Stuck on ghost loading screen in DOS

[Migration User]

Hi,

I am using PXE boot with a RIS boot image on my domain controller, with net use a SAMBA partition on my UNIX server is mounted. On this partition the Ghost.exe is located, up until this point everything works fine but when ghost.exe is lunched, it gets stuck on startup, no splash screen, no mouse the only thing which can be done is to reboot.

When using floppy's created with the ghost boot wizard it works like a charm.
I am using GSS 2.0


Any help would be much appreciated

[Migration User]

Edit your RIS image and remove the Ghost command and everything below it - basically you end up with just a DOS boot floppy with networking capability that has done a NET USE to a Samba server.  Insert your floppy diskette made using the Ghost boot wizard.  Switch to A:.  THen run ghost.exe off that floppy.  See if that helps.

Also, next time, switch to the Z: drive (or whatever NET USE command you used.)  Then CD into the directory with Ghost.  Then run ghost.exe.  This will give the program a chance to create a ghosterr.txt file, so if there actually is an error, you'll actually have a chance to see it and have it saved to a file (rather than written to the ghosterr.txt file that would be in RAM image of booted RIS/PXE floppy image.)

We strictly use PXE rather than the full RIS, so I'm not sure how (or if) RIS makes a difference.

Good luck,
PH

[Migration User]

Thanks for your reply.

After booting up via RIS, I tried to run the ghost.exe from  the floppy  - same problem - ghost starts but does not load.
(some small squares appears on the top of the screen)

We also switched the active directory to the network drive before starting ghost, but no ghosterr.txt appeared.

The strange thing is, everything works fine, when we use other types of laptops.

We only have problems with the newest ones, Fujitsu Siemens Lifebook S 7110 and 8410.
They are wide screen, so we tried with docking station and normal extern monitor - same problem.

Could there be some hardware in these laptops, which ghost doesn't support?


Anders

[Migration User]

So if you insert the floppy into the 7110 and boot, it works fine.  But if you boot the 7110 off the network RIS using an image made from that same floppy, it fails?  I dunno anything about that model, but is the floppy internal or external?  Do you connect or disconnect any kind of bay or USB thing when using the floppy vs booting network?

The whole stalls-when-starting-Ghost thing is quasi-common, for a variety of reasons ranging from weird USB settings to SATA vs IDE compatibility stuff...all stuck somewhere in the BIOS.  Oddball stuff like extrenal USB devices have anecdotally confused Ghost at times (I've never had that problem, but I've seen it here and there on this forum.)

I don't know on RIS, but on normal PXE boot stuff (using the 3COM stuff) I make sure all my bootable floppy images are "Pre-OS" and "Writeable".  I don't remember why I use those settings anymore, but needed them way-back when I first started using this stuff (Ghost 7.5 days) and have simply kept those settings ever since.  The RIS bootable floppy images might need the same, I don't know.

Good luck,
PH