Bootable image on a flash drive?

is it possible to make a bootable ghost image of a pc with these things?

 

I've been running Ghost to backup systems and clone HD's since 1997, so I have probably done just about everything with Ghost that's do'able on a Stand-Alone PC. I still use Ghost 2003, because it fits nicely on a 1.44meg Floppy Disk and backs up NTFS drives and SATA drives as well as FAT-32 and IDE drives.

First, you need to have a motherboard, like my MSI, that will boot from any available drive with a boot disk in it. I have a boot menu available when I tap F11 during the early stages of a system boot.

Having a Floppy Disk Drive in your system, even if it's a USB Floppy, greatly simplifies this exercise. Ghost was originally written to run from drive A:.

Next you need the HP program to make flash drives bootable.
Then you need to have a boot file source, like a boot floppy.
I use my Windows ME Utilities boot floppy for the source.
It has the best DOS I've ever found for running Ghost.

Next you need a Flash Memory device,,,, thumb drive or Flash camera card.

Then you need the executable for Ghost. "Ghost.exe" and a mouse driver "Mouse.com". (running Ghost with your PS2 mouse is much easier than trying to run it from the keyboard )

The HP program only puts the three DOS files on the Flash Drive. You have to add Ghost, the mouse driver, an Autoexec.bat and Config.sys files and any other utilities or batch files you may choose.

I set up Ghost 8.3 and all my cleanup batch files on a little 64 meg Flash Drive and then used Nero to burn that to a CD.
(Ghost 8.3 is too big to fit on a Floppy Disk)

I even have a SD Flash Card set up to boot to my Ghost menu.

Saving a Ghost Image to a Flash Drive, once again, depends mostly on your motherboard and how it would see a flash drive or USB external HD.
I've done Ghost Images to my 6 gig Flash Drive and my two external USB HD's. And I've done everything without having to load any special drivers so that Ghost could see those drives. (Thank You, MSI ! )

And now some questions:
What computer do you have?
Do you have a floppy drive?
What OS are you currently using?
Would you like a copy of my Ghost boot floppy?

Please fill in the blanks.....

The Shadow :cool

PS: Looking at your title on this thread again, "Bootable Image on Flash Drive"
I have to tell you that Ghost will only make a DVD bootable,,, IF, you have a boot file
source like a boot Floppy. In fact, that's the only source for boot files that Ghost
is designed to use. So, if you boot from A:, and are creating your Image on CD or DVD,
Ghost will offer to put the boot files from A: on the CD/DVD thus making it bootable.
Sorry.....that's the way Ghost was written, back in the days when every computer had
a floppy disk drive in it.

 

thank you sir, just the answer i was looking for

 

One of the best (and cheapest) tools in my 'kit' is a USB Floppy Drive.

Almost every system being sold today, will accept that as drive A: and will allow a boot floppy to boot the system.
Ghost.exe (Ghost 2003 or Ghost 8.3) is a DOS program.
When you boot up to an A: prompt you will not be able to see an NTFS hard drive from the DOS prompt, but Ghost will have no trouble seeing it.

If you need more specific help, feel free to PM me.
I'm currently assisting several people, from around the world, to set up their own Ghost backup systems.

Cheers mate!
The Shadow :cool