Invalid partition offset?

David Ellis · Apr 8, 2006

I've been using Norton Ghost 2003 to perform disk image backups from
Windows XP to an external USB hard drive.

The program worked fine consistently until last week, when on booting
into Norton's DOS to start the backup it threw the error message
"Invalid partition offset" and failed.

I tried defragmenting all my drives, source and destination, then ran
the chkdsk validator, which showed no errors on any of the disks. The
error persists, so I can no longer use Norton Ghost without further
help.

Symantec's web site has an entry for this error message, saying that
the cause is unknown and they're working on a fix. Unfortunately,
this entry is three years old.

There are newer versions of Norton Ghost, but Symantec bought out a
different third-party vendor whose products (Ghost 9 and 10) do not
boot into DOS and do not properly back up files locked by Windows.

The cause of the error seems to be a discrepancy in the cylinder count
between the partition table and the disk driver. This is harmless to
Windows XP and is not flagged by chkdsk. However, it is apparently
fatal to DOS.

I have seen two suggestions for getting past the problem:
(1) Use a boot floppy. Unfortunately, my system does not have a
floppy drive.
(2) Repartition my hard drive.

For (2), I'd rather not kill a running system. One product that may
be able to repartition on the fly is Partition Magic; there are others
on the market as well.

Questions:

(1) Which disk partition utility product would be best for this
purpose?

(2) What is the best advice on how to choose the partition size(s) for
repartitioning? (I may need to repartition twice to get the size
right.)

Thanks in advance!

Rod Speed · Apr 9, 2006

David Ellis said:
I've been using Norton Ghost 2003 to perform disk image
backups from Windows XP to an external USB hard drive.

The program worked fine consistently until last week, when
on booting into Norton's DOS to start the backup it threw the
error message "Invalid partition offset" and failed.

I tried defragmenting all my drives, source and destination, then ran
the chkdsk validator, which showed no errors on any of the disks. The
error persists, so I can no longer use Norton Ghost without further help.

Symantec's web site has an entry for this error message,
saying that the cause is unknown and they're working on
a fix. Unfortunately, this entry is three years old.

There are newer versions of Norton Ghost, but
Symantec bought out a different third-party vendor
PowerQuest.

whose products (Ghost 9 and 10) do not boot into DOS

Yep, DOS is WAY past its useby date now.

and do not properly back up files locked by Windows.
Wrong.

The cause of the error seems to be a discrepancy in the
cylinder count between the partition table and the disk driver.

Very unlikely indeed.

This is harmless to Windows XP and is not flagged
by chkdsk. However, it is apparently fatal to DOS.

Very unlikely indeed. Its MUCH more likely that
Ghost 2003 is getting its tiny little brain scrambled
about something in the partition table.

I have seen two suggestions for getting past the problem:
(1) Use a boot floppy. Unfortunately,
my system does not have a floppy drive.

You can boot a CD instead. Little fiddly to create a bootable
CD now that it wont run, but you could for example image
a different drive to CD, and abort that after the first CD
has been written. That CD will be bootable. Or get one of
those from someone else. I'd be surprised if it helps tho.

(2) Repartition my hard drive.

For (2), I'd rather not kill a running system. One product
that may be able to repartition on the fly is Partition Magic;
there are others on the market as well.

(1) Which disk partition utility product would be best for this purpose?

Hard to say when we dont know what Ghost 2003 is objecting to.

(2) What is the best advice on how to choose the partition size(s) for
repartitioning? (I may need to repartition twice to get the size right.)

I've never seen ghost 2003 care about that, so its unlikely to matter.

David Ellis · Apr 9, 2006

raised in my original post were "wrong" and "unlikely".

At issue are my statements that
(1) Ghost 9 and Ghost 10 may not correctly back up files that are in
use by Windows, and
(2) The error encountered in Ghost 2003 was likely to be a result of a
discrepancy between the cylinder counts in the partition table and the
disk drive.

I based them on information available at the following Web pages:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghos...ID=7&messageID=1605925&cval=1605925&tag=uolst

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghos...ID=7&messageID=1767601&cval=1767601&tag=uolst

http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_90.htm

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=Full_Rad_Board;action=display;num=1127496173

The suggestion to do a hot repartition of my drive came from the last
of these pages.

Specific corrections to this information are welcome.

I am currently unable to continue using Ghost 2003 to backup my
corporate workstation. Our company's system administrator does not
approve of using Ghost 9 or Ghost 10 because he says that their image
backups are not reliable. His best advice is to try using a
non-imaging backup product such as Dantz Retrospect; he does not know
of another imaging backup solution that would work for me.

I hope that somebody can help guide me through the process of getting
a reliable image backup of my hard drive again.

Rod Speed · Apr 10, 2006

David Ellis said:
points I raised in my original post were "wrong" and "unlikely".

At issue are my statements that
(1) Ghost 9 and Ghost 10 may not correctly back
up files that are in use by Windows, and

Thats not what you originally said. You originally said

That is MUCH more absolute than you are claiming now.

(2) The error encountered in Ghost 2003 was likely
to be a result of a discrepancy between the cylinder
counts in the partition table and the disk drive.

I didnt say it a baldly as that either.

I based them on information available at the following Web pages:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghos...ID=7&messageID=1605925&cval=1605925&tag=uolst

That says nothing like your original claim.

http://reviews.cnet.com/Norton_Ghos...ID=7&messageID=1767601&cval=1767601&tag=uolst

That says nothing like your original claim either.

http://ghost.radified.com/norton_ghost_90.htm

Reams of mindlessly silly crap basically and still nothing like your
original claim.

http://radified.com/cgi-bin/YaBB/YaBB.cgi?board=Full_Rad_Board;action=display;num=1127496173

The suggestion to do a hot repartition of
my drive came from the last of these pages.

It was just a suggestion, he doesnt actually know
what it is that Ghost 2003 is NOW complaining about.

Specific corrections to this information are welcome.

The obvious thing to do is to not use Ghost at all, use True Image
instead, and get both a decent modern incremental hot imager and
quite a bit of other stuff that none of the Ghosts actually do as well.

I am currently unable to continue using Ghost 2003 to backup my
corporate workstation. Our company's system administrator does not
approve of using Ghost 9 or Ghost 10 because he says that their image
backups are not reliable. His best advice is to try using a non-imaging
backup product such as Dantz Retrospect; he does not know
of another imaging backup solution that would work for me.

Then he is pig ignorant. True Image will work fine.

I hope that somebody can help guide me through the process
of getting a reliable image backup of my hard drive again.

Use True Image.

David Ellis · Apr 10, 2006

Rod Speed said:
The obvious thing to do is to not use Ghost at all, use True Image
instead, and get both a decent modern incremental hot imager and
quite a bit of other stuff that none of the Ghosts actually do as well.

The sources I cited in my previous post also regard True Image as
superior to Ghost. Your recommendation agrees with these (and other)
sources.

Unfortunately, my company has an enterprise relationship with Symantec
and none with Acronis. True Image is not approved for use on our
business workstations. Ghost 2003 is the designated application for
image backups, but Ghost 9 and 10 are specifically disapproved because
they have a track record of unreliable backups and restores.

Corporate policy prohibits installation of software on their machines
without express permission from management. However, it won't hurt to
ask about True Image as an alternative to Ghost 2003 for image
backups. I am far from the only person who has been stung by problems
with Symantec software.

Rod Speed · Apr 10, 2006

The sources I cited in my previous post also regard
True Image as superior to Ghost. Your recommendation
agrees with these (and other) sources.

And it isnt that hard to test whether it has that problem with hot images
or not.

Or just ensure that you dont hot image if you're paranoid by only
imaging overnight with email checking turned off during the imaging etc.

Unfortunately, my company has an enterprise relationship
with Symantec and none with Acronis. True Image is not
approved for use on our business workstations.

Time to put a bomb under your company then.

Ghost 2003 is the designated application for image backups,
but Ghost 9 and 10 are specifically disapproved because
they have a track record of unreliable backups and restores.

Corporate policy prohibits installation of software on their
machines without express permission from management.
However, it won't hurt to ask about True Image as an
alternative to Ghost 2003 for image backups.

Yeah, they may not be aware of it and may be quite happy to allow its use.

I am far from the only person who has been
stung by problems with Symantec software.

Yeah, I never did use it their products much. Ghost 2003 always
had a significantly worse user interface than Drive Image so I used
Drive Image instead. Ghost 2003 can bit the simpler users too if
the image creation fails, it leaves the system unbootable. Not that
hard to fix if you know what you are doing, but DI never did that.

I tossed Ghost 9 in the bin when it cant even create an image
from the bootable CD or clone from that either, quite apart
from its problems with hot imaging reliably. Thats when I
changed to True Image and have never regretted doing that.

TI now has quite a bit more than Ghost 10 can do,
particularly full file level backup as well as imaging.