Unable to Backup HP Laptop with Ghost 2003

When I attempted to backup the hard drive in an HP laptop with Norton Ghost 2003, I received the following error message:

Error

There is no valid Source Drive to choose (11032) OK

I tried another Norton Ghost 2003 boot diskette, but had the same results.

I then tried a PartImage Is Not Ghost (PING) boot CD. During the boot process I saw the following:

ata1: port is slow to respond, please be patient (Status 0x80)
ata1: softreset failed (device not ready)

PING dropped me to a shell prompt, since that was the option I picked for when it completed, without giving me a chance to start the backup. I powered the system off and on and rebooted. I did not see the messages noted above then and I was able to backup the system to an external USB disk drive.

I then tried again with a Norton Ghost 2003. This time Norton Ghost saw the drive, but when I attempted to backup the drive, I received the error below:

Application Error 29089

Write to image failed If this problem persists, contact Symantec Technical Support at http://service.symantec.com OK

I tried again with a boot diskette that I had created using the Norton Ghost Boot Wizard just a couple of days ago, since the first time I used a boot CD that I had created a couple of years ago. The results were the same, however.

The next night I backed up the system with PING again and, afterwards, tried a Norton Ghost 2003 boot disc with the USB 1.1 drivers provided by Symantec with Ghost 2003.

Part	Type	ID	Description	Volume Label	Size in MB	Data Size in MB
1	Primary	07	NTFS	No name	76316	14802
				Free	2
				Total	76319	14802

This time I saw the error message "File Name ? (546)". When I clicked on OK, I saw the message below:

Internal Error 36000

An internal inconsistency has been detected If this problem persists, contact Symantec Technical Support at http://service.symantec.com OK

When I was dropped to a command prompt, though, I saw the following:

ABORT: 29089, Write to image file failed

ABORT: 36000, A GeneralException occurred

[/os/windows/utilities/backup/ghost] permanent link

Determining Version of a PDF File

If you examine the contents in the first few byes of a PDF file, you will see the PDF format version listed. E.g. you will see something such as the following:

Hex: 25 50 44 46 2D 31 2E
ASCII: %PDF-1.

The bytes shown might be %PDF-1.4 (Hex 25 50 44 46 2D 31 2E 34), if the version is 1.4.

But there are cases where the information in the first few bytes of the file can be overridden by information appearing later in the file. Derek Clegg states at Re: How do you determine PDF version that "The version of a PDF file isn't solely determined by the first few bytes of the PDF; in PDF 1.4 and later, the version specified at the start of the PDF file can be overridden by a / Version entry in the document's catalog. (See section 3.4.1 of the PDF 1.5 specification for more info.) This is why Quartz PDF files always start with %PDF-1.3 but may, in fact, be PDF 1.4 or later."

The PDF version number determines features incorporated into the format. For instance version 1.4 was the first first to support transparency and metadata. Some older PDF viewers may not be able to view PDF files written in a newer PDF format. A listing of versions and features is available at Create better PDFs by understanding the formats.

On a Unix or Linux system, you can use the od command to view the first few bytes of a PDF file.

# od -c -N 10 EBIA_ERISA_3rdQtr2007.pdf
0000000   %   P   D   F   -   1   .   4  \n   %
0000012

The \n that appears after the "1.4" is just a newline character.

Though Windows doesn't come with a hexadecimal editor, there are free hexadecimal editors available for Windows systems as well that will allow you to view those first few bytes in the PDF file.

References:

1. PDF Developer Center: PDF reference
   Adobe Systems Incorporated
2. Re: How do you determine PDF version?
   By: Derek Clegg
   Date: February 21, 2006
   Apple Mailing Lists
3. Create better PDFs by understanding the formats
   By James Dempsey
   December 14, 2006
   Creative Guy

[/software/file_formats/pdf] permanent link