Norton Ghost does not work any more after installing 3DMark06

[CommodoreFuture]

I'm using Norton Ghost since years without any problems. Now that I installed 3DMark06 I experienced the first time ever that Norton Ghost does not function any more. The problem is that when I boot with the Ghost recovery cd to overwrite a partition of my pc with a backup that I stored I do not get to continue to choose a backup. As soon as I click on continue where I could choose a backup I receive the message "Unknown software exception (0x0000 409) ist in der Anwendung an der Stelle 0x0045 cbdb aufgetreten. Klicken Sie ok um das Programm zu beenden.". Sorry that my Ghost is in German. That means that this unknown software exception occurred in the application at the point 0x0045. Click to end the program.

I tried to address the issue to Norton Ghost support and forum but they cannot help me. One guy just mentioned in the forum that he had found one article in the net mentioning that Norton Ghost does not function any more after installation of 3DMark06.

I tried everything to solve the issue: first uninstalled 3DMark. Then uninstalled Ghost. Then installed whole windows new (with format). Still the issue persists and I do not know why. It cannot sit in Windows. Where then? In the bios? We even resetted my bios to default settings. Norton Ghost still won't work again. The funny thing is that everything in Ghost works but this one button to access my backups to choose one to restore it.

I know this happened after I installed 3DMark06. I was installing my whole system new and after all important steps wrote a backup before continuing. And when something went wrong I used my backups to restore to the point without the fault. It always worked until I had 3DMark06 installed. After that I also wanted to restore with my backups. But it didn't work any more.

Please can you tell me what could have happened and how I can resolve this? I'm using Acronis right now for my backups but I love Norton Ghost and well want it back. Do you have any idea what I got to do to achieve that?

Thanks a lot for your respond and help.

CommodoreFuture

[Jarnis]

Sorry, 3DMark 06 doesn't do anything that I could see in any way interfering with Norton Ghost.

One thing you could always try to rule things out is to either uninstall or upgrade the Futuremark SystemInfo component that gets installed with 3DMark06. The one included with 3DMark06 is very old. Latest one is available here; http://www.3dmark.com/support/systeminfo-updates/

However, I have not heard of any issues with Norton Ghost related to that so I find it highly unlikely that it would matter. Still, uninstalling both 3DMark06 and Futuremark SystemInfo from program list removes everything 3DMark06 installs so if you are still having issues after removing both, it simply cannot be related to 3DMark06.

Edit: 3DMark06 also installs OpenAL which is required for 3DMark06. I'm not entirely sure if that library stays in the program list after uninstall or not. However, if you already tried with fresh windows install, it really can't be related either...

[CommodoreFuture]

Hi Jarnis,

thanks a lot for your reply. I cannot figure out either what happened there. Do you think 3DMark would change any Bios settings so they remain even after reinstalling Windows? That was the only explanation I really had. The funny thing is that Ghost never stopped working in the past and I never had any different software then the one I got right now. Just that I had tried this SpeedFan program to control my fans since my old pc had burnt down and that required a benchmark software to locate the different fans somehow. And exactly from there Ghost stopped working.

Anyway, luckily I also got Acronis and this is still working :-)

Greetings!

[Jarnis]

Hi Jarnis,

thanks a lot for your reply. I cannot figure out either what happened there. Do you think 3DMark would change any Bios settings so they remain even after reinstalling Windows? That was the only explanation I really had. The funny thing is that Ghost never stopped working in the past and I never had any different software then the one I got right now. Just that I had tried this SpeedFan program to control my fans since my old pc had burnt down and that required a benchmark software to locate the different fans somehow. And exactly from there Ghost stopped working.

Anyway, luckily I also got Acronis and this is still working :-)

Greetings!

No. In general since BIOS settings are motherboard specific, no application can change them unless the application is specifically developed for that specific motherboard. In order to do BIOS setting changes on any board, the application would have to know everything about every BIOS version and motherboard model out there (and there are hundreds if not thousands).

[CommodoreFuture]

OK Jarnis, thanks so much for your patience with me and your information. Maybe I was on the wrong track "accusing" 3DMark ;-) Was not really my intention. I was just so sure that it started right after 3DMark.

Anyway. I will do with Acronis now.

Greetings!