Norton Ghost...

[jonnyjack]

i just got a full version copy of Norton Ghost with my m/b purchase and i was wondering about what it can do...i know it does stuff like backup but can it create a copy of my hard drive that i can just use to restore the hard drive? similiar to the recovery cd that packard bell use to come with so they didn't have to give me actual windows cds? TIA

See my post below for a new question...

 

[Antisocial Virge]

Thats what it does. Set your computer up the way you want and then run it. I just made a image of mine tonight.

 

[Danlz]

One little caveat: you will be putting your recovery backup file on another device,i.e., cdrom, 2nd drive,another partition, etc. so that when your C: drive bellies up you will have a recoverable copy stored somewhere.

 

[jonnyjack]

i just tried to install it...the CD-ROM it came on has a folder in it and the files in that folder...its like a DOS program...no setup.exe file or anything...looking at the readme file it says its version 5.1c...can anyone tell me if this is a DOS or windows program? and if it is a DOS program, how do i make record that image file to my burner?

 

[Rob G.]

Ghost runs in DOS. You'll need to create a boot floppy and boot the machine directly into DOS. It should not be run from Windows. The file that does all the work is called ghostpe.exe Once you're in DOS, just run that and you're off.

That said, there are parts of the package that install into Windows, namely the documentation and Ghost Explorer application which lets you examine and restore from images right down to file level.

 

[jonnyjack]

alright...since reading your response and noting that Ghost runs in DOS, i decided maybe i shouldn't be so damn lazy and to read the user's guide...

since reading the user's guide...it showed me exactly how to make the recovery CD...by just burning the ghost image file to a CD and making a boot disk or something...my apologies of being lazy...hehe...thanks for all the help...

 

[NesuD]

Sorry that is wrong Ghost can work from windows or dos with no problems. Ovbiously if you are trying to restore an image then you would run it from dos but when making a backup image that can be done just as well right from windows. I have done it many times and it has always worked perfectly. The sweet thing with ghost is the convenience I can restore my baseline me install of 1.8gig in like 6 minutes from my d drive. Ghost rocks

 

[TomBilliodeaux]

NesuD,
Walk us thru to run from windows>
If I want to backup my win2k system and I am in win2k, you say this can be done in win2k?

 

[dougjnn]

NesusD --

Regular consumer ghost doesn't work over networks, right?

I've got the Ghost that came with Systemworks 2000 deluxe, but after trying and calling norton six months ago or so, I discovered that I can't make an image of one hard drive on a peer to peer Win98 network, on another hard drive on that network.

That was a real bummer. I wanted to be able to ghost my laptop to a much larger hard drive on the network, inclase the laptop drive goes south. Or I want to replace it with a bigger one.

I know the corporate version 6 or higher of ghost will do what I want. But it is only sold in 10 seat packages for mondo dollars, I believe.

Any thoughts or knowledge to the contrary out there???

 

[Burnedhardware]

I'm using Ghost for 3 years now...

What you need to do is this:

make sure you have a dos boot disk, ghost somewhere on your system and at least two partitions.

to create an image NEVER run it from within windows (your swapfile will be on your image making it bigger than nescesairy.) Everythime you reinstall your windows with all needed drivers and most used programs (office, photoshop & other big slow installations) defragmentate and create an image of the disk (you must create it on an other partition)

when you want to make a bootable cd make sure you don't forget the cd-rom drivers (a mistake i made) and especially don't forget ghost.exe! (try the boot diskette with a cd before burning)

if you have win2k (as i do) make sure you get a dos boot disk (you must know someone that has win98 or 95...) Also winme lacks dos (as far as i've noticed, one of my reasons of using win98)

I have a 20 GB harddisk, with 3 partitions... 1=win2k, 2=win98se + games, 3=backup & mp3z
no vital data...so i'm not often burning a backup. every few months i mess up my system (not by purpose )and i dump the messed os form a ghost image in less than 8 minutes!

 

[Rob G.]

I don't think Ghost will even start in Windows 2000, at least that's my experience.

It *can* be run from 9x but Symantec don't recommend it. If you've got files open and being used by the OS (or any other app) I suppose there's a chance of the image not being created properly. If you can get it to work then great but I'd prefer to stick with DOS.

Rob