Norton Ghost - first time user

I'm thinking of setting up Norton Ghost on my computer, but I'm not sure of its functionality. I am talking about version 12.

I'd like to know the following things:

-can NG restore the system to a previous state in case of a really bad virus/spyware attack, faulty driver/program install and any serious software system malfunction

-can it hold several restore points in the same image or does it have to do a FULL image backup everytime it creates a new restore point?

-can it help me restore my system even if windows doesn't boot? let's say I did something stupid and windows is BSOD-ing on startup so I can't get to Ghost, but I made a restore point before the disaster, can I restore that?

Thank you.

 

Hope, I'll be able to answer your question. Personally I prefer Acronis True Image but it's quite similar to Ghost.

yep

you may create incremental and differential backup. they will be stored in different files.
when you back up for the first time, you create the so-called full backup.
but starting with the second archive you may choose whether incremental or differential backup you want to create.

Differential backup: after creating the first full backup you may save changes that were made since the base full backup; these changes will be saved as subsequent backup archive. So if you want to restore, you need the first full backup and the last differential subsequent backup archive.

Incremental backup saves changes after the last (subsequent) backup. It means that when restoring you need the first full backup and the set of all incremental backups. Its benefits are in archives size that is smaller than under other ways of backup.

Yep, bootable CD is intended for this. As I know, Ghost's installation CD may be used for is as well. In the Acronis program there is a special option that creates the rescue media - CD or DVD and you may create the archive, save it on the DVD and make the DVD bootable. So if your system crashes you may load from the bootable media and run the restore process. You may store the backup on your internal HDD: you will be able to recover from it if the system only crashes but the HDD is ok. However, it's recommended to back up to an external hard drive or have a system image on a Cd or DVD. In order to be able to restore if the HDD itself is broken..