I recently cloned a hard disk using Ghost 2002. Used partition to partition and expanded the partition from 30gb to 60gb. All has been fine for about 3 months.

Next, installed McAfee antivirus and checked the disk. Then uninstalled McAfee, rebooted and got messages saying various .vxd files are missing. Thought I would reinstall Win98 to fix this, booted from system disk and ran setup.

Scandisk runs and gives various error messages and at the end of it I can't install Win98 because it reports disk errors.

I don't think there is anything wrong with the disk, it is just something to do with it having been cloned that windows reports files aren't what it expects. Is there any way around this or do I have to go for a full format and rebuild ?

I guess all I really need to do is replace the missing files but the messages on boot up aren't exactly helpful re file locations, and I'm not sure how to get the files off the Win98 disk without running setup.

Has anyone out there been through this sort of scenario before ? Any help would be much appreciated.

Thanks

Ken

 

Ken,

I'd be very surprised if it was a cloning problem, especially after 3 months. I use the Enterprise version here and have ghosted (and re-ghosted) about 150 pc's in the last 12months without any problems.

If the last thing you did was install the McAfee product, then it's sounds likely that something went wrong during the uninstall (or it might just be a simple coincidence).

The Windows 98 files are held in the .CAB files. You can use the EXPAND command to extract the files you need.

I can't rember all the switches, but you can pick one of the first CAB files and use /A /Y to search through all the others.

Stefan

 

Stefan

Thanks for the quick response.

I believe it is McAfee that caused the problem of missing files. However, the scandisk problems I have seen before with disks that have been cloned where the partition has been resized. This doesn't matter if I can replace the missing files though.

I tried expand /? and it just gave me the basic command source destination. How do I tell it to look in the CAB file for the file I need ? Is it something like "expand CAB filename.source filename destination" or something of that order ?

Cheers

Ken

 

The latest Winzip does CAB files, you might have cabview on your 98 CD too.
The vxd thingy is down to the duff de-installation on McAffee and re-installing the OS won't help, but disk errors are disk errors. Can you run a full scandisk including surface scan from within 98.

 

Ill bet my life it aint a cloning problem... and certainly not after 3 months...

David

 

dunno if this is applicable but, our IT department used an old version of Ghost that wasnt compatible with the size of the HDD being used. When the image they used was cloned it put bad blocks at the end of the new HDD's. The data on the HDD's later failed due to the bad blocks, and formats were needed.

 

hmm.. we sometimes use ghost 5 with 20+gb hdds with no problems... I have even used this on servers..

The problem normally is when you go past the os limitations Ie 7/8gb... not a limitation with ghost... hate to say it but its a user error!

David

 

Ken,

Sorry, should have been EXTRACT and not EXPAND.

In this example, I've asked for every VXD (*.VXD), but you could easily put in a single filename or any other wildcard.

Note: Don't try to run it direct from the CD as it will probably try to expand them onto it. I'd copy the files onto your hard disk first and run from there.

EXTRACT /Y /A base4.cab *.vxd

The correct syntax is

EXTRACT [/Y] [/A] [/D | /E] [/L dir] cabinet [filename ...]

Stefan

 

If it's any help i had a similar problem with a customer last year. They used Ghost to image the HDD's and after a few months there were a few problems with files going missing for no apparent reason. It turned out to be something to do with the FAT/NTFS being written incorrectly, but nobody ever found out why it took a few months to raise it's ugly head. From what I remember, the customer ran CHKDSK/F immediately after the Ghost image was laid down, in effect they re-wrote the FAT.

This might be a complete red herring, but hey thats the wonderful wordl of IT.

Phil

 

OK, here's the deal:

The problem is caused by the MsAfee software. The guy who has the PC installed it but it's a Win95 version and he's got Win98 on the PC. When he uninstalled it there were bits left behind including the icon in Control Panel and stuff on the start menu.

There is an error message displayed on bootup that says a file that is referenced in the system.ini or the registry is missing and it gives the path and filename - it's a McAfee file. I checked the system.ini file and no reference to it. Looked in the registry and found a folder for McAfee - it is not empty like the other folders for uninstalled programs - and one of the items in there is the path and filename that appears in the message at boot time.

So, I expect this stuff needs to be removed from the registry and then the error message will stop appearring and the icon in control Panel will disappear. I haven't done this yet, because I don't know if I should remove the entire McAfee folder or just the contents. Taking a backup of the registry before I start messing with it is probably a good idea.

There is still a problem running scandisk, it reports all sorts of files being in error, although if there were that many bad files then the thing wouldn't work. The file allocation table is a possible I suppose, as unable to defragment the disk either due to the scandisk errors.

I think a big thank you is in order for everyone who has responded, much appreciated.

Ken

 

Ken,

Look for a McAfee file with a .cpl extension. That's usually the Control Panel applets.

Look in the SYSTEM.INI first for any references to the McAfee DLL's. You can find and startup programs in the following registry key:-

HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run Once
HKLM\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Run OnceEx

Sorry, if I'm teaching you to suck eggs

Stefan

 

Stefan

Cheers, will check it out. I haven't messed with the registry before so am not experienced at egg sucking.

Ken

 

This removes older versions on NT... probably similar keys...

kill shstat process

Delete Folder c:\progra~1\networ~1\viruss~1
Delete c:\winnt\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\NAIFSREC.SYS
Delete c:\Winnt\SYSTEM32\DSSDATA.DLL

HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\Run \Shstatexe
HKLM\software\microsoft\windows\CurrentVersion\uni nstall\VirusScan NT

Remove following keys

HKLM\software\mcafee\mcalsnmp
HKLM\software\network associates\VirusScan for Windows NT
HKLM\software\mcafee\virusscan
HKLM\software\mcafee\alertmanager
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\Alertmanage r
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\NaiFilter
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\NaiFsrec
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\McShield
HKLM\system\CurrentControlSet\Services\McTaskManag er
HKLM\software\classes\comfile\shell\virusscan
HKLM\software\classes\directory\shell\virusscan
HKLM\software\classes\drive\shell\virusscan
HKLM\software\classes\exefile\shell\virusscan
HKLM\software\classes\word.document.6\shell\viruss can
HKLM\software\classes\word.document.8\shell\viruss can
HKLM\software\classes\word.template\shell\virussca n
HKCR\comfile\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Directory\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Drive\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\exefile\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Addin\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Chart.5\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Macrosheet\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Sheet.5\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Template\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.Workspace\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Excel.XLL\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\exefile\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\WinZip\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Word.Document.6\shell\VirusScan
HKCR\Word.Template\shell\VirusScan

 

Thanks David