cloning hdd to other pcs on network without an image..possible?

[Hmongkeysauce]

there's about 12 computers on the network that has the same hardware and needs to have the same softwares installed. all are hp's with windows xp sp2 installed. i already installed all the necessary software needed on one computer on the network but am deciding the best way to go about to get it done on the others. i was thinking about creating a clone image with selfimage, but that was going to make 63gb image, which is basically the size of the partition. i have no way of storing such a huge image. was wondering if you can use something else to clone the softwares to other computers without creating an image of the harddrive first. tools that are available to me are norton ghost enterprise(ghost 11 i believe) and any freeware programs. would bartpe+ghost do the trick? or would that require creating an image first?

 

[yinan]

All of these options are going to require creating an image. But you dont need a "server" to store it a workstation will do.

 

[Brazen]

I'm pretty sure the older versions of ghost could image remote computers over the network directly from harddrive to harddrive. Personally, I prefer the free PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) program to make an image up to a file share from the bootable cd. You don't need a "server" for this, you could just share a folder on one of the workstations to use.

 

[bruceb]

You could just use Norton Ghost ... create a Bootable Image of the working system
Then just install it on each computer (computers must be set to boot from CD, then HDD)
for this to work .. I do not know if you could set one computer up as server and download
the image, but it won't take long to go to each pc ... about 30 mins each to install an image
depending on the size

 

[nordloewelabs]

Originally posted by: Brazen
Personally, I prefer the free PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) program to make an image up to a file share from the bootable cd.

i dont mean to steal the thread, but you got me curious about PING....never heard about it before. can it restore a "half empty" 20Gb partition to a 19Gb one? most backup progs cant.

 

[pstylesss]

Originally posted by: Brazen
I'm pretty sure the older versions of ghost could image remote computers over the network directly from harddrive to harddrive. Personally, I prefer the free PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) program to make an image up to a file share from the bootable cd. You don't need a "server" for this, you could just share a folder on one of the workstations to use.

Thanks for posting this! I am using it now to test on a couple computers, its working great. Images and restores very fast. I'm saving ~$2,000 by not buying imaging software because of this. PING works great and I am testing their WINNER software right now.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: Brazen
I'm pretty sure the older versions of ghost could image remote computers over the network directly from harddrive to harddrive. Personally, I prefer the free PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost) program to make an image up to a file share from the bootable cd. You don't need a "server" for this, you could just share a folder on one of the workstations to use.

Awesome advice. I didn't know this program existed, but I'll give it a shot when I get home