Hi,

I've included Ghost 2003 in a multi-boot CD but I get an annoying error when I try to boot to it:

Starting PC Dos...

Invalid device request writing Drive A

Abort, Retry, Fail?

If I press A, it loads but without mouse driver.

If I press R, it just is in a continuous loop with the above message.

If I press F, it boots with no problems.

Is this because Ghost 2003 checks your hard-drives and wants to catalogue them, I know I get a message like this when booting from Floppy A if the floppy is Write Protected.

BTW, I also have Ghost 8 CE as a boot option, but it goes through without any errors.

Can you help me please????

Cheerz

Hi,

my Ghost 2003 Boot CD works fine, so its not the "cataloug" feature.

I packed the Boot Floppy into an image and refer to that image with diskemu. Works like a charm

What are you using as a bootloader?

Cheers

What are you using as a bootloader?

Cheers

Hi,

Eventually got it sorted, not sure what I really did that fixed it, but all OK.

Cheerz

So here is the deal... MOUSE.COM is trying to create a MOUSE.INI file and because you created a bootable CD (read-only) it is unable to write the file and gives the error message (Abort, Retry, Fail). If you fail, you can continue just fine with mouse support.

The solution... add a MOUSE.INI to your floppy that you are creating the image from. If you booted from the floppy at least once, this problem doesn't occur because the file is created. That may be how it went away for you. Just re-create the bootable CD from the floppy with mouse.ini added.

Here is my mouse.ini

[mouse]

MouseType=PS2

Cheers!

Just wanted to post my thanks to eASYkILL for the "try it again" tip. I was tearing my hair out and rebooting the PC with the floppy worked like a charm. I did then repeat the whole exercise from scratch, compared the Ghost floppy in its virgin state and after initial use, and noted the addition of "MOUSE.INI". Using Nero6's "make bootable CD" utility was pretty trivial as well. So I now have a "gold standard" bootable CD for general purpose Ghosting activities. Marvellous!

One observation: obviously, adding the "MOUSE.INI" doesn't make the A drive (the CD) writable, so clearly some part of the software is checking for the existence of MOUSE.INI before trying to write such a file. I'd be interested to understand that in a bit more detail.

Anyway, it's little gems like this advice that make the difference between an app being useful versus a joy to use.

Cheers!

PS: I reverted to DOS Ghost because of a SATA drive in my new PC which the Windows Ghost 2003 just doesn't cope with. However, after using the DOS version, and in particular realising that the risk level is so much lower ( no messing around with MBRs etc), I think I am rather happy back with the basic version.....