Norton Ghost question

  • Thread starter Thread starter George Hester
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George Hester

I would like to put a big hard drive in a PI system. This is actually a
Gateway that came out early in the beginning of the PC craze so it's BIOS
will not allow a boot disk to be larger than 2 GB. I tried installing
Windows 2000 on a 60 GB disk but I could not. So I had to use the 2 GB
disk.

I would like to use Ghost to take an imagae of that disk and put that on a
larger drive. But I need to know if Ghost will pick up the MBR also. I do
not think this will work unless it can.

Any suggestions on what I am trying to do. Note I have large disks on the
system now just not as the Primary drive on the Primary channel. That is
what I hope to do. Thanks.
 
I would like to put a big hard drive in a PI system. This is actually a
Gateway that came out early in the beginning of the PC craze so it's BIOS
will not allow a boot disk to be larger than 2 GB. I tried installing
Windows 2000 on a 60 GB disk but I could not. So I had to use the 2 GB
disk.
Click to expand...

You might find a bios update to support larger HDD size. It
might not support a large enough drive, but it might still
address some bugs the board had. Gateway typically used
Intel OEM (versions of retail) boards in this era and may
have been expected to have reasonable bios support relative
to some of the off-brands of that time.


I would like to use Ghost to take an imagae of that disk and put that on a
larger drive. But I need to know if Ghost will pick up the MBR also. I do
not think this will work unless it can.
Click to expand...

I don't quite follow... If the 2GB drive is in the system
and working, the system had to be able to see it, so Ghost
should work, will see the MBR on it as it would any other
time. As for writing to the larger drive, if the system
can't use it, neither can Ghost.

Any suggestions on what I am trying to do. Note I have large disks on the
system now just not as the Primary drive on the Primary channel. That is
what I hope to do. Thanks.
Click to expand...

???

There should not be any particular restriction on the
primary drive and channel that there isn't on any other
channel. Primary channel and primary drive are just logical
enumerations, to differentiate between the two channels and
4 positions. They all have the same support for drive
capacity though some old bios did expect the boot drive to
be on the primary channel as the master device.

Have you tried to do it yet? I'd suggest you go ahead and
try it, making sure you have the right source and
destination. I think the board will at least support
larger than 2GB with the last bios, but is it possible you
had the partition set as FAT16 instead of FAT32 and that is
why you hit a 2GB limit?
 
George said:
I would like to put a big hard drive in a PI system. This is actually a
Gateway that came out early in the beginning of the PC craze so it's BIOS
will not allow a boot disk to be larger than 2 GB. I tried installing
Windows 2000 on a 60 GB disk but I could not. So I had to use the 2 GB
disk.

I would like to use Ghost to take an imagae of that disk and put that on a
larger drive. But I need to know if Ghost will pick up the MBR also. I do
not think this will work unless it can.

Any suggestions on what I am trying to do. Note I have large disks on the
system now just not as the Primary drive on the Primary channel. That is
what I hope to do. Thanks.
Click to expand...
Hi George! I fixed my system so I could mount 200 GB drives by doing
this. Use a USB enclosure and format it to full size (if running XP)
If not use a usb enclosure and partition it into MULTI-2GB partitions.
Hope this helps you.
Michael
 
You might find a bios update to support larger HDD size. It
might not support a large enough drive, but it might still
address some bugs the board had. Gateway typically used
Intel OEM (versions of retail) boards in this era and may
have been expected to have reasonable bios support relative
to some of the off-brands of that time.
Click to expand...
I don't quite follow... If the 2GB drive is in the system
and working, the system had to be able to see it, so Ghost
should work, will see the MBR on it as it would any other
time. As for writing to the larger drive, if the system
can't use it, neither can Ghost.
Click to expand...

Its more complicated than that. Some imagers work
fine with drives that the bios cant see properly.
There should not be any particular restriction on the
primary drive and channel that there isn't on any other
channel. Primary channel and primary drive are just logical
enumerations, to differentiate between the two channels and
4 positions. They all have the same support for drive
capacity though some old bios did expect the boot drive
to be on the primary channel as the master device.
Click to expand...

Its more complicated than that too.

Win enumerates the drives for itself while booting and
so if the bios cant support drives over 2G, you can have
just that drive listed in the bios and still have Win pick
up the other drives that the bios doesnt support fine.
Have you tried to do it yet? I'd suggest you go ahead and
try it, making sure you have the right source and destination.
Click to expand...

And if Ghost doesnt work properly, try True Image.

TI uses linux with the bootable CD and may well be
able to see everything fine since it doesnt use the bios.
 
Don't know if this may apply to you but...just last week I was trying to add
a 2nd HDD to a neighbors machine (original HDD from previous machine) and it
would only show 2GB. this was a 60 GB HDD. Puzzeled, I started changing
the jumpers in the back to go from cable select to slave when I noticed a
single jumper and it was labeled "2 GB". ?? Removed the jumper, it now
formated to 60 GB. Never saw a drive with that option before!
 
kony said:
You might find a bios update to support larger HDD size. It
might not support a large enough drive, but it might still
address some bugs the board had. Gateway typically used
Intel OEM (versions of retail) boards in this era and may
have been expected to have reasonable bios support relative
to some of the off-brands of that time.




I don't quite follow... If the 2GB drive is in the system
and working, the system had to be able to see it, so Ghost
should work, will see the MBR on it as it would any other
time. As for writing to the larger drive, if the system
can't use it, neither can Ghost.



???

There should not be any particular restriction on the
primary drive and channel that there isn't on any other
channel. Primary channel and primary drive are just logical
enumerations, to differentiate between the two channels and
4 positions. They all have the same support for drive
capacity though some old bios did expect the boot drive to
be on the primary channel as the master device.

Have you tried to do it yet? I'd suggest you go ahead and
try it, making sure you have the right source and
destination. I think the board will at least support
larger than 2GB with the last bios, but is it possible you
had the partition set as FAT16 instead of FAT32 and that is
why you hit a 2GB limit?
Click to expand...

Hi kony. The drives are all partitioned NTFS. When I could not install
Windows 2000 on a 60GB on the appropriate disk it got some of the way
through and then blue screened. I tried a few times. Then just put the 2GB
drive back in and intalled on that. I will remove the drive to a different
machine and Ghost using that. I will take an image of that 2GB drive them
put it on a 60GB all done on another machine. Then I will install the 60GB
drive back in the PI in the appropriate spot and turn on the machine and see
what happens. But I was wondering if Ghost was going to pick up the MBR
because there are sections on a disk that cannot be seen or even recognized
from an operting system.
 
Rod Speed said:
Its more complicated than that. Some imagers work
fine with drives that the bios cant see properly.


Its more complicated than that too.

Win enumerates the drives for itself while booting and
so if the bios cant support drives over 2G, you can have
just that drive listed in the bios and still have Win pick
up the other drives that the bios doesnt support fine.


And if Ghost doesnt work properly, try True Image.

TI uses linux with the bootable CD and may well be
able to see everything fine since it doesnt use the bios.
Click to expand...

Thanks Rod I will look into that if Ghost can't do it.
 
MikeG said:
Don't know if this may apply to you but...just last week I was trying to add
a 2nd HDD to a neighbors machine (original HDD from previous machine) and it
would only show 2GB. this was a 60 GB HDD. Puzzeled, I started changing
the jumpers in the back to go from cable select to slave when I noticed a
single jumper and it was labeled "2 GB". ?? Removed the jumper, it now
formated to 60 GB. Never saw a drive with that option before!
Click to expand...

Yes I have one like that. It's a Compaq I think. I believe this 2GB drive
also has that to make the drive appear to be a 512KB drive to the BIOs. I
belive if I can just get that 2GB drive as an image and put that in a 2GB
partiion on a larger drive it probably will work. But only if the imager
picks up the MBR. I really don't care what the BIOS sees the drive as.
Those jumper pins probably must override the ability of the Op sys to see
the true size of the disk. Interesting.
 
Michael Proctor said:
Hi George! I fixed my system so I could mount 200 GB drives by doing
this. Use a USB enclosure and format it to full size (if running XP)
If not use a usb enclosure and partition it into MULTI-2GB partitions.
Hope this helps you.
Michael
Click to expand...

Hi there Michael. It probably would help if I knew what a "USB enclosure"
was.
 
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