I have about 2.5 hours before I go home and start what will surely be another weekend wasted trying to get Ghost 2003 to work with my external USB2 DVD drive (Lacie = NEC 3500ag).

I doubt that anybody can direct me to read something I haven't yet read regarding Panasonic, DUSE, DI1000DD, etc. drivers. I have read and re-read, tried and retried just about all permutations and combinations of drivers, logical and stupid, with no success.

I will wait till after this weekend before I provide details, but for now, I will ask this: is it possible that all my failures are due to the fact that I am using PC-DOS, rather than MS-DOS?

I would like to think that the above is the reason, but what makes me skeptical is the fact that in fact I have had ONE success, which I have been unable to repeat, in spite of the fact that I made notes while experimenting. I should point out that even this successful event made me less than ecstatic, because the writing to the DVD was taking place at roughly a MB per second, which I took to be due to USB1.1 being in effect.

Just in case this will help, what happens is that, ALMOST regardless of what drivers I specify, the drive appears to me to have been detected. The light is on for some time, the disk is changed (i.e. something was written to it), but Ghost, after about a minute, says "Checking NTFS volume", followed a few seconds later by "Closing session, disk will be ejected...".

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Bill

I haven't used USB in DOS for an optical drive, but I have for an IDE and for 'card reader'.

I put as a first line in my autoexec

PAUSE

That way I can see the results of the driver loads.

I think you're getting way ahead of yourself if you are, as it sounds, running ghost before checking the accessability of the drive(s).

Where does NTFS get involved in this?

Or why?

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Thanks for the reply, M2.

The PAUSE you suggest could be helpful, but actually I am able to single-step through config.sys and autoexec.bat, so I can se what happens after every line.

Why NTFS? Well, I assume Ghost is giving me this message because the partition I am trying to backup is NTFS. I agree, it is irrelevant to the question at hand, and I was merely providing symptoms of my problem.

B.

Hi B,

After it's done booting and before doing anything with ghost, try putting a know good disk in the DVD drive and do a dir.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

I've tried this with more than one (RW) disk, which I use successfully with Roxio, for example, so I believe the disks are OK. Still, I'm not sure I've tried DIR. At least that may tell me if teh disk is being seen properly by DOS. OK, I'll put this on my agenda for the weekend.

B.

B

My limited experience with RW has been mostly bad. Try a known-good non-RW.

HTH

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

I can try. Perhaps that would explain my one sucsess. In other words, my DOS setup may OK, but the disk is finicky. We shall see.

B.

Hi B,

Yes, that's the point.

No use fighting a USBinDOS problem which isn't there.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

OK, I'm off for the weekend, to where I have no internet access. If anybody else responds here, I am not ignoring what you say - I'm just not here to see it until Monday.

B.

Well M2, you certainly pointed me in the right direction. To make the story short, I tried the operation again using another disk, and now I can't make it fail. Using Panasonic's USBASPI together with one of several CDR specific drivers works well.

FWIW, the failing disk is a Verbatim -RW 2x, and the working one is a Verbatim +RW 4x. Go figure.

Thanks for your help.

B.

Hi B,

Glad it flew and thanks for letting us know.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Hi B

After being on the same tour as you... reading about Panasonic, DUSE, DI1000DD, etc. drivers

I have the same Lacie DVD drive and want to start it in dos, can you share you success.

thnx
tom

Hi Tom,

I was in the process of typing a detailed reply, when I realised that what I was doing may not be exactly what you want.

Using Ghost 2003(!), I've created a bootable DVD containing my partition image, written at USB2 speeds (quite fast, actually). However, to RESTORE, I have two options:

1. Boot from the DVD in my ATAPI drive, and restore straight from DOS
2. Start the RESTORE process from Windows, in which case I can include the required USB2 drivers and DOS lines.

In other words, I have not created a bootable disk containing the USB2 stuff (when starting from windows everything goes into the Virtual Partition). In fact, my laptop BIOS has no provisions for booting from an external drive. I suspect that anybody reasonably proficient in DOS can provide instructions on how to create a boot disk that would include the USB2 stuff.

If this still sounds interesting to you, let me know and I will provide details. I suspect this is not the proper forum for this subject though, so perhaps you should email me at xxx@topman.net if you want my details (I am on European time, so it will be tomorrow).

Bill

Hi Bill,

I think this is the right forum and I'm interested to know how to make this work.

I don't have a USB CD, but have worked on laptops which did. It would have been very handy to have made the CD work from DOS.

Since I did not want to waste time trying to figure out a USBinDOS boot, I just laplinked the needed files. Which wasted plenty of time all on it's own. LOL

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

ChiangMai, M2? OK, Sawatdi Khrap.

OK, M2, and Tom, this is going to be a bit long, but here goes:

There has been a lot written on the subject. So much, in fact, that I found myself confused after awhile, due to differences presented by different people. Not only that, but all the information was provided at the DOS level, rather than at the Ghost level.

First, let me remind you that Ghost 2003, on its own, creates a bootable disk when making a BACKUP to a CD/DVD. From what I’ve read, other versions of Ghost work differently. So, I am assuming we are talking about Ghost 2003.

Let me say here that there is no reason to initiate a BACKUP in DOS, though if you want to do that I can provide details, but my approach is probably not the cleanest (I am still learning this DOS stuff).

Also, I repeat from my previous post: I have NOT created a disk that can be booted from an external drive. The BACKUP disk created using the process below will enable you to RESTORE either by booting from an ATAPI drive, or from an external drive (at USB2 speed) if you start the process from Windows. It just so happens that my external drive is much faster than my ATAPI drive, so it is faster for me to RESTORE using the Windows interface, but it would not be a big deal if I had to RESTORE at a slower speed, because if I am in such a bad situation where I can’t even start Windows, what’s a few more minutes to get the RESTORE done? After all, this is not something you’ll be using every day.

OK, let’s create a bootable BACKUP disk, using an external USB drive (I am on a different computer now so I’m writing from memory - I hope I get it right).

Start Ghost in Windows

- Set OPTIONS as follows:
- No USB drivers
- No drive letters (maybe doesn't matter)
- FAST Compression

- In USER FILES, include the following:

1. ...\MSCDEX.EXE (from …Ghost\common)
2. ...\HIMEM.SYS (as above)
3. ...\USBASPI.SYS (Pnsonic USB2 driver)
4. ...\USBCD.SYS (Panasonic CDR driver)

- Include the following in CONFIG.SYS:

device=himem.sys
devicehigh=USBASPI.SYS /e /v /w
devicehigh=USBCD.SYS /D:USBDVD01
files=50
buffers=30
dos=high,umb
stacks=9,256
lastdrive=z

- Include the following in AUTOEXEC.BAT:

LH MSCDEX.EXE /D:USBDVD01

Proceed with the GHOST BACKUP process. This will reboot your computer into DOS and create a bootable disk (again, assuming Ghost 2003).

For what it’s worth, my HIMEM.SYS does not accept the /TESTMEM:OFF option that I see in many posts. Also, I see no difference when I include some other options on the MSCDEX line.

To RESTORE in a situation where Windows is useable, you can do exactly as above, except that you will be doing a Ghost RESTORE, not BACKUP. The RESTORE will be done from the external drive, assuming that’s where you put your disk.

To RESTORE when Windows is not available, put your disk into a drive that is accessible at BOOT time, and boot from it. Then, follow Ghost instructions (LOCAL>From Image…).

I should point out the fact that I had much difficulty to get this to work, only because the disk I was using was not acceptable to Ghost, although the same disk works fine in Windows applications. Changing to a different disk made all the difference. Since the Lacie 16X drive can Re-Write at 4X, the BACKUP (and RESTORE) is quite fast: less that 8 minutes for a partition of about 3.5GB. My ATAPI drive is slower.

Before I succeeded with the above, I was making my BACKUP to my HDD, then using Roxio to create a bootable DVD which included the backup image. This works well, but takes a longer time and more steps than having Ghost write directly to the disk at USB2 speed.

I don’t think there is anything original above, but perhaps it is a bit more complete for those looking for help at the Ghost level, rather than just being given DOS info. If there’s anything more I can provide, please let me know.

Bill

Oh, I forgot to mention that the latest version (2.20?) of USBASPI works much faster than some earlier version(s).

As an interesting historical note, I found some files on my laptop, left there by the manufacturer (NEC). Amongst these files there is one called NECUSB2, dated 2001, and appears to be very similar to Panasonic's USBASPI, but works as fast as the CURRENT USBASPI. This makes me wonder who the originator of this USB2 driver really is: Panasonic or NEC?

Sawadee Kap Bill,

Thanks for that.

Got a link for the ver 2.02? driver?

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.

Hi M2,

I am not sure where I got what. I downloaded many things, not making notes what came from where. Sometimes the name of the file doesn't especially tell you what the contents are. Still, if I remember correctly, the following was one version of the latest driver:

http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/USBCDROM.EXE

I am on a different computer now, but if I remember correctly, this will create several files. Look for USBASPI.SYS and USBCD.SYS. The date on USBASPI should be more recent than, say, 2003.

There is also this one, which, again if I remember correctly, is a subset of the previous one:

http://www.stefan2000.com/darkehorse/PC/DOS/Drivers/USB/USBASPI.SYS

If these don't seem to be what you need let me know, and I will take some notes when I get home.

Bill

Thanks Bill,

I got 'em and I'll check 'em later.

M2

If at first you don't succeed, you're about average.