Ghost clone and Partition Magic

I have a hardisk with Win Xp installed. I use Ghost 9 to make backups of the operating systems. Since I need another operating system installed, I thought that I can create a new partition with Partition Magic 8 and use the backup made with Ghost. I even used the function " Install another operating system" provided by Partition Magic. Unfortunatelly, after I tried to reboot and boot into the new operating system, I received some blue screen...After some tweaking I managed to start the old operating system but the new partition created constantly show the error "FRS not in any directory" . After some search on the internet, some advice on Symantec website, said the I should use the CHKDSK ..etc... I used that...but still nothing. I erased the partition..and because the first time I created a primary partition, second time I tried creating a logical partition. Eventually I tried many things but I received all kind of errors. I remember the last error: After creating the partiton and use the Ghost backup and reboot...at the boot I received the message :disk error, press any key to reboot " . Sometimes when I manage to boot into the old operating system, always when I check the new partition for erros, the checking end up with the message " no errors".
My question is : can I make a partition with Partition Magic 8 and use a Ghost backup of WinXp to install another operating system ? And if I can, what kind of settings I should use ? What kind of partiton I should make, logical, primary ? etc.. It's pitty the user manuals of neither Ghost 9 or Partiton Magic 8 didn't explain or give more details for operations like the one I tried to do.
Or it is impossible to install 2 Win Xp on the same hard drive ? ( preferably using a clone system)

 

Support for PM stinks cause it is now part of Symantec. Best way to install multiple OSes is to create one primary C partition for each OS. PM will allow you to create up to FOUR primary partitions. Note that only one primary partition can be active at a time. And you can only boot into an active partition. Each primary partition is completely INDEPENDENT from the other partitions. You will need to install BootMagic (part of PM) to allow you to select which partition you want to boot into during PC boot. BootMagic essentially sets one of those 3 partitions active so you can boot into that partition.

Here's an example of a multi-boot system:

30GB HD split into three 10 GB primary C partition...

C PRIMARY PARTITION:
-W98SE with FAT32
-W2K with FAT32
-WXP with NTFS

Set one of the C partition above ACTIVE and boot. The other two partitions will not be visible to the user.

You can create an image file from the first C active partition and store it on CDs, DVDs, or an extended logical partition (same or different HD). Now restore the image file to the other two primary C partitions to obtain THREE identical OSes in three primary C partitions. Use BootMagic to boot into any of those three partitions.

PM should provide a wizard option. The wizard option should create another primary partition AFTER the current C primary partition. Note that you can have up to 4 primary C partitions because only one primary partition can be active for booting. The other 3 will be inactive and hidden from view. You can select any cluster size and/or file system for each partition.

 

Many thanks for the reply. Unfortunatelly, almost all the things you said (after extensive reading) I knew allready and tried allready. I even installed the BootMagic..but still nothing. At first, I thought that having multiple primary partitions were the problem. But maybe the Ghost 9 was not allright. Let me try to give you more details (with my strange english about the problems I had. For example, at one time, after creating again the second primary partition and use the Ghost to upload the image on the newly created partition, with Partition Magic, I set the new partition active, and the current active partition, I set to "hide". I press "apply" the system asked for restart, but at the boot, I received the message "disk error" like my hard drive just crash. But that was not the case, of course. So I thought, maybe for some strange reason, the system is having trouble booting from the new partition. So I installed Boot Magic. I went in Boot Magic menu, in "configure" and there Boot Magic presented a list of available hard drives and partitions, and the bootable ones. But only the first partition was shown as bootable. So ..probably there is a problem with the Ghost, not uploading correctly the image. Of course I used more than one image, taken at different times. I probably should mention a little bit of my hardware configuration. Asus mainboard, Pentium 4 3.2 GHZ, 4 WD 160 GB. The last two is connected in Raid . 1 GB Ram, but probably that's not relevant.
I didn't know for sure if making another partition "primary" would hidden the other ones. Since I split my 160 Gb hardrive into two 75 Gb partitions, having allways one of them hidden, is not a very interesting ideea. So one cannot have two operating system on one drive with a primary and a logical partitions visible at the same time.
In that case I better use another drive to install another operating system. But unfortunatelly I tried making another partiton and Ghosting with the operating system, another hard drive and that still didn't worked. In that case could be some problem with the Ghost ? maybe I'm doing somethin' wrong ?

 

Get rid of RAID. The small increase in HD speed isn't worth the trouble, especially if you want to image the HD. I have not come across a PC that wouldn't work with my previous suggestions. Note that you can have up to four primary C partitions, but only one primary C partition can be active at a time. You can create an unlimited number of extended logical partitions and these partitions will be visible after you reboot with the primary active C partition.

DO NOT make a C primary partition and a D primary partition. Format the primary master HD as one large C primary partition. Install the OS. Now resize this partition (cut in 1/2) so you will have free space to create ANOTHER blank primary C partition AFTER this current active primary C partition (with the operating system). You now have two primary C partitions. The first one is the active primary C partition with the OS. The second one is a blank hidden primary C partition (cause you can only have one active primary partition at a time).

Now connect the 2nd HD as the slave HD (same IDE channel). You can format this HD with as many extended logical partitions as you want. Now create the image of the first primary C partition (with the OS) and put this image file in one of the extended logical partition in the slave HD.

Reboot PC (note that you are still booting into the 1st primary active C partition) and install BootMagic. Boot out of windows and use the boot disc to restore the image file to the empty primary C partition. Set this partition active and reboot. Install BootMagic into this partition and BootMagic will detect two OSes.

The inclusion of a RAID array can foul up the imaging software, especially during image restoration.

 

Well...in the end I decided that the best way to clone another OS, is to use another hardrive. That worked perfectly. Since I have four hardrives with 150 GB each. Actually 160 Gb each, but my system show as total space only 149 GB. Out of four drives, two of them are conected in Raid 0 mode. I have to work in that way because I do video editing, and speed is a must. Especialy when I work (sometimes) wityh uncompressed video, wich are huge and very heavy for the system.
O have another question about Ghost :
I made a base backup with others incremental backups reflecting only the changes. One base backup and 4 incremental. I deleted the 4-th ( the last ) incremental backup, because was not really needed. I wanna make a new incremental backup, based on the remaining 3 backups. But I noticed that's not possible. Every time I started, a new baseline backup was started. Or the 5-th incremental was started. So...I understand that if one deletes a last incremental backup, you can no longer make another incremental backup based on the remaining ones. Well..that should be written in the user manual, because there is only written that you should not delete a incremental backup because you can no longer restore the files based on the previous incremental backups. There's nothing written about: "don't delete the last incremental backup, because you can no longer make incremental saves based on the remaining ones".

 

I've always said that incremental backups are for the birds. Never get too cute when it comes to imaging your data. If you want to save backup time, then you need to partition the HD an backup only the OS.

 

Me again.. In the end I manage to "succesfully" clone a operating system. But when I looked again...it was not like that at all. So..I have to give some details to explain better. I have a physical hard drive with a partition named let's say .. C: (work). With Win Xp installed, with Norton Ghost 9 installed..etc. I have another hard drive with a empty partition named E: (games) . And a third hardrive named M: (storeBox) .
With Ghost, I make an image of the hardrive C: (work) and I store that image on hardrive M: (storeBox). I use Ghost to restore the image to the empty partition E: (games) in order to have a second operating system. I reboot, go to bios and instruct the bios to boot from the hardisk 2 (E: (games) . The system boot up ok, it seems like actually worked... but when I look again..I was in shock. The partition E: (games) should have become C: ( games) and the previous C partition (work) now should be another letter. But instead, the previous C: (work) remains C: It looked like the system is booting from the hardrive E: .And in the same time using some files from the operating sytem on C:.. Yes..it's a big mess . The second atempt was to actually remove from the PC the drive with the partition C: (work). So..I cloned the operating system from C: (work) to E: (games) , I removed the cables from the hardrive with the partition C:. So..the system cannot boot anymore from the previous partition C: and it is forced to boot from E: (games), hopefully, transforming the partition E: (games) in C: (games).
Well..the system started to boot, but at the logon screen, displayed a message ..something like " cannot find the license..." ..Or..."error license..etc" ..
Another attempt was to clone the operating system, but in Norton Ghost at the "advanced settings" I cheked the "disable SmartSector Copying". Well...when I disabled the "SmartSector Copying" I finally managed to perfectly clone the operating system to another drive. The partition E: (games) boot up perfectly... transformed in Partition C:... And the system was exactly like the original. The major drawback is : with the "SmartSector Copying" disabled, the image made is arround 17 GB. Pretty huge. With "SmartSector Copying" the image is only 1,5 GB but there is a lot of problems, maybe because the hardrive isn't copyed perfectly...some kind of optimizations is used.
The last attempt was to clone the system again with the troubled "SmartSector Copy". I start the system, but I boot from the WinXp bootable CD and I used the operation "repair something..." I managed to repair the system ( looked like a new install), the system boot up ok in the end, but looked like a new installed system. And amazing...again..the partition E..remained E: .. even I removed all other hardrives from the system. I mean...I only had one partition...partition E: I thought that was imposible. I thought that Windows had to be on partition C:.
Anyway...the conclusion is ..the only succesfull method of cloning for me..is with the "SmartSector Copying' disabled. wich is pretty sucks..because a on a partition with 25 GB total space , and 4 Gb used space, the resulting image is arround 17 Gb and with "SmartSector Copying" is only arround 2 GB. ( probably I can make the resulting image smaller, if I try and resize the original partition smaller with Partition Magic...)
Anyone faces problems like that... ?

 

Well, the problem is that you didn't follow my other post. I warned you about restoring the C primary active partition to another extended logical partition E in the same PC. Questions/answers are free.

You can create ANOTHER primary C partition in the 2nd HD. Now restore the image file to this partition. You now have two identical OSes, one in the 1st HD, and the other in the 2nd HD. Next use the Bootloader software (dunno if Ghost has this) to set an ACTIVE primary C partition, and boot into that partition. The other primary C partition will not be visible.

 

I read your post very carefully. I restored the cloned image to a new empty hardisk with primary partition. The restore was successful. I turn off the computer. I dissconect all hardrives except the new one with the cloned OS. I turn on the computer, the winXp start but at the logon screen a message apear . Something like " error with the license" or something.
This only happens when I create the image with the default option in the advanced settings : "SmartSector Copying" - ON. With the "SmartSector Copying" Ghost perform a smart copy and backup only the data found in the hardrive. In this way could be obtained smaller images. According to Ghost User Manual, some programs ( probably including WInXP) use some secret or hidden or specifically parts of the partition to store some serial numbers, license etc. That kind of informations could be restored only when you disable "SmartSector Copying" . After you disable "SmartSector Copying" imaging takes longer because the partition is copied sector by sector no matter if data is found or not.
Well, after I disabled "SmartSector Copying" , the image made was huge ( 17 GB instead of 2 GB ) ..but indeed the restoring was perfect. The system booted with absolutely no errors.
The major drawback is obviously , the huge size wasted.
I tried another thing, I restored a partition made with "Smart Sector Copying". And I manage to boot the OS after I perfomed a "repair" provided by the winXp botable disk. But the partition with the OS became letter E: instead of C: .
So..I curious how other people manage to bakup their partitions with WinXP with the option "Smart Sector Copying".
Do you know other better imaging programs ? ( I'm gonna try Norton Ghost 2003 with the Ghost for DOS )

 

OK...you need to name the other primary partition a "C" partition. By having TWO primary partitions "C", you will avoid these foul ups during reboot. Since there can only be ONE primary ACTIVE partition during boot, the boot loader will disable the other primary partition. I avoid the microsoft bootloader. BootMagic or Bootit NG should work well with your setup.

Note that WXP contains an anti-theft security protocol. Therefore, if you put the other C partition in another HD, then windows may require that you register the software. For maximum compatibility, you should create the 2nd primary C partition AFTER the 1st primary C partition, ON THE SAME HARD DRIVE.

Drive Image, Bootit NG, and Drive Snapshot also support "smartsector" copying. And they work flawlessly with WXP. If you have problem with Ghost, then move on to another imaging program. Check out Bootit NG. It comes with a very good bootloader, partition manager, and imaging software in one $35 package. You can test the FULL version for 30 day.

Make sure you remove Ghost before testing another imaging software.