Using Coast to backup a laptop system partition (2)

[Jonathan Sachs]

I would still appreciate answers to the questions in my first post --
they will save me a lot of time. Since I have received none
immediately, though, I've started looking for the answers myself.

Things have gotten weird very quickly.

I learned that Ghost cannot back up a partition on a different disk
than the one it runs from, so my preferred configuration -- running
Ghost on my desktop computer and using it to back up the system
partition on the laptop -- is impossible.

I uninstalled Ghost on the desktop and installed it on the laptop. To
see whether the system partition's image file will fit on a DVD, I
backed it up to the hard disk with maximum compression.

Instead of getting a file I got THREE files, one named "C ghost image
070420.gho" (the name I specified), and two named "C GHO001.GHS" and
"C GHO002.GHS." Each of the GHS files is described by Windows as a
"Ghost Spanned Image File."

A couple of months ago my original intended use of Ghost was shot down
by a bug which prevents Ghost from writing spanned DVDs. I ran into
this bug myself, and confirmed it through research on the web. Now
Ghost seems to be writing spanned files spontaneously to my hard disk,
for no apparent reason.

In view of the known bug, I have no confidence that these "spanned
files" will work, or even that they are what they purport to be.

Is Ghost really doing what it appears to be doing -- automatically
segmenting the backup to fit on standard DVDs? If not, or if the
spanned-DVD bug will make the files unusable, how do I make it stop?

If it really is segmenting the backup, and is doing so correctly, how
can I tell it that the backup will ultimately go on double density
DVDs -- capacity 4.4 GB instead of 2.2 GB?

[John.]

On Fri, 20 Apr 2007 09:29:02 -0500, Jonathan Sachs

Post by Jonathan Sachs
I would still appreciate answers to the questions in my first post --
they will save me a lot of time. Since I have received none
immediately, though, I've started looking for the answers myself.
Things have gotten weird very quickly.
I learned that Ghost cannot back up a partition on a different disk
than the one it runs from, so my preferred configuration -- running
Ghost on my desktop computer and using it to back up the system
partition on the laptop -- is impossible.

There are versions of Ghost (primarily enterprise ones) that run on a
server and have a small corresponding client version. The images are
managed from a central "console".

Post by Jonathan Sachs
I uninstalled Ghost on the desktop and installed it on the laptop. To
see whether the system partition's image file will fit on a DVD, I
backed it up to the hard disk with maximum compression.
Instead of getting a file I got THREE files, one named "C ghost image
070420.gho" (the name I specified), and two named "C GHO001.GHS" and
"C GHO002.GHS." Each of the GHS files is described by Windows as a
"Ghost Spanned Image File."

You must be using Ghost 2003 which is a DOS product. File sizes are
limited to 2gb for FAT32, so Ghost 2003 automatically creates "chunks"
if your backup is greater than 2gb.

If you are using Ghost 10 on NTFS partition, it will only be one large
file (unless you specifically ask Ghost 10 to split into smaller
chunks.)

Post by Jonathan Sachs
A couple of months ago my original intended use of Ghost was shot down
by a bug which prevents Ghost from writing spanned DVDs. I ran into
this bug myself, and confirmed it through research on the web. Now
Ghost seems to be writing spanned files spontaneously to my hard disk,
for no apparent reason.
In view of the known bug, I have no confidence that these "spanned
files" will work, or even that they are what they purport to be.

I've never had a problem with a "spanned" backup image. But you
should always run the Ghost verify as part of the backup for safety's
sake.

Post by Jonathan Sachs
Is Ghost really doing what it appears to be doing -- automatically
segmenting the backup to fit on standard DVDs? If not, or if the
spanned-DVD bug will make the files unusable, how do I make it stop?
If it really is segmenting the backup, and is doing so correctly, how
can I tell it that the backup will ultimately go on double density
DVDs -- capacity 4.4 GB instead of 2.2 GB?

Most people write their backups to an external usb2 hard drive, and
then use Nero or other dvd burning software to burn the "chunks" to
dvd's.