Ghosting

Can anyone give me any ideas on a good program to use for ghosting a machine. I have tried acronis snap deploy and had too many problems trying to get it to run correctly. From what i understand with Norton Ghost you need to license it for every machine you use it on. These are the only 2 programs i was able to come up with so far. If there are any more please help.

 

Ghosting?

 

Norton Ghost 9.0 is excellent. you could try acronis backup...

Ghosting is just making an image of your hdd with windows, all your software and appz installed. if a problem occurs you can just reload the image and all is well.. just like restoring to a previous state but its really a lot better...

 

what makes it alot better if you don't mind me asking?

 

Because (If i remember correctly) restoring only restores your registry etc, but not your files. Ghosting also recovers your files so you get completely recovered computer...

 

makes sense, thx

 

So when i do my yearly reformat, can i save a ghost image, reinstall Norton Ghost and then pop the ghost image CD in and restore all my files?

 

Sorta.

If you re-install windows (with the same hardware), then make an image of said HD, then save that image on an off site location, you can restore your drive to a prestine level.

No need of re-activating windows at all. As long as no major hardware as been changed.

 

what prevents the "ghost" from copying the bad-stuff that you had to reformat for in the first place?

 

ok, what you do is get Norton Ghost 9.0 (i think 10 is now available but it might have bugs, dono). Format your computer like you want to every year or whatever. After the format install all your drivers and programs and appz that you wanna use. Once you have all the important and essential things that you need, then you make an image of your hdd. that way there is no bad stuff there to copy as you have just installed all new, clean programs.

when you next wanna format or if you have a problem you just reboot with the Norton Ghost disc in the drive. Boot from the disc and choose which image you want to restore. You can save an image on your harddrive, on a cd/dvd, on a network location just about anywhere that has enough space. Once you choose to restore an image it will overwrite all the other files that are there on your hdd (basically its like a format but without installing windows it reinstalls everything)

if you really want you can even restore documents or folders only... really cool. just go read about it on norton.com

 

thats what i was trying to say. may not have been so clear but there you go...

 

any way to get the Norton Ghost 9 manual online? i just checked the norton symantec website and they have already taken 9 off in favor of 10. thanks for any help!
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thanks, but i have a few more ?'s on top of this. just got norton 9 and i would like to reformat basically just to start from scratch and clean everything out. you said to format and reinstall everything like drivers, programs, apps, etc. is there any way to save the specific apps i dont want to lose on a reformat on ghost first? or basically does it just do the whole thing. what i am trying to say is i would like to reformat and clean out everything, but i would also like to save a few programs i have that have passwords and such and would just be a pain to try and recover. also, i was reading on the faq's of majorgeeks that when you reformat you can chose ntsf which is better than fat32? i was under the impression if the computer is fat32 that's what you were stuck with? thanks for any help.

 

bump

 

saving appss... do you have a cdr or such? I back up all my big programs to cd then on clean install i do not worry--Remember doing a clean install first (only the basics) then do the ghost and store off site as was suggested by theefool.
It is a pain to completly restore a pc BUT what a difference it makes!!!(should be done yearly)

 

right, i do have a cd/dvd burner on my laptop...so you are saying i should just burn the apps to a cd? what exactly would i burn from them, the setup file of each? so i should not do the ghost until i completely reformat and add all the apps i want? when i reformat is it possible to change from fat32 to ntsf? could someone point me some where for some more basic step by step on this, i hate to be a nuisance on something everyone else is probably very familiar with?

 

looks good....thanks....but being married, a full-time college student, and part-time work i don't know if i'll ever have time to read this. i'll hang on to it for a rainy day i suppose.

is anyone familiar with whether or not when you reformat and go into DOS you can switch to an NTSF from FAT 32?

 

depends on the os win 98-ME use fat16 or fat32 when it comes to 2000-pro-xp it is NTSF

Different ways the pc stores info on the hd for retrevial.

Lots of opinions on this ...ntfs is more secure(secure windows! LOL )
I am sure you will hear afew more.

 

Windows 2000 and XP can also use a FAT16 or 32 partition type. NTFS is usually prefered because you get more effecient cluster sizes on large drives with NTFS as well as the security options and data recovery is supposedly easier on an NTFS partition.

If you have a FAT32 partition and you would like to convert it to NTFS, go to start run and type in

convert x: /fs:ntfs

where "x" is the drive letter.

The only problem with converting a FAT32 partition to NTFS is that it creates a cluster size of 512 instead of the default 4k NTFS cluster size which is more efficient.

 

so based on that what would you reccommend; sticking w/ fat32 or switching to ntfs? what would be the difference in the different cluster sizes of 512 and 4k in ntfs?

 

Good ghost guide Radified Ghost

Advisable to partition your drive and save ghost images in the created partition.I use partition magic which can also convert your file system to fat 32 or ntfs.

Besides having several ghost images I also have an slave drive where I keep an updated clone of C.

 

512 cluster sizes isn't the end of the world but I would take Franklin's susgestion and use Partition Magic to change the partition type. Using Partition Magic will let you use the default 4k cluster size. A cluster size of 512 is just going to be more clusters thus slowing access time down slightly. Whether you notice the difference or not in a real world situation, I can't say.

I would however not save the Ghost image to a partition but burn it to a CD or DVD. this way if your drive dies or the partition crashes, you can still have a working image.

 

Hello!
Could you explain what problems exactly were with Acronis Snap Deploy? What did you want to execute with the help of it? The point is that someone on this forum advised me the home version of Acronis True Image some time ago. And the use of it with Snap Deploy (that has to be installed on all machines) is working like a sharm on our 25 computers. Besides Acronis has an excelent support as I know, they help us with products installation on http://www.wilderssecurity.com/forumdisplay.php?f=65. Try to apply for information there.