Norton Ghost and X64 troubles

I have Vista x64 with 8GB DDR 2 ram, 2x8800GTX cards, 4 hard drives (2x500gb, 1x150gb and 1 raptor 32gb OS).

I back up daily, and yesterday encountered a problem requiring a restore. Since System Restore is useless as it didnt save my "create a restore point" I decided to go ahead with my daily Ghost backup (v12.0 used).

Hell broke loose. Ghost's always worked fine under XP but Im writing this article for any suggestions on X64 (if its even the problem).

You see, when booting from the Ghost CD, what usually happens are one of 2 things:

1) The Symantec page wont even load, the PC will give a BSOD error message until I remove all but 2GB RAM, then Symantec loads etc

2) When RAM removed, Symantec loads, finds the restore point, restores the drive. Then with around 20 seconds to go I get a BSOD (same one as before). Try booting the PC and for a split second you get the BSOD and it restarts.
If you try loading the CD again, you get the BSOD. The only way to get around the BSOD (and to start the whole process again) is to PHYSICALLY remove the hard drive you reinstalled on, format it with a different computer, plug it back in and start over.

This was mental!

I restored onto a (newly purchased) Raptor drive. No idea what the problem is. Does anyone recommend any new software to backup a whole PC (quickly) and possibly retore itself within Windows, or ways around the problems above?

Any help/advice appreciated.
With thanks

Could I ask what exactly was the problem to start of with. I understand that you back up daily and this must be a requirement of your specific situation. But 'closing the gate after the bull has bolted' is not the cure. BSOD on such a quick boot sugests to me that there is something extremly wrong. What MOB do you have and what is the RAM exactly? Also when you say the HD has to be removed and formated on another computer does this mean that you have to instal a new MBR ? (new MBR needed from another computer - Virus ?) So in the Bios do you have the oportunity to warn or virus protect HD ?
Sorry questions seem a little deep and outside of your initial request but I do think we need to dive a little deeper into this problem.

regards, Steve. M.

Hi Steve thanks for the reply. The motherboard is an Asus p5m32-e
RAM are 4x2GB sticks, Corsair 800mhz

I have to remove the HD the OS was on and format in another PC simply because even booting from the Vista CD, Norton CD, or anything causes a BSOD when plugged in (disabling in BIOS doesnt work), no format utilities are on the BIOS for the HD. A new MBR would be automatically installed from the new Vista installation after reformatting.

The original problem was I deleted the driverstore contents on system for more space, this rendered a flash driver undiscoverable so choose to restore the PC.

tomkat2006,

Ok, so boot from a CD and the system BSOD with the HD present as Master (asuming it is a E/IDE Drive), AND you have 8 Gig RAM. ?

I know why is he asking this again, well I have tried to understand your problem BUT you have at the moment talked about (as I see it) three problems. When problems arise it usally an acumilation of exsisting problems that indipendatly on their own are just about alright, but combined they cause a serious headache. So please can we go back to the begining ?

MotherBoard - Asus P5M32-E, (which I can not find on the ASUS site ?)
What CPU?
Memory is ? I got Corsair 800mhz ?

Secondly, MBR on a HD is an area that the OS will construct AND a virus COULD inhabite, I understand that your BIOS has no facilities for a HD (install, format...) but does it have a section like 'Virus Warning' This can be used for the BIOS to monitor the MBR on the HD and if anything writes to that area a "beep" will sound. Of course if you install a new HD and format, initilise and make partition active this will be writing to the MBR and consequently cause a "beep". Having to take the HD to another system to format it worries me. Also you say disabling in BOIS - the HD - could not nessecaraly indicate that the system does not look at the HD and the read the MBR. So if Virus infected OR corrupted a BSOD is indeed inevitable.

Memory. Why do you have to remove memory to make the system bootable ?
This is not a stupid question but a question of Do you remove memory to make the system bootable because of other problems that manifest them selves. Because when you have no problems the system boots with 8 mem present. So is this not a problem caused by a problem. !

Please be paitent because we solve this problem.

Originaly you "deleted" the "driverstore" contents.
What is the "driverstore" ?
And when you say "deleted" do you mean deleted OR un-installed. ?

Also if a problem has always exsisted on this system a 'restore' will not fix it. Because the problem is still there on your backups.

Booting from the original Vista CD (never mind about Norton CD) and system BSOD is an indication of a clear problem, I KNOW you have found this out but just a minuite,
Was this the CD that you originaly installed the OS from ?
IF the answer is YES then we know that MOB, MEM, HD, CD Drive, GFX Card.... Work, But that something has indeed changed and the system does not like it. Yet again this moves me towards the HD and it's MBR or it boot block information - Virus.

I know I waffle a little but I am trying to convey my train of thoughts to you.

Sorry another thought, Is the version of Norton compatable with the Hardware that you have, Dual CPU and more that 4 gig of RAM. You do say it boots with 4gig but gets a BSOD eventualy.......Also with HD removed ( or reformated on another sytem) ......Sounds like to me Norton is NOT compatable with your system.

regards SteveM.

tomkat2006, sorry your having such problems.

For starters I avoid all products with the symantec lable and have for about 3 years. A better and more versitle solution is acronis true image home 11. Since you seem to have your system up and running I would get a copy and image ASAP.

As for you BSOD problems I belive you have either a defective harddrive or a bad stick of memory. Other hardware issues can lead to the same situation but to be sure you should download, and create a Hirens diagnostic disk and run a complete check of your complete system. You should also get MemTest 86 and run it as well as it is a more robust test of your systems RAM and "any" failures detected should be taken very seriously.

If you chose to run these free utilities please post back what you find. If your hardware passes all the test then we should look elsewhere to find the problem.

Good luck.

mobo - p5n32-e
ram - Play.com (UK) : Corsair TWIN2X4096-6400C5 / 4GB PC2-6400 / DDR2 800MHz XMS2 Dual Channel Memory : PC - Free Delivery


the hard drive is a sata (or satan as I call it!), I tried bios allowing it as the master (as it originally was), no go, same prob, tried changing cables, different sata port, the OLY way I could boot from a cd/dvd again was to completely format the drive.

cpu is a intel qx6850 @3 ghz

I have to remove the ram, else I get a (driver not less than equal) error, this also occurs during setup of vista, its apparently because the OS doesnt like moer than 2GB or somesuch.

I believe the bios has a virus utility, but this problem happened on a fairly (week?) fresh install so a virus would have been pretty unlucky.

Driverstore. I came across a site to "slim down vista" by freeing space, it said to delete the files here, they're drivers held by vista in backup, saved about 1.5gb space but was moer problematic than it helped.

I deleted the contents of this folder and not the folder itself.

Ghost has worked with thie setup before, the only change was that the vista boot loader 1.2.1 (?) was on a different hard drive whereas the OS was on another one again, this pressumably is why I didnt have a problem then.

Yes its the same vista CD.

With the HD vista loader, when I reinstall vista I have to unplug all hard drives bar the one I want the OS on, else I find it installs boot info on a spearate disk to the OS one. So, unplug all HD's so that the raptor is only showing, install vista, plug in hard drives (all sata), everything's done.

Norton has worked before, this version is v14 which is the latest, I can only assume its fine for x64.

Hope this added info helps, and thank you for responding.
Dave

hey, wouldnt have thought its the hard drive or ram, as both are barely a month old

Does the 'Satan' drive have a little jumper on it ?
It is little ! a tiny little thing that if you look at the drive for info it enables/disables 3gig per second transfer rate. = is it on or off ?

My system was installed with Vista Home Edition 64 bit, with 4gig ram, 2 x HD SATAII, and all went exactly to plan installing to the 'boot' drive and not to the other. So Vista does not mind the amount of mem you have, I mean even XP can see 3gig ! So maybe you do have a mem problem AS well as the apparent HD problem.

Cure..........................................
If you boot cdrom into vista to install what fails with 4gig mem installed ?
You said it works with only 2 gig, have you tried the 2 gig that you removed ?
Inother words - 2gig works with Vista install.
2 gig removed take and replace with 2 gig that is known to work.
In one sense it would be nice if this now fails !
If it does you now have to swap 1 gig with a known working 1 gig if works try with the other suspect fault 1 gig.

Assuming Norton is fine for x64 is NOT a good assumption.

Looking on Nortons site Norton Ghost 14.0 does NOT state that it works for Vista 64 bit !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
If you then look at Norton V2.0 it clearly states Vista 64 bit.

I must quite agree with joel406 (and myself this is personal) I hate Synmantec products. Except for 'gdisk' which is a far better and much more comprehensive 'fdisk' command line tool for Hard Disks. ....................

"SATAN" maybe you could look at Satan using 'gdisk' !
Have you used this before ?
If not boot from floopy with gdisk on type gdisk at command line and all the info is there.

There is no such thing as a "SATA II" drive. There are SATA 1.5Gb/s and SATA 3.0Gb/s drives. There will be SATA 6.0Gb/s drives at some point too.

Regardless, what does that have to with this problem? The jumper is only going to impact performance, not compatibility or reliability.

S-