"Manu" <manu@invalid.address> wrote in message
news:OTHsxxf6FHA.3636@TK2MSFTNGP09.phx.gbl...
> Recently, I replaced a Western Digital 160GB drive on one PC with a
> Hitachi
> 250GB one. This is the master on the primary IDE channel on a Promise TX2
> Ultra-133 PCI Controller. The drive was partitioned (NTFS) and formatted
> in
> Disk Management and works perfectly in Windows (XP Pro).
>
> However, Ghost 2003 cannot see this drive when it reboots to write an
> image.
> Sees it fine within Windows though. I tried to use Ghost off a floppy and
> it
> too cannot see the drive. The drive does have the required "Ghost ID". I
> borrowed an Acronis TrueImage utility floppy and it cannot see the drive
> either!
>
> On a whim, I tested NTFS4DOS off a floppy and it does not see the drive
> also. Carrying the whim further, I temporarily restored this PC with a
> older
> Windows 98SE image which had large-drive support as well as NTFS4Win
> installed. That too does not see the drive! But it does see the 300GB
> drive
> that is also on the controller. Incidentally, Device Manager in that
> Windows
> 98SE does show the Hitachi drive, but without a drive letter assigned and
> reporting it as an "unknown partition". I surmised that this is not a
> Ghost-related problem.
>
> I tried a partition delete + recreate + format using the Hitachi/IBM drive
> set-up utility but it did not help. Physicals - jumpers, changing over to
> the secondary IDE controller, drive fitness test, chkdsk etc. - all were
> tried. When I put the old drive back, everything works fine again, at
> least
> as far as Ghost is concerned.
>
> I do regular Ghost image back ups and need this drive functional within
> its
> operations - hence this post.
>
> I would really appreciate any insights on what to look for in addressing
> this issue. Please excuse my verbosity here!
>
> Regards and have a nice day.
>
> Manu


Manu:
Just so I clearly understand your problem, let me ask you a few questions...

1. I'm not entirely clear on your HD configuration. You've indicated the
Hitachi 250 GB drive is connected to the Promise controller and you
apparently have a 300 GB drive also connected to that controller.

2. Do you boot to the 250 GB HD? Are any drives connected to your
motherboard's Primary/Secondary IDE controllers? (I assume your drives are
PATA, right?)

3. Is the reason your 250 GB HD is connected to the Promise controller
rather than your motherboard's IDE channel because the BIOS does not support
large-capacity disks?

4. I assume you're able to boot to the Hitachi drive (if indeed it *is* your
booting drive) without any problem and it's perfectly functional, yes? Is
then your basic problem that you want to clone the contents of that drive to
another drive on your machine (the 300 GB one?) but Ghost 2003 doesn't
recognize the existence of your source drive? What is the specific error
message you get when you boot to the Ghost 2003 bootable floppy? Why do you
say Ghost "cannot see this drive when it reboots"? Is rebooting an issue
here?
Anna