Can a WinXP system be restored using Norton Ghost?

[cockeyed]

When using Win98, I always made system backups using Norton Ghost. Now that I have WinXP installed, will Norton Ghost still restore my system in an emergency?

The reason I ask, is that, I recently restored a friends HP computer using his factory restore CDs (WinME) and made a Ghost after installing his software. The Ghost image spanned 5 CDs without a problem and appeared to be ok. He %$@* his system again so I tried to restore it using the Ghost but it wouldn't restore, because of what appears to be a HP anti-copy lock.

Now I wonder if I would have the same problem using Ghost with WinXP?

 

[Need4Speed]

no..it will work fine...not sure would the HP deal was, but that should have worked as well

 

[yihsun]

how about using Ghost on dynamic disks in windows xp pro ?? I tried it but never succeed, is there any trick i miss??

 

[cockeyed]

I couldn't figure out why the HP WinME system couldn't be Ghosted either. I Ghosted it a least 5 times and it always seemed like it would be ok. If I tried to restore the system back from the Ghost, it would get though the 1st CD then display a message saying it couldn't find the Ghost2 on the 2nd spanned CD. Then another message saying something like "the restore is meant for one system only." That is not exact, but something to that effect. Also, the HP recover CDs would not work with the new GF4 Ti4200 I installed; it would only setup using the original TNT2 card.

I've used Ghost my homebuilts many times under Win98 and I never had any problems like this. That's why I had a concern about Ghosting WinXP. I would hate to have a HDD fail and not be able to restore from the Ghost image.

 

[dunkster]

None of the disk utilities (Ghost, PartitionMagic, etc) will work for dynamic disks.

In the case of vendor-supplied imaging solutions, they may be configured to be system-specific (system serial number-specific).

When using Ghost, ALWAYS check for image integrity after the image is saved (Local/Check/Image on menu). The standard Ghost CRC check is not a really reliable check for such a critical file. Personally, in two instances, images have failed the image integrity test after Ghost reported the image OK by CRC check.

Hope this helps!

 

[yihsun]

thank you dunkster for your answering. i guess then there's no way to get dynamic disks to be backup/restore.

 

[Sophia]

Speaking of Ghost and XP, my copy of Ghost 2003 HATES cds. If I write an image directly to cds, either the proces fails or the integrity check fails. So I spanned an image in cd sized sections to another hard drive. This image on the hard drive passes the integrity check using the Ghost boot disk. Those same files fail the same image integrity test (unreadable by Ghost) when I put them on cds (trying the test from both the cd burner and dvd drive), even though the burn process (using Windows to write the cd, not Ghost) didn't indicate any errors. I've tried this for a couple of computers and once my images reach a cd in some way they are doomed. Am I missing some key element about Ghost and cds or should I blame it on computer goblins?

 

[cockeyed]

dunkster: Thanks for the info. I wasn't using the image integrity check, but from now on I will.

Sophia: I just got my Norton System Works Pro 2003 in the mail yesterday. I found some user comments about it at Amazon and it seems that many people have complaints about it not working very well. Good thing I only paid $11 for an OEM version. I hate to think that Norton dropped the ball for WinXP!

 

[dunkster]

There is an interesting imaging program, 'TrueImage' by Acronis, that is available for an incentive price of $9.95 for Ghost-users only. A stated limitation is that, for that price, you must establish Ghost ownership and must have Ghost resident on the system with TrueImage. Bah!

The single absolutely unique feature it claims: Create an image of the OS partition from within Windows. Reviews are on-line at ZDNet and other sites. Regular price is $40.

Has other features, such as imaging to USB drives (using Linux boot disk).

One absent feature is apparent lack of a scheduler.

One user on this forum uses it, and seems pleased with it.

 

[emjem]

True Image has two failings.

One, it will not restore data from fat32 to ntfs. It may not go from ntfs to fat32 either but I did not try that.

Secondly, TI will not clone to a smaller hdd/partition than the hdd/partition being cloned. For example, if you have an operating system on an 80 gig hdd/partition you can not clone that to a 60 gig hdd/partion even though the data involved may be, say, only 10 gig.

Otherwise it is relatively fast and does everything right in Windows.

 

[cockeyed]

I finally installed Norton SW Pro 2003 on my WinXP system. It installed fine and runs its components without any problem. I was able to create a Ghost image, entering from windows and did the integrity check, which went through all 8 CDs without any errors. I can only hope that the Ghost is good and if needed, I'll be able to restore from it. After reading some horror stories about NSW 2003, I was concerned a bit, but in my case, every thing works fine so far!