Application Error 19235. Corrupt image file/dynamic disk

[Migration User]

Hi all!

I Recently created a Ghost image off a laptop using Ghost Console. The image was then used to ghost 20 other laptops. No problem.

Then we decided to change the partitions on the harddrivers to one big instead of two halfs.
To test ways to do this we tried to make the HDD on one laptop to dynamic disk and change the size of the partitions that way.

when that didn't work (since one partition was the system partition)m, we decided to just put re-ghost the laptop with the image we had allready made.

When the ghosting reached 19% i get the error "Application Error 19235. Corruption in the image file" on the laptop, and a "connection reset by client" error on the server.

I didn't think anything might be wrong with the image, since we had allready used it on 20 laptops without fail.
So i tried to boot a linux distro on it, and see what that told me. when i tried to find errors on the drive, i got a message telling me to run chkdsk /R since something was wring with the NTFS on the drive.

so i booted on a windows xp cd and ran chkdsk in the console. when it was done, i still got the 19235 error on the client and the "Connection reset" error on the server.

Now i have checked the image, and found nothing that seams wrong. The ghost explorer has no problems reading the ghost file, and i can't find anything that seams wrong in it.
I still haven't tried to use the image on another laptop of the same type to see if it get's the same error, or tried to ghost the original laptop with an older image, since i just don't have time right now.

I just though it come here and run my problem by you, and see if anyone has any ideas?

Thanks in advance!

[Migration User]

Hi,

I presume that you are trying to overwrite the disk in the laptop and do not need any data in it. Is that correct?

It is difficult to think this does happen due to the dynamic disk since the complaint is about the image file. However, if you do not want any existing data in the laptop, could try using Gdisk to initialize mbr with the command (after booting to DOS)

Gdisk 1 /mbr

Krish

[Migration User]

sorry, forgot about this post (happens when it's the begining of the school year, and alot of students need help with things. get's busy)

I tried to ghost another laptop with the same image (the new laptop did not have a dynamic disk) and that one to got the error.

then i tried to ghost both with an old image file, and it worked fine. So like you say, it is most likely an error in the image file.

Now here the fun part of our testing began.

the image file we had made, was made to work with two laptop models. both was HP and just had a few modifications between them (old and new model). The image had worked on both models before without any problems (the 20 laptops was a mix of the two models). now the imgae didn't work on either model. (corrupt image error)

what could be the reason for the image file to suddenly go corrupt? i find it hard to belive that the dynamic disk had anything to do with it, because i think the ghost proccess is mostly a one way thing (files sent from the server to the client, not the other way around).

[Migration User]

Hi, Yes, Ghost does not write to the image file during restore, so it is unlikely to corrupt it. If you are getting this error at the same position (at 19%) it should be an actual image corruption. By any chance did you move the image to a new location recently? Krish

[Migration User]

Krish, I am experiencing the same error.  Yes, I  recently moved the image to a new location.  Is that move causing the error?

[Migration User]

again, i'm sorry i haven't replied to this. The whole thread sorta dissapears in all the other things i have to do these days.

Me and my co-workers has had alot of problems lately with the new images we have made.
We decdied that since the errors happened so often, and always the same errors (corrupt image file, but at different percent on all images), that the error must be something else that the images or ghost itself.

What we found out was that the external harddrive on the Ghost server, has a bad block.
This offcourse explaines alot, if not all, of our problems.

All new images we have made, and that has failed later, has been located on the external harddrive, instead of the internal drives we used to use.

Now we decided to try something else: we cleared some space on the internal harddrive, and moved some of the images that we knew had worked  + some of those we had gotten the image corruption error with, to the internal drive.
When trying to ghost these images from the internal drive, we encounter mostly no problems. some of the corrupted images still doesn't work, but alot of those we have tested did work.

What we figure that this means, is that when the image is first created and stored on the external harddrive (with the bad block) it is saved in areas that isn't affected by the bad block. But when we send the images out again in a Ghost session, the data in the image files is moved around a bit on the external drive, and if it hits the bad block, the ghost session fails, since it can't move or read the data correctly.

does this make any sense at all?

Atleast we have isolated the problem, and a new external drive is on it's way.
Even got me a new argument use when i push for a NAS server with raid capabilities... never know when one harddrive is gonna fail...

[Migration User]

Hi,

Regarding moving the images, there is nothing specific about images but any file (specially a large one) could get corrupted in transition for verity of reasons. Most of the generic copy methods rely on built-in error detections in media rather than verifying the destination against source. If you are experiencing this frequently, it is a good idea to run a CRC or MD5 checks on images to make sure they are not changed during transition. It could be something like what's described in the last post. Regarding the external drive bad blocks, Ghost does not do any write/move operations during restore. But if you get it in different images, one possibility is a temperature sensitive electronic failure in the drive. In some bad drives I have seen many bad blocks appear depending on the temperature, and go away once the drive switched off for a while. That's the only thing I can think of.

Krish

Message Edited by Krish Jayaratne on 09-06-2007 04:49 PM