Beware 32-Bit Ghost v11.5 on GPT Disk (was: Is it possible to dual-boot both MBR & GPT without changing BIOS settings on laptop)

On 2025-11-02 14:12, Java Jive wrote:
> 
> [...] being delayed by 
> problems with the Win11 image I have, so am constantly having to retrace 
> steps to remake, all of which is wasting a great deal of time.

I was using Ghost v11.5 32-bit in a 32-bit Win PE environment to make 
the backup images, and it was failing.  Sometimes it would fail actually 
when writing the images, once on the very last sector having waited 
nearly an hour for it to get there :-(, mostly on trying to restore the 
image back onto a disk.  It would get about half-way through the restore 
and then complain about bad blocks, ask me whether I wanted to continue 
anyway, and regardless of the answer would abort to the command console 
with an error message.

My first guess was that  -  as the two identical SSDs came from a laptop 
purchased used/second-hand which I had replaced with larger capacity 
ones  -  that probably they were getting near the end of their useful 
life, so I tried a third, but it happened again.

So then I began to wonder about Ghost.  As a reality check I put the two 
identical SSDs in a USB dock and used dd in Linux to copy the entire 
disk containing the W11 image to the other.  I had to leave it overnight 
as it took about 6 hours, but the disk was copied perfectly with no 
errors whatsoever.

I then tried the same thing in Windows by downloading the last free 
version of Macrium Reflect, v8.0.7783, and using that to copy the image 
first to the third SSD, and then to a mini SSD in a fourth PC, again no 
errors whatsoever.

So I'm forced to conclude that, while that version of Ghost has been 
fine with MBR disks, there is something about GPT disks that it doesn't 
understand, causing errors.  Seems a bit strange, as, apart from the 
interpretation of the disk layout which would dictate WHICH sectors 
should be read and written, the actual process of reading and writing 
them should be unchanged between the two layouts.  My best guess is that 
the routines that work out the GPT layout are causing a memory leak, 
which over time causes the process to fail through lack of usable 
memory, or something similar to that.

Anyway, that was the problem.  I now have the Win11 build running on my 
four principal PCs and on them all can boot either it or the older OSs 
on the MBR disk by changing the BIOS settings, so can now return to 
researching the original topic of the thread.  Thus far, I've still not 
had any success booting the GPT Win11 via GRUB, which is installed on 
the MBR disk.

Note:  Have removed the two Linux ngs from this subthread as Ghost 
doesn't really seem to backup or copy Linux partitions very well anyway, 
I get better results just using tar from a boot USB to back up and clone 
my Linux images.

-- 

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