Make a Norton Ghost Image?

[KnickNut3]

Sorry, maybe I'm being stupid, but I can't find this. After having to format I figure I'll try this ghost image stuff everyone's raving about. I go into Norton and click "Norton Ghost," but the only programs I can find is the explorer and the Ghost Boot Wizard. I have searched everywhere and can't find the thing that actually makes the ghost image. Thanks for any help. I'm running WinXP, and did a complete install. Thanks.

KN3

 

[blackhawk]

Ghost is done from a dos bootup. You have to copy the ghost folders to each drive/partition and when you boot to dos, type in the file name which should open the ghost dos screen.

On XP I haven't done it yet as my Norton 2001 doesn't support XP, I have 2002 waiting at the post office to pick up this week. If you type ghost in the search function, you'll find lots of info and some links.

 

[MTDEW]

GHOST

One of the best programs youll ever buy.

 

[MTDEW]

I have the stand alone version of ghost.

But I believe your ghost bootwizard will create the dos startup disk you need.
(same as mine)

Once the floppy ghost startup disk is created, just reboot your pc & the startup disk will start the ghost program. (assuming you bios is set to boot from drive A 1st)

You can also do it like blackhawk said, by copying & running the program from the HD.

But if youre new, the bootable floppy is probably your easiest bet.

The link I posted above has tutorials at the bottom that may be of help too.

 

[MTDEW]

KnickNut3, is your Hd partitioned?

Or are you imaging to CDRs?

 

[Dill]

how long should it take to ghost about 30gb from disk to disk (ata100). I find I usually have to leave the PC run overnight to do it, and that kind of sucks.

 

[EagleKeeper]

10-20 minutes for a 4 GB partition with high compression

 

[KnickNut3]

I have partitions, but I guess it'd be a good idea to put one on a CD-RW once a month too, right?

Thanks... I'll try it out now

 

[KnickNut3]

I want to make a ghost image and write it onto another drive. However, all it will let me do is write to a CD or dump an entire partition. Can't I just save it as a file on a different partition on which I have lots of room? I can't find how to get it to do that. I don't have to make an entire new partition just for that, right?

 

[MTDEW]

Correct, you can save the image on any partition other than the one your making an image of.
It doesnt have to be empty.

 

[Turkey22]

hey I was having a problem with ghost, but I think I figured it out, I just wanted to run it past someone.
Ok I did disk to image and then when I did image to disk it wiped out my partitions. Then I saw the partition to image. That's gonna keep my partitions safe right? Stupid question I know, but I'm new to the ghosting world

 

[MTDEW]

Yes, partition to image , then image to partition to restore the image.

 

[MTDEW]

Here guys, maybe this will help.

ASSUMMING you have a hd in 2 partitions & want to make an image of drive C & save the image on drive d.

MAKE IMAGE
1. Local \ Partition \ to Image <enter>
2. Select Local Sorce Drive by clicking the number = 1 <enter>
3. Select Source Partition from drive1 = 1 <enter>
4. Filename to copy image to
a) Select "look in" box & select d:[AB]local drive
b) Select File Name Box & name your image with the .gho extension. (ie: my image.gho)
c) click SAVE button
5. Choose high Compresssion
6. Proceed with dump


Assumming you have a hd in 2 partitions (c & D) & you want to restore an image from drive D to drive C.

RESTORE IMAGE
1. Local \ Partition \ From Image <enter>
2. Filename to load image from
a)select "look in" box
b)Scroll down & select d:[AB] local drive <enter>
c) select image file to restore (ie: My Image.gho) <enter>
3. Select Source Partition From Image File = 1 <enter>
4. Select Local destination drive =1 <enter>
5. Select destination drive = 1 <enter>
6: Proceed with Load <enter>

 

[Muse]

<< I want to make a ghost image and write it onto another drive. However, all it will let me do is write to a CD or dump an entire partition. Can't I just save it as a file on a different partition on which I have lots of room? I can't find how to get it to do that. I don't have to make an entire new partition just for that, right? >>

I think you have to dump an entire partition or an entire drive. You can't (I think) dump only part of a partition. It can be possible to update an imagefile of a partition, however, with just some files or directories if the partition you dumped from was FAT or FAT32. You do this in Ghost Explorer, which works right in Windows. I've not done this yet myself, however. In any case, while you can dump an NTFS partition to a FAT32 or FAT partition, you can't dump any partition or disk TO an NTFS partition. The partition you dump TO has to be FAT32 or FAT. That's because Ghost is a DOS program, and it's unable to read NTFS data. It can restore NTFS data to a partition, because it writes sector by sector, just writing over whatever's there be it FAT, FAT32 or NTFS.

 

[MTDEW]

Tutorials

 

[MTDEW]

Create image

 

[Dill]

huh..wonder why it takes my drives HOURS to do 30gb

 

[KnickNut3]

So if I want to save it as a file on another disk, I need to create a FAT32 partition, then I'll have the option to save to that drive when I have to name my gho file? How large do I need to make the partition to have room for an 8 GB or so drive? (What's the ratio compared to the drive size under high compression?)

Thanks.

 

[MTDEW]

Ill be darned if I cant find my ghost manual.
(bet the wife moved it while cleaning)

So Ill answer this the best I can until she gets home tomorrow & I can check the manual to see if it lists
exact ratios.

I have a 30gb hd with two partitions, on the smaller 3.8gb partition I have my OS(windows) & I use the larger one for all my apps so I can restore an image of windows without losing my apps & savegames.

Ok, I have an image of a clean install of windows & NO DRIVERS, its size is 410mb.
(great for troublshooting drivers & swithcing to different Det drivers for my Nvidia card)

Now I have another image of that 3.8gb partition with drivers, favorites, email contacts, winzip & a bunch of other apps installed & the image file size is 502mb.

So as you can see, it depends on how much of the partition your creating an image of is empty / full , has an effect of the size of the image file.

These numbers are using MAXIMUM compression.

If I find my manual & it has ratios listed for each type of compression, Ill post it.

BTW: Dont forget to defrag your partition b4 you image it.

 

[KnickNut3]

Thanks. Can I get confirmation on whether I have to create a new FAT32 partition to put the image on? Thanks.

 

[MTDEW]

Ill bump ya,
but I dont know cuz when I went to WinXP I stayed with FAT32 to insure compatability with moving / copying files back & forth between my 3 pc home LAN.

 

[BreakApart]

The ghost image HAS to be saved onto either a FAT or FAT32 partition. (FAT is limited to 2Gig normally, so just use a FAT32 it's easier)
This FAT/FAT32 partition HAS to be different than the one you are ghosting....it can be on the same disk, but it HAS to be a different partition. You can use a totally different disk also...

A ghost image will compress on average-(top of my head guess 15% not including the empty swap file), though the largest i have Ghosted would be 2.2Gigs of data on a 4Gig boot partition, haven't tried anything larger as i make bootable restore CD's with my images. Anything larger would be my data partitions and i would do a disk-to-disk or Disk-to-Server copy of the data.

Incase you wondered yes Ghost will image and restore NTFS partitions, it just can't save the data onto NTFS partitions.

Hope this helps...

 

[KnickNut3]

Thanks. Guess I need to clear out some space and create an entirely new partition before I do it... thanks.

 

[techwanabe]

<< The ghost image HAS to be saved onto either a FAT or FAT32 partition. (FAT is limited to 2Gig normally, so just use a FAT32 it's easier)
This FAT/FAT32 partition HAS to be different than the one you are ghosting....it can be on the same disk, but it HAS to be a different partition. You can use a totally different disk also...
>>



I've been using Ghost regularly now at work using images created by a computer consultant for our office. All the images are NT4.0 NTFS saved to an NTFS partition on a W2k system. Seems like the image will size itself to the hard drive used. We normally use Ghost boot disks to start up the computer needing to be imaged. Then using multicast server option across the network, we send the image from the Win2K machine to the computer being imaged. I never need to be concerned about how the destination hard drive is partitioned. We can take a system save it back to the W2k system. Thats all I've ever done except make new Ghost boot disks for systems with different NICs so they will boot up and see the network and use TCPIP DHCP for IP addressing.

 

[BreakApart]

<< Then using multicast server option across the network, we send the image from the Win2K machine to the computer being imaged. >>




This method is much different than most people are likely to use, as you will need to purchase the enterpirse version of ghost. For the average consumer the versions of ghost they have will require FAT or FAT32 destination partitions.
Thanks for the great business level info though, helps show how flexible the ghostprogram has become.