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How the hell does it work? I have a copy of 2002 and all it has is boot wizard and ghost explorer. How do I copy my HD to another one? or is that not what it does?

Greg

You need a boot disk go to the ghost directory and copy the ghost.exe file it might ghostpe.exe or something like that... the newer version of it aren't just ghost.exe... after thats done just boot from the floppy and type ghost whatever at the comman prompt and go from there... i think 2002 works with ntfs partitions also... but it has to copy to a fat32 partition... can't remember for sure how it goes... only done it once here and i burned it straight to my burner.

If i remember correctly, you can boot with the cd. I only use the "ghostpe.exe" I think everything else that it installs is a waste, but that's just my opinion. It will make you a boot disk as well if you need one, but after you install the program.

Making a boot disk with their wizard is a pain in the ass - plus it tries to use PC-DOS which causes problems. I never use their boot disk. The only thing that you would need their boot disk for is if you must have access to the CD burner.

I never use that during the Ghost process. I carry around a spare 30Gb drive, empty and formatted for FAT32, that I leave in my repair kit. I temporarily connect it to the system I want to Ghost and save the images to the drive. Later, I'll connect it to my workstation (I finally got around to installing a removable drive bay to make this easier since I Ghost client systems all the time) and burn the Ghost images to CD at my leisure.


Do what I do. After you install Ghost, go to the Ghost folder and copy GHOST.EXE (or if it's the personal edition GHOSTPE.EXE) to a blank formatted floppy.

Also, make a batch file on that floppy called GHOST700.BAT and using notepad add the following line to it:

ghost.exe -split=698 -auto

or if it's the personal edition:

ghostpe.exe -split=698 -auto


The only other thing you need is a Win98 emergency boot disk. I'm sure you have access to a 98 system to make one if you don't have one.

Ghost can only be run from DOS - you can't run it from within WinNT/2K/XP (you CAN run it from within Win9x in a DOS window but it's not recommended).

So what you do is boot your system from the 98 Boot disk. If you need to have access to the CD (for instance, in order to restore from an image saved on CD) then select the boot option with CD support, otherwise just hit F5 for the DOS command prompt.

Now remove the Win98 Boot disk and put the Ghost floppy in the machine. From the A:> prompt type:

GHOST700

This will run the batch file which will run Ghost.

YOU NEED THE BATCH FILE IF YOU WANT TO BURN YOUR IMAGES TO CD LATER. The batch file forces Ghost to chop the image files into 700Mb chunks so they all fit on CDs. The other command in the batch file forces Ghost not to prompt you once it starts making the image so you can walk away from it until it's done (otherwise when it makes each 700Mb image chunk, it'll prompt you for a file name).


Some things to keep in mind:

- Ghost cannot save an image to an NTSF drive, so if you want to save images to disk you must have a FAT32 partition available (ghosting or copying an NTFS partition is no problem, you just can't save an image file to an NTFS partition).

- You don't need anything else in the installation except GHOSTEXP.EXE which is the Windows Ghost Explorer app, and is completely standalone. I like to copy that to the floppy also in case I'm on another system that doesn't have Ghost on it and I need to extract a file from an image. Ghost explorer allows you to browse an image and extract individual files from it.

- I recommend ghosting individual PARTITIONS and not whole drives. Later, if you need to restore just one partition but you ghosted the whole drive, you're screwed.

- Ghost ALWAYS gives you the opportunity to resize a partition that's being copied or restored.

- You can copy or restore partitions even if there is less room available on the target than the original size of the partition (as long as the data fits). So for instance if you have a 20Gb partition image, and only a 10 Gb drive, but the original drive was less than half full, it'll fit - Ghost will resize it.

I have and use Ghost 2001, as version 2002 requires you to enter your serial number before allowing you to RESTORE an image. Like FP, I have a spare 40 gig HD that I create images on, usually once a month. I use the same command: ghostpe -split=690 -auto.

I then name the file depending on the partition I'm going to image. For example, if I decide to create an image of drive C on September 26, I use: C_26SEP

As you can see, it makes it really easy to see when and what partition you made an image from. I got this tip from Rad Boy and his Radified Guide to Norton Ghost

Once I have the images on the spare HD, I then burn them to a CD for storage. I usually keep 3 backup sets, and discard the oldest as I make more backups.

so I cant transfer it to a ntfs drive? I have 2k1 also. maybe ill use it instead? maybe if I can get 2k3 would it work with ntfs?

Greg

it has ghostxp.exe no jsut ghost.exe...would that work?

Greg

The name of the executable is different depending on the version you bought.

GHOST.EXE is the corporate version

GHOSTPE.EXE is the personal version

Either will do the job if it's at least 2001. Earlier versions may not properly support WinXP partitions.

I've never heard of a ghostxp.exe - you sure it isn't ghostexp.exe? That would be the Ghost Explorer app which is something else.


No Greg, there's no workaround for not being able to save an image to an NTFS partition. Ghost is a DOS program and it just can't save a file to an NTFS partition. You shouldn't be using NTFS anyway unless it's a system on a corporate LAN anyway (IMO).

Don't confuse what I'm saying. Norton can read NTFS partitions and it can copy an NTFS partition from one drive to another, but it can't save an image file to an NTFS partition - has to be FAT or FAT32.

Bla, I just went with ghost 2k3. It is SO much easier to use. I sugest Everyone using it, if you are just copying your personal drive.

Greg

i have a real old version like 6.x or something - works fine for hd to hd

well, it's first time I've tried to ghost using XP, wanted to set up new WD special edition drive. Ghost version 7.0, worked fine in program. But now it won't boot with new drive. Went back to old one. Copies look identical, what the hey?????

Did you do a partition copy or a drive copy? If you copied the partition then you'll have to run FDisk and select the option to make the boot partition the active partition.

Thank you FP!!! Yup, forgot about that, used the disk management in XP to set it up, forgot to go back and set the active partition I bet. You 'da man!

well, better, but not quite there yet. It will now start to go into XP since setting the active partition, but freezes before getting all the way into the OS. Hmmm, guess I'll start over

Oooooh all this Ghost talk is scaring me!

Actually I have bought System Works Pro the last 3 years and have never used Ghost believe it or not. Today I got my copy of System Works 2003 Pro in the mail.

Ghost looks kinda tempting now that I have a DVD-R drive. I think on my next install I will ghost right after the install when it should all fit on a DVD.

Who knows when that will be, I have been running this copy of XP since Febuary when I built my P4 system and it has been running trouble free. (knock on wood)