Acronis backup functions, it too will use its own proprietary form of DOS when it performs the imaging. But again, it's nothing to do with MS-DOS.

Programs like Ghost 2003 were a new departure, in that they allowed the user to start the backups/restores from either Windows or from the 'semi-graphical' PC-DOS environment, returning automatically to Windows when the function had completed. In other words, the program gave you the option. There's nothing old or retrograde about recent editions of Ghost, therefore.

That said, there have been some problems with Ghost, especially with its use with external devices and, in particular USB storage devices. But Symantec have addressed most (but not necessarily all) of those.

Comparing Ghost 2003 with the Drive Image 5 that I had before, Ghost is infinitely better.

I just solved this problem, though it wasn't with a USB-connected external hard drive. It was working fine for the longest time, then it appeared to suddenly fail. After a lot of troubleshooting, and a lot of Googling, I shrunk the partition by about 1 GB, saved the changes, then expanded it back to the original size. Once I did that, the problem was gone.

BTW, as far as Ghost "sucking" compared to Acronis, I've used both. I like the UI in Acronis much better than Ghost. I like the overall feel of Acronis better. However, I tried dumping an image with both, and Ghost was about twice as fast. I may have been doing something wrong, but in for me (imaging a series of QA test machines that are constantly being restored to a "clean" OS), speed is the number one priority.

Yes, Ghost uses a form of DOS, in some cases, but it still can image NTFS partitions. It can even image a Linux partition. In fact, the drive that stores our partitions is formatted as NTFS, and Ghost is able to read and write the images to this drive. NTFSDOS is not required for Ghost, since it has built-in NTFS support, and has had it for quite some time. I've even used it to image an SATA RAID array.

Also, just FYI, Ghost is capable of imaging Windows from within Windows using Ghost32. It can't restore an image to the partition belonging to the running copy of Windows, but neither can Acronis or anything else, for fairly obvious reasons.