[Firedragon1]

I recently used norton ghost to copy one drive to the other, and now on both drives it says unable to find operating system. Is there any way to restore the hard drives or do I have to buy new ones?

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Slow down partner,

You used Norton Ghost, when? Were you able to access Windows for a while, or did everything die right after using it?

Explain what you were doing and why you were doing it and maybe we can figure out what you actually did.

[gerryf]

Slow down partner,

You used Norton Ghost, when? Were you able to access Windows for a while, or did everything die right after using it?

Explain what you were doing and why you were doing it and maybe we can figure out what you actually did.

[Firedragon1]

I just used it, and it prompted me to reboot, and upon rebooting, it gave me "Missing Operating System" error. This happens with both of the drives. This is my first time using Ghost and I'm wondering if this is a problem with the Drives, or did i use Ghost improperly?

I'm posting from my other computer atm.

[gerryf]

I'm posting from my other computer atm.

I kind of figured that....

OK, explain to me how you ghosted the drive? For example, you installed a new drive, ghosted, then.....? What.

Did you move the drives around on the cable after, before?

What version of ghost? What was the reason for the ghost....were you adding a new drive?

What do you mean it will not boot from either drive...how did you try BOTH drives?

[Firedragon1]

I had 2 drives, a 37 gig and an 80 gig. I formatted the 80 gig, then I ghosted the data from the 37 onto the 80. They were both old drives, nothing brand new. I had the 37 as the master and 80 as slave. I didn't have a CD-ROM drive because my 2 drives took up my only IDE slot

As I ghosted the data from the 37 to the 80, as it restarded it gave me the missing OS. When I set either of the 2 drives as master, or have them as the only drives connected, I get the error.

I'm using ghost 2003.

And what I mean about not booting from either drive is that, if i have the 37 as the only drive connected, i get error, same as 80.

I also tried haveing each drive hooked up as slave with the CD-ROM drive as master with boot disk, same error.

[rharris270]

GHOST 2003 can be run in two modes, from within windows and from a bootable floppy disk set. If run from within windows, it uses a virtual partition and some clever changing of how to boot to achive its work. Unfortunately, if GHOST 2003 to work perfectly when run in windows mode, it can leave the PC unbootable. This became such a problem that Symantec offers a free program to fix what GHOST 2003 can do. The following link leads to the Symantec support website and general info that may be useful. Especially look into the program called GhReboot.

I copied the link from my browser, where it was all on one line. Unfotuantely, it appears in this post as multiple lines, and worse does not seem to be viewable afte rthe post is completed on this firum. I found it by searching the Symantec support site, GHOST, version 2003, looking for the word "boot".

http://service1.syma...ost&svy=&csm=no

Edited by rharris270, 27 July 2005 - 05:36 PM.

[Firedragon1]

Ok I've wiped my 80 gig and put windows on it(using it now), and right now I have both of them hooked up (80 as master, 37 as slave). I can access the 37 gig but it won't boot up on it's own. How can i use Ghost(safely) to transfer the stuff on the 37 HDD to the 80 HDD?

[gerryf]

why do you want to use ghost to transfer something over....

Is the idea that you want the 80 to boot?

[Firedragon1]

I want the 80 gig to boot with all of the data from the 37.

[gerryf]

did you read the link supplied by rharris??

[Firedragon1]

I dont know what to do.. i had so many important things but i just cant get the 37 to boot properly, everything i try doesnt work. boot disk, that link doesnt help, i just dont know what to do.

[Michael]

What operating system are you useing?

[Firedragon1]

im using xp

[oftenwrong]

Hello,

I received this same error yesterday. I was attempting to back up my hard drive over the network.

What ghost appears to do is create a small partition and sets it as active. Unfortunately it's not bootable which is why you get that error.

Here is how I fixed it.

I took the hard drive out which is no longer bootable and set it as slave and put it in a second computer I had.

Goto Start / Settings / Control Panel / Administrative Tools / Computer Management

Under storage, click Disk Management

You will see your hard drive partitioned into 3 partitions. Your original partition, a tiny partition that ghost apparently created (set as your active partition), and a 3rd partition that appears as "unallocated".

Hover your mouse over your main partition of the original drive, right click "Mark Partition Active".

Delete the small parition that Ghost created and the unnallocated space will dissapear as well.

Set your hard drive back as master, put it back into your original system and you will be functioning again with all of your data intact.

I uninstalled / reinstalled ghost and tried this again. It still gave me the same error. I have used ghost extensively and never had this problem before. Until I find an answer as to why this is happening, I don't recommend using that version of ghost.

Hope this helps.