Ghost multicast or backup over network

[Bglad]

Could someone please help me or simply point me to a source with information to help me. I need to learn how to boot computers on my network using a dos bootup disk enabling network support so I can image one machine to another using Ghost. Thought I should be able to figure this out but I've spent hours searching.

I'm using machines on Win98 SE with simple network setup using Linksys and D-Link cards.

[edit]
By the way, I have an old version of Ghost (version 5) so I don't have the boot disk creator that comes with the new version. I know this can be done but Symantec doesn't say how without the boot disk creator program.

Thanks

 

[Bglad]

OK I finally found this page on the Symantec site:
symantec instructions
but I'm still kinda confused. If anyone has done this manually and can shed any light that would save me hours of playing with this I would appreciate it.

Thx

 

[Bglad]

OK, now I'm to the point of adding the drivers for my specific nic and I can't figure out which drivers to add. The disk has drivers for every operating system but none for dos. Which files need to go on there? I can't get it to work. When I run Ghost, the netbios option is grayed out.

Any help or is everyone already off for Christmas?

Thx

 

[gaidin123]

I am away from work/home right now but you want the DOS or NDIS driver for your NIC. What brand/model NIC are you trying to use?

Try checking out www.bootdisk.com for some links to a few great sources for bootdisks. They have all the standard Win9x/NT/2k/XP bootdisks plus a few homegrown network boot ones which you should easily be able to tweak for Ghost only use.

I've only had experience with the 3Com NICs which do have NDIS drivers but you should be able to find them on the company's drivers page (or try googling for DOS driver "your NIC" ghost).

I'm having issues with the new Ghost 2002...the personal edition won't save images onto a network drive. CDRs are nice and dandy but having both a fast option over the network along with a CDR backup set would be ideal...but you have to pay for the corporate edition if you want that. 🙁

Gaidin

 

[jbod]

I am having some issues with this as well. We recenlty bought the corporate edition of Ghost 7.0 and I tried making a boot disk. I selected an NDIS driver from the list when using the wizard to create the boot disk. But the damn thing won't boot to DOS from the disk that this stupid software just created.

We are using Win2K pro and I'm just wondering if I am missing something.

Oh, BTW, Win2k or NT disk to disk imaging is no longer supported by the newer versions of Ghost.

This really annoys me, since I am making a highly specialized drive for a developer. There will only be like two in the whole agency. Two that woulld be well served by doing just a disk to disk image.

Does anyone know a work around for this?

We really don't need the network-boot model for the fact that we have our main image already on the PC's from the manufacturer and when one goes bad, we just reimage with discs provided by Dell.

Thanks

 

[Bglad]

I'm trying to back up my laptop to my main machine. It uses a Linksys 10/100 pcmcia card.

I'll check out the boot disk site. Thx. By the way, does 2002 work well burning directly to cd? I was thinking of just buying 2002. This wouldn't solve my laptop backup problem though because it doesn't have a burner.

 

[gaidin123]

I've had mixed results backing up straight to CD. Ghost will span the image across as many CDs as necessary for the backup, but I definitely would urge you to try doing a full restore with those backup CDs after you make them. In my case I've burned a multi-CD backup and gotten an error 437 (I think) in between discs when doing a restore. It seems to have something to do with the burner/media/computer combination according to Symantec's site (2 sets of the same drive image but with different media gave me 1 working and 1 non-working set). Unfortunately last I checked they didn't offer any help or any definite reason why that error occurs.

Single disc backups work fine and some multi-disc backups work fine in my experience. That was another reason for me wanting to get network ghost backups working...

Gaidin

 

[igiveup]

Just a thought, but if you don't work in a corporate environment where everything is spread out, then why don't you pull the disk and disconnect a CD-Rom drive or something? You won't need anything during the ghost so just add it to your computer you want to image to and pull the image down...

Even better is the fact that you won't be bother with network speeds and dropped packets. Make sure you are on a different IDE channel than the other HD and fire away. Don't fight the thing.

my .02

 

[Bglad]

Its a laptop. Thats way too much trouble to go through for backups.

I still can't get this to work. Anyone know?

 

[ScottMac]

IF the NIC is not listed on the Ghost Disk Wizard, you can do an "Add" from the wizard. Put in the driver disk/cd that came with the NIC, or download a new group. Tell the wizrd you want the "NDIS" driver. IT shold read it from the disk/cd/directory.

Then tell the wizard to make a boot disk with that driver. WIN2K has a pretty poor track record (for me anyway) with making the boot disk actually bootable. I let the Wizard created the disk, then copy the contents (except the system files) to another boot disk that I've created using a machine thats running DOS 6.22.

For the "Master" machine, you either have to create a boot disk, or use the Enterprise Edition with the multicast console. If you create the boot disk, it will need to know if you're going to use DHCP for the address, or if you're going to specify it. If you specify, it can be any valid IP address. If you use the boot disk (for the master), bring that machine up first, and follow the path for a network backup, specifying it as the "Master" machine. If you're using the Enterprise console, give the session a name at the top, a filename to save to, whether the "master" is catching or throwing, and then you click the box for "Begin Listening."

On the mchine you're backing up, boot the Ghost disk, follow the network path for backing up through the network, select the session name that you used on the Master, and it should take off and run.

If you're doing a restore from the other machine, it's the same procedure with the appropirate choices for roles reversed.

The boot disks must be really bootable, because the network drivers are loaded through "CONFIG.SYS" which is only loaded through the boot process.

I've also used the "direct to CDR" functions with success (backup and restore). If your hard drive and CRD are both IDE, you can boot with any real DOS (above 5.0 I think) or WIN9x disk formatted with System.

Good Luck, Merry Christmas

Scott

 

[igiveup]

If time isnt an issue do a direct connection and leave the thing on overnight. It will take a long time but thats what nighttime is for. I don't have the answer you are probably looking for, which is backup over ethernet. Just providing an alternate solution for later, if the other doesn;t work.

Oh, and that bit about the laptop would have been nice to know in the first post...

 

[stash]

Jbod, in order to have the Ghost disk boot, you must check the box to format the floppy when making the disk. You have to do this even if you have a brand new floppy, since it copies the system files needed to boot. Otherwise you will get ntldr missing errors.

Since you have Ghost 7 enterprise, a better way to ghost is to use the Console. When set up correctly, each client machine will have a small (15 meg) ghost partition and a windows client. You can then reboot and ghost machines remotely, including changing SIDs, computer names, and adding them to a domain or workgroup.

I use this method often at work, and we can reimage every machine on the floor (~150) at once, run ghstwalker, give them unique names and add them to the domain without leaving our office.