Ghosting a Drive

[TheCardMan]

I am trying to create an image of an existing hard drive before I wipe it for an upgrade. I am using Systemworks 2002 Ghost, I have a 10gig HD that has about 5gig of data on it, I installed a second spare hard drive (6.4gig) so I can send the image to that drive. When I start the process I tell ghost to compress, high. As progress continues it starts writing and then stops at about 75% and tells me to insert next media, like the drive is full. I cancelled the operation and found that ghost wrote a 2,147,469,656 byte file on the "D" drive, I have 4gig free. What can I be doing wrong that ghost is limiting the image file to about 2.1gigs?? How do I go about having it create a full image? I looked at the "options" menu but could not tell if anything there was limiting me.

The drive I am ghosting is a Win98 machine, Fat32. The Spare Drive I am saving the image to is a 6.4gig, Fat32, clean formated drive.

Help......

[gazzak]

I had this exact problem myself, and a quick look through the symantec support site came up with the following...

(copied and pasted)

Cannot create an image file larger than 2 GB

Situation:
When using Ghost to create an image of a disk or partition that is larger than 2 gigabytes (GB), you want to save the image as a single file that is larger than 2 GB.

Solution:
Ghost does not support creating an image file that is larger than 2 GB. Because Ghost uses the DOS operating system to save image files, Ghost image files are limited to DOS's maximum file size, 2 GB. DOS, Windows 95, and Windows 95a do not support file sizes over 2 GB.

When creating an image file of a disk or partition that islarger than 2 GB, such as a FAT32 partition or an NTFS partition, Ghost automatically splits the image file into two or more segments so that each segment is 2 GB or smaller.

NOTE: In Ghost, a "segment" is a file that is part of a group of files, or file set. Each image is one file set. For instance, the file set for a disk that is 10 GB consists of up to five segments.

Earlier Ghost versions
In Ghost versions 5.1b and earlier, Ghost did not automatically split the image.

In these versions, recreate the image file. Split the file into smaller segments, such as 1.9 GB, using the -SPLIT=1900 switch. Ghost splits the image file into multiple files (segments) once it reaches a segment size of 1900 megabytes.

Cannot restore an image file larger than 2 GB
If Ghost created an image file that is larger than 2 GB, restore the image to a FAT32 or NTFS partition that is larger than 2 GB.

More information

The originally released Windows 95 and Windows 95a are compatible with FAT16 partitions, which have a size limit of 2 GB. Later Windows 95 versions and Windows 98/Me/2000 are also compatible with FAT32 partitions, which do not have this size limit.

The exact link is below and will guide you through splitting the image file, and has a few other problem fixes for issues like yours...

http://service1.symantec.com/SUPPORT...ode=ghost&svy=

Splitting the file should solve your problems

[TheCardMan]

Thanks, I did look into the symantec support site and found that information after my post and used the -split=650 -auto to make the image files automatically split into 650mb files and auto number them. This worked good so I can burn them onto cd's.

I thought I remembered someone image a drive that was more then 2gig and it imaged it to a single file using ghost.

Must have been someting else.....

Thanks for you help.