GhostWalker Hangs during SID Change after Clone Task on Toshiba Tablet PC

[Migration User]

I have a problem with GhostWalker on the Toshiba Tecra M4 Tablet PCs and I was able to get past the GHOST.EXE hanging by using "-NOUSB" switch from the Symantec Console Advanced Options in the Task Definition. However....

Now I need a way to keep the Ghost Walker from Hanging after the Task Finishes the Clone and tries to change the SID.

Is there anyone that can tell me why the Ghost Walker SID Change process starts but then imediately hangs and just leaves a flashing cursor in the upper left corner and the screen hangs on the blank blue-green screen?

I need some help soon, please. Thank you.

[Migration User]

Sorry for the delayed response; it seems that Walker has wound up with Ghost's USB driver support built in, but since this was done as a side-effect of work in Ghost rather than a conscious decision for Walker, the -NOUSB flag was not added.

I have just added support for this command-line option for future builds, and we are going to try and get hold of one of these Tecra M4 tablets for compatibility testing so we can see why Ghost's USB drivers have trouble on this machine. Unfortunately there is no easy short-term workaround that I can see at present, however.

To be honest I'd prefer to have USB support disabled in Ghost Walker by default, since setting advanced options for Walker through the console is awkward, and console users won't be using Walker with attached USB disks. However, I'm open to input.

You will definitely need a replacement Walker binary to continue, however. I will try and see what I can do along that line, but ideally we should work issues like this through the normal customer support process. Do feel free to contact me directly so that we can work through the details of that offline (use my name with a dot in the middle, at gmail dot com).

[Migration User]

I don't think Symantec Itself was able to help me solve the problem. Rather, through Trial and Error and process of Elimination I was able to take the following steps that help when the Enterprise Console Task Hangs on Ghostwalker (SID Changer) tasks. Ghostwalker Still Hangs when run on the Toshiba Tecra M4 Tablet PCs. However, I have the following workaround that seems to help during the Clone, Restore and Configuration of a Ghost Image.

I ran a Full CHKDSK on the C-Drive and Defragmented the Hard Drive before creating a new Ghost Image as my Master Image.
Now that I have an Error Free Ghost Image, I make sure that the Target Machines have also been CHKDSK'ed and Defraged. (Just in Case).
The Bios for the Target Toshiba Tecra M4's are upgraded to V1.7
I run the Console Clone Task with -NOUSB Option and SID Changer option checked and when the Target Machines Hangs on Ghostwalker (as it seems to always do) I have to go to each Target Machine and Manually Power It down and then Reboot into the Tecra BIOS.
Once I enter the TECRA BIOS, (Which by now should be V1.7) I reset the Bios to the Default Settings and Save the default settings and Reboot again.
Since I entered the BIOS immediately (before it runs any OS) the reboot picks back up the GhostWalker Task step and retries the GhostWalker SID Change. This time it works and the task completes.
Symantec Ghost Console shows the Task as a "Success" since the GhostWalker Task picked up where it hung at.
Simply updating the BIOS was not enough. Had to reset the settings and it took.

This does not mean that the BIOS was the problem. It means that Symantec still has to change GhostWalker to work with Newer Bios and Newer Settings and to recover and timeout upon any delays.
GhostWalker should not have hung indefinitely for any reason, but it does. GhostWalker is still better than Sysprep for most tasks and most computers, but needs to keep pace with the times and technology.

[Migration User]

> It means that Symantec still has to change GhostWalker to work with Newer Bios and Newer Settings and to recover and timeout upon any delays

That's true, but as I said above, the problem is mainly one of oversight. Walker was originally written with it's own partial NTFS implementation separate from (and simpler than) Ghost's, and a couple of releases ago to bring it up to speed with other advances made in the Ghost code it was reworked to share a common pool of library code with Ghost and Gdisk and OmniFS. That library includes the same FireWire and USB driver code as Ghost, and the lack of a /NOUSB switch was just an oversight during the change to use that common library.

I have updated Walker with the /NOUSB switch in the current builds, and after I did that I changed the console's DOS client to set that switch on all the time by default as well. We have purchased and now have a Tecra M4 to fully investigate the root cause of the USB problem, but in the meantime we're testing that workaround for Walker and it should be available in the forthcoming beta.

[Migration User]

Hi!

I'm using Ghost SS1.1 with Ghost8.2.
I want to carry out a clone from master image that contain Windows-XP tablet edition.
But I don't know that Ghost walker supporting Windows-XP tablet edition.
I need some help.
Thank you.

[Migration User]

> But I don't know that Ghost walker supporting Windows-XP tablet edition.

As far as I'm aware, it works fine with the tablet edition of Windows XP - the problem discussed earlier in this thread is a hardware issue specific to the Tecra M4, not an incompatibility between the Ghost Walker process and the Tablet Edition of Windows XP.

Also if you look at http://www.symantec.com/enterprise/products/sysreq.jsp?pcid=1025&pvid=865_1 it lists the XP Tablet edition as a supported client software platform.

[Migration User]

Nigel
Thank you for your help.
Moreover, it will be happy, if support can be got when there are some questions.

[Migration User]

The fact it's listed as a supported client platform on the page I linked means that the official support processes all apply.

As for any questions, you can ask anything you like on this forum and although we can't guarantee anything, we do try our best to investigate anything raised here.