Why is GHOSTING so beneficial?

[WayneTeK]

IMO, just reformatting is fine... But why is ghosting so popular w/ you guys? It isn't fresh like a REFORMAT!

 

[JackBurton]

Dude, ghosting isn't an install it is like taking a snapshot of your hard drive. Once you install your OS, office suite programs you like, tweaked the way you like, you THEN ghost image of the drive. After that, create a bootable ghost CD/DVD. Now, if something gets jacked up on your machine, instead of reinstalling your OS, office apps, programs, tweaking everything all over again, insert your ghost bootable CD/DVD and have everything back to the way you had it in about 20mins.

 

[darktubbly]

Edzacchery. Although it's fun to watch the XP 'estimated time remaining' bar tease me, and then have to deal with a 1/2 hour of gettings patches, restoring a ghosted image is much simpler.

 

[sillymofo]

Actually, you don't even need a CD/DVD, just hook them up with IDE and it's done in less than 30 secs (give or take a few )

 

[Kappo]

Originally posted by: WayneTeK
IMO, just reformatting is fine... But why is ghosting so popular w/ you guys? It isn't fresh like a REFORMAT!

LOL no, it ISNT like a fresh format. That is the point. It is like a fresh INSTALL I like the finished installation alot more than I do watching the apparently random timer telling me 8 minutes.

It is like this:

You format, reinstall, patch, install programs, configure desktop, settings, tweak, find CDkeys, reimport your mail settings, import your favorites folder and so on.


I put in my CD, reboot, push Y and get a drink. Im done at that point. In 15 minutes im back to doing what I was doing. You can have the half a day it takes to get everything "just right".

 

[DaveSimmons]

What they said.

I trust an image much more than an XP restore point, with an image you get back your PC exactly as it was not sort-of-close. Even if you OS is completely destroyed you get it back 100% with all your apps installed, in one step and one reboot rather than 100 steps and 20 reboots you need starting from a reformat.

I'm setting up a new machine now, and installing 20+ windows updates (even starting from XP sp1a), 15+ apps, drivers, folders, is a pain. Once I have a bit more done I'll take a snapshot so I don't have to go thrrough it all again until the next time I change motherboards.

 

[Sid59]

everyone loves the fresh feeling of a REFORMAT!

the difference between ghost users and the others?

a few hours. while you sit there through the boot screen and enter information and XP gets ready to install ...

=-=-=- ghost is halfway done.

by the time you load into windows the hardway to get the updates ...

=-=-=- ghost is done and you are logging into AIM and posting on the forums.

by the time you've loaded all your apps and tweaked all your settings ..

=-=-=- ghost woulda done the same thing in 124096 hours less.


i have a few ghosts ..

1. fresh install - nothing else - stored on dvd-R
2. fresh install with updates and cores apps installed - test after a few days to test stability - stored on dvd-R
3. ghost backup every 2-3 months stored locally on hdd ..

number 3 helps out if system restore in XP blows up and doesn't work.

 

[DaveSimmons]

and you don't have to keep clicking, answering questions, clicking, rebooting, clicking .... since once Ghost is working you can go off and do something else until it's done.

I :heart: image backups!

 

[EeyoreX]

It's not beneficial really.

At least not until you have a problem and/or need to get your computer to a usable state quickly. I sue Ghost to keep an image of my basic configuration.

\Dan

 

[Looney]

Originally posted by: WayneTeK
IMO, just reformatting is fine... But why is ghosting so popular w/ you guys? It isn't fresh like a REFORMAT!

LOL a ghost image is an entire image file of your current partition state. The best time to do it is right after a fresh install of Windows, all drivers, and all your necessary software (software that you'll install everytime you reinstall windows). So whenever you need to reinstall Windows, you won't have to go through the entire process. You would just restore your partition back to the time when you ghosted it.

I ghost my HDD after i install XP, install all my drivers, configure my Outlook to retrieve my mail, and install Norton.

 

[Sid59]

... Ghost rocks!

 

[dighn]

because if you have tons of programs to install and configure, reformatting is such a pain.

with ghost, you just set up a fresh install with everything you want installed and configured, and the next time you wanna start over just ghost the image back to the way you want it.