Ghosting Partitions from a RAID Array

[Four and Twenty 0]

I recently acquired a copy of Norton Ghost 2001 only to find out that it doesn't support ghosting of partitions from a RAID Array. Is there any software out there that can make images of partitions from RAID Arrays?

 

------------------

My System

Dell Demension XPS T500

Triple Boot

Windows 2000 Pro 2195

Windows Whistler Pro 2428

Windows Millennium Final Retail

PIII @ 500 Mhz (with after market heatsink and dual fan)

512 Megs Ram

Guillemot Maxi Gammer Cougar (TNT2 M64 w/ 32 Megs of RAM)

Matrox Millennium PCI (w/ 4 Megs of RAM for second monitor)

3Com Etherlink XL 10/100 Ethernet Card

2 x Abit Hot Rod Pro ATA-100 RAID Controlers

2 x 12.6 Gig Maxtor Hard Disks RAID 0 (for system)

1 76.3 Gig Maxtor Hard Disk (for storage)

40X LG CD Rom Drive

100 Mb Iomega Internal Zip Drive

MS Explorer Mouse

MS Natural Keyboard Pro

And not a single piece of software that I actually own

[clutch 1]

ServerMagic from Powerquest supports RAID natively. Give it a look:

 

http://www.powerquest.com/servermagicnt/index.html

 

 

 

------------------

Regards,

 

clutch

[Four and Twenty 0]

Sh1t I am not to likely to find a WAR3Z version of this one and I don't have that spare $495 kicking around. I also am not about to give up my RAID Array so that I can ghost my system partitions. Also don't you guys think that Norton Ghost 2001 should be able to do this? I mean I have the frickin corporate or enterprise edition or whatever the hell it is called. Two reasons that the Norton program should do this are RAID is getting much more affordable available and popular. Also with the RAID that most people will set up it will be striping so that is two points of failure which is why I wanted to start Ghosting in the first place.

 

Does any one know of a cheaper or more popular alternative to the pricey server works program? (Hopefully one that I can get war3z!)

[clutch 1]

Ghost 2001 is the home version I believe. Ghost 6.5 is the corporate one. I don't know why the corporate wouldn't do it, but it's kinda hard to complain when it's war3z. Guess you could always return it...

 

 

e

Didn't occur to me that war3z was a bad word.

/e

 

------------------

Regards,

 

clutch

 

[This message has been edited by clutch (edited 22 February 2001).]

[Four and Twenty 0]

I have two versions the home and the corporate and neither do the job.

[Four and Twenty 0]

ok now i have the server magic program and it tells me that it will only run on windows nt/2000 server. I tried the application compatibility mode but that only works to make it think that it is nt/2k not server. Is there anyway to force this program to install on win2k or xp (preferably xp)

 

I have a copy of win2k advanced server kicking around but I would rather not have to install and configure it just for this.

[Four and Twenty 0]

Update:

 

I finally got around to putting advanced server on my machine so that I could run the damn server magic program. After I installed it I began reading the documentation on it and I cam across this right away.

 

Supported Formats

---------------------

Server Image does not support volume sets, stripe sets, stripe sets

with parity, or partitions located on disk mirror/duplex sets configured

using Windows NT Disk Administrator. Under Windows 2000, Server Image

supports standard partitions located on basic disk sets only.

 

I give up on the idea of ghosting, what the hell I just can't win. I guess it is a good thing I have all those backup scripts developed.

[Four and Twenty 0]

So over at Powerquest website it says that it can support RAID WTF

 

Raid Support: ServerMagic 4.0 for Windows NT views a RAID array the same way it does a stand-alone disk drive. If you have a RAID system that allows you to incorporate a new drive dynamically, you can use ServerMagic 4.0 for Windows NT to quickly access the new space by resizing the partition to include the added hard drive(s).

 

Does this mean like dynamic disk or something. The computer sees my raid array as basic not dynamic. Arrg! Any thoughts or help would be appreciated I rally wanna get this mofo ghosted.

 

------------------

My System

Dell Demension XPS T500 (SE440BX-2 Chipset)

Triple Boot

Windows Millennium Final Retail (c: FAT32)

Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1 (d: NTFS w/ 4K Clusters)

Windows Whistler Pro Beta 2 2462a (e: NTFS w/ 4K Clusters)

PIII 500 @ 512.8 Mhz (with after market heatsink and dual fan)

512 Megs PC100 SDRAM

Guillemot Maxi Gammer Cougar (TNT2 M64 w/ 32 Megs of RAM / Core & Mem Overclocked by 20 mhz)

Matrox Millennium PCI (w/ 4 Megs of RAM for second monitor)

3Com Etherlink XL 10/100 Ethernet Card

2 x Abit Hot Rod Pro ATA-100 RAID Controlers

2 x 12.6 Gig Maxtor Hard Disks RAID 0 W/ 8K block size (for system)

1 76.3 Gig Maxtor Hard Disk (for storage 1 NTFS partion w/ 4K Clusters)

40X LG CD Rom Drive

100 Mb Iomega Internal Zip Drive

MS Explorer Mouse USB

MS Natural Keyboard Pro USB

Dell M770 17 inch CRT

Dell E550 15 inch CRT

[clutch 1]

No, it does not have anything to do with basic/dynamic disks. It means that you can add another disk to an array (or subtract one for that matter). It sounds like it is referring to the ability of the controller to do that, and not NT's disk administrator which does not have that ability.

 

------------------

Regards,

 

clutch

[Four and Twenty 0]

so what the hell is the deal with this god damn program i am starting to get realy friggin pissed off (and that is rare for a heavy stoner)

 

Does it ghost RAID or not? The goddam documentation seems to contradict itself. I guess I just gotta read more and fuk with it more.

any thoughts

perhaps there is yet another program i should try

for now i will go break something argg!

[Four and Twenty 0]

bump!

[Four and Twenty 0]

this is the last time I am going to bump this before I give up totaly. If anyone knows of any way to ghost a raid array plese let me know.

[smb 0]

when using ghost, are you booting to dos using a boot disk, then ghosting the array. I use it that way, and have had no problems. If your using NTFS, I don't think Ghost can do NTFS.

[Four and Twenty 0]

yeah I boot in dos using ghost and I am using NTFS. It doesn't work because it doesn't support ghosting from RAID arrays not because it doesn't support NTFS (it does support NTFS). Thanks anyway bro maybe you wanna read the whole tread next time before you reply.

[EM 0]

Quote:

<font face="Verdana, Arial" size="2">Originally posted by Four and Twenty:
yeah I boot in dos using ghost and I am using NTFS. It doesn't work because it doesn't support ghosting from RAID arrays not because it doesn't support NTFS (it does support NTFS). Thanks anyway bro maybe you wanna read the whole tread next time before you reply.</font>

Maybe you should say somewhere that you are booting to DOS....don't be so quick to put someone down.

Ed

[Four and Twenty 0]

There is no way to ghost the partitions with out booting into dos mode so i did not feel that i had to metion it. When did i ever put anyone down?

[Santa-Jack 0]

I have quite a bit of Ghost Enterprise 6.5 experience on servers and workstations. As you had said, Ghost is not officially compatible with RAID systems and definately does not work with software level RAID. However, Although it is not a supported feature, Ghost may be able to create and restore images to hardware level RAID systems as long as you are loading the appropriate DOS driver to support this. I have been able to Ghost drives that were in a hardware RAID system. I will see what I can find out about the Abit RAID controllers. It might be cheaper to buy a different RAID controller rather than trying to find different software.

 

[This message has been edited by Santa-Jack (edited 03 April 2001).]

[smb 0]

"Thanks anyway bro maybe you wanna read the whole tread next time before you reply"

 

I read "ALL" your post. where does it say you are using NTFS ? or booting to DOS ? (other than your response to me). The full version allows you to run in win98 out to the dos shell, and run the image executable.

 

In any case, I know from experience that Ghostpe 5.6 works for me as long as I boot to a dos prompt from a win98 startup disk, and I use a raid setup 2 20g WD HD and a modded Ultra66 controller. As long as you can boot to dos, and are able to see the array as one complete drive, you should not have any problems. Maybe your Ghost just doesn't like your Hot Rod.

 

Also remember raid for home users is not "really" mainstream.

 

[This message has been edited by smb (edited 03 April 2001).]

[Santa-Jack 0]

What is your exact RAID setup? I assume you have the two Maxtor drives on one controller and using hardware RAID 0 (spanning). What is the other RAID controller being used for? Have you tried loading the DOS drivers for the controllers when booting to run ghost?

[Four and Twenty 0]

thanks for the info i am glad there is still hope.

 

My 2 12.6 maxtors are raid 0 primary master secondary master

the second raid card is just to run my storage drive. I plan to do mirroring in the future. I have the second card now cause my onboard ide controllers suck. and i like to have everything on its own cable. here are my specs again.

 

so it is dos driver that i need eh

i will look around for that

 

------------------

My System

Dell Demension XPS T500 (SE440BX-2 Chipset)

Triple Boot

Windows Millennium Final Retail (c: FAT32)

Windows 2000 Advanced Server SP1 (d: NTFS w/ 4K Clusters)

Windows Whistler Pro Beta 2 2462a (e: NTFS w/ 4K Clusters)

PIII 500 @ 512.8 Mhz (with after market heatsink and dual fan)

512 Megs PC100 SDRAM

Guillemot Maxi Gammer Cougar (TNT2 M64 w/ 32 Megs of RAM / Core & Mem Overclocked by 20 mhz)

Matrox Millennium PCI (w/ 4 Megs of RAM for second monitor)

3Com Etherlink XL 10/100 Ethernet Card

Yamaha DS1 Integrated Audio

2 x Abit Hot Rod Pro ATA-100 RAID Controlers

2 x 12.6 Gig Maxtor Hard Disks RAID 0 W/ 8K block size (for system)

1 76.3 Gig Maxtor Hard Disk (for storage 1 NTFS partion w/ 4K Clusters)

40X LG CD Rom Drive

100 Mb Iomega Internal Zip Drive

MS Explorer Mouse USB

MS Natural Keyboard Pro USB

Dell M770 17 inch CRT

Dell E550 15 inch CRT