Because Ghost was not working without partitions I reinstalled my computer with partitions. After installing all essential programs I loaded Ghost and made an image of my C drive. I then added other programs.  
I discovered that Windows recovery wasn't working. I had severall recovery points and knew there had been changes and still  I received the message that no changes could be made. (This were recovery points of changes after the image made with Ghost)
Because I suspected all this had to do with Ghost, I  unchecked Ghost in the Windows startup. The computer was not starting up faster. I made a new Windows recovery point, some changes and tested Windows System repair again. It still wasn’t working.
I then uninstalled Ghost. My computer started up faster again and …. Windows System repair works again.
I am sure now that Ghost is the cause of Windows System repair not working. I find it unacceptable that Ghost does this without warning. I know I can use Ghost to make recovery points but do not wish to do this because the program is slowing up my system. I want to use Ghost to make images of a perfectly working system manually at chosen times and nothing else. Will I have to install Ghost every time I wish to do this and uninstall it afterwards????

danyb


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Will I have to install Ghost every time I wish to do this and uninstall it afterwards?

I don't use Ghost 10, so I don't have an answer for your question--hopefully one of the Ghost 10 experts will have some thoughts on this.

But, interesting observations--actually makes some sense though--if Ghost does *real time* monitoring of system changes--and System Restore does the same--it sure could create a conflict!  Similar to having two antivirus programs running at the same time--or two software firewalls--they can get in the way of each other!

Automation of various maintenance chores can be helpful--*set it, and forget it*--but, when that automated function is not *reliable*--then it is *useless*!  I have always had problems with the System Restore function--Restore Points would not be made and/or they would randomly disappear, and were no longer available.  Even if I *manually* created a Restore Point, they would disappear at random times--even if I set aside lots of HDD space for them!--Other than manually creating the Restore Points, and adjusting the storage space for the Restore Points--there's little control over when the Restore Points are created and when they are deleted.

Because I could not rely on the Restore Points to be there, I started using this VB script to automatically make a new Recovery Point each time the system started:  VB Script to run unattended Restore Point Creation as a Scheduled Task

and here:

Single Click Creation of a System Restore Point/Runs as a Scheduled Task

But, over time I found that System Restore created a lot to fragmentation--when I finally disabled System Restore--my OS partition had 18 % fragmentation--after System Restore was disabled, it removed all the Restore Point files, and the fragmentation went to less than 5 %!

I now use ERUNT in place of the System Restore function--it creates a Registry backup with each daily startup of the system, and manual backups can be made at any time--automated scheduling could also be done with the Windows Scheduler function--by restoring the Registry to a given point in time--it essentially restores the system to the state it was in at that particular moment.

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Because Ghost was not working without partitions I reinstalled my computer with partitions.

Did you update XP to SP2 with all critical and all .NET updates?  That should have been done first before installing Ghost 10 for best results.


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I discovered that Windows recovery wasn't working.

Please double check to be sure that XP is monitoring your drives.
My Computer/Properties/System Restore
Be certain that xp is monitoring your drives, and that Turn off System Restore is NOT checked.


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Because I suspected all this had to do with Ghost, I  unchecked Ghost in the Windows startup.

The Ghost in the Windows startup is just the system tray app and in fact not needed unless you are doing scheduled time backups.  I unchecked mine (Ghost 10) from startup; works just fine.  I manually initiate a backup when I want to.


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I am sure now that Ghost is the cause of Windows System repair not working.

I think System repair is related to other items I mentioned above.  (I assume you are talking about Start/All Programs/Accessories/System Tools/System Restore)

Can you create a new restore point?

NightOwl wrote on Jan 1^st, 2007 at 9:30am:

But, interesting observations--actually makes some sense though--if Ghost does *real time* monitoring of system changes--and System Restore does the same--it sure could create a conflict!

Ghost only does real time monitoring while it is taking the hot backup image.  The Ghosttray.exe system tray app shows Ghost status and allows you to startup the backup from the system tray among other options.

John. wrote on Jan 1^st, 2007 at 1:07pm:

The Ghost in the Windows startup is just the system tray app and in fact not needed unless you are doing scheduled time backups.

Now that I think about it, I don't even think the GhostTray application is actually needed for scheduled time backups.  I think that is done via the Ghost service.

I don't use the app myself; I just manually start Ghost 10 from the Start menu when I want to create a backup image.

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Did you update XP to SP2 with all critical and all .NET updates?  That should have been done first before installing Ghost 10 for best results.

Only installed Ghost after SP2, all updates and .NET

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Please double check to be sure that XP is monitoring your drives. My Computer/Properties/System Restore Be certain that xp is monitoring your drives, and that Turn off System Restore is NOT checked.

I am quite sure everything was OK. After uninstalling Ghost the System restore worked perfectly

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The Ghost in the Windows startup is just the system tray app and in fact not needed unless you are doing scheduled time backups.  I unchecked mine (Ghost 10) from startup; works just fine.  I manually initiate a backup when I want to.

I have now reinstalled Ghost and my system slowed down again. I will uncheck from startup again and see if it speeds up. Will come back on this.
But I am absolutely certain that Ghost messes up System restore.

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I now use ERUNT in place of the System Restore function--it creates a Registry backup with each daily startup of the system, and manual backups can be made at any time--automated scheduling could also be done with the Windows Scheduler function--by restoring the Registry to a given point in time--it essentially restores the system to the state it was in at that particular moment.

Does this really work?????
Say you installed a program. This means files in the Programs folder but also files in the user Application data. If you want to restore the program you will have to restore the registry, the files and the Application data.
I have been using Windows system restore for years without  any problems.

danyb,

It's a concern that Ghost 10 slows your computer.

When you right click My Computer, click Properties, System Restore tab, does Ghost 10 turn OFF System Restore on all drives? Or is it still turned ON but doesn't work manually.



PS How have you partitioned your HD? Where are your Recovery Points (images) stored? Do you have a second HD or external HD?

danyb


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Does this really work??

Not the way System Restore does--when you restore the registry back to a state before you began having problems--say from the install of a new program--then it's as if you never installed that program as far as Windows is concerned.  All the program files and data files will still be there--you can either save important data or delete the files and directories associated with that program--or re-install over those files to try again.


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I have been using Windows system restore for years without  any problems.

If it's working for you--then don't change things!  My comments are because on my system System Restore was never stable, and I could not count on a Recovery Point to be there to restore from--my primary recovery comes from restoring Ghost backup images.

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When you right click My Computer, click Properties, System Restore tab, does Ghost 10 turn OFF System Restore on all drives? Or is it still turned ON but doesn't work manually.

System restore is on. There are severall recovery points but when I return to one (knowing for sure that something was changed) Windows tells me that no changes were made. I think Ghost is not turning of System restore but is disabling the return to a recovery point

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PS How have you partitioned your HD? Where are your Recovery Points (images) stored? Do you have a second HD or external HD?

Whow I do not know where Windows stores the recovery points. But I had the same problem with Ghost before partitioning my disk. So I don't think the reason is there.
The images I make with Ghost are stored on en external disk.
In fact what happened was this: I worked with NIS since 2002 and in November had to upgrade to NIS2007. This went wrong, my computer slowed down terribly and i decided to reinstall it completely. This took me about a week. To avoid al this work I decided to buy Ghost 10. After using it for 1 Week I discovered that upon returning to a previous Ghost Recovery point all my documents were also changed back (unlike the System restore on Windows). So I decided to return to using Windows system repair for small problems, keeping the Ghost image  for reïnstallation if needed. That is when I discovered Windows System Repair did not work anymore. So I had to reinstall everything again, this time after making partitions.

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If it's working for you--then don't change things!  My comments are because on my system System Restore was never stable, and I could not count on a Recovery Point to be there to restore from--my primary recovery comes from restoring Ghost backup images.

What I plan to do for the moment is: make an image with Ghost when all my programs are installed. Then uninstall Ghost and use Windows System Restore if I have a problem. If it doesn't help I can still use the Ghost image to reinstall everything.
It would be much easier however to leave Ghost on the PC and be able to disable it. I now know why the thing is called Ghost. You can't kill it - it keeps roaming on your system!

Why don't you turn System Restore OFF for a day or so and see if your computer runs faster. The first thing I do after installing Ghost is to turn System Restore OFF, forever. It has it's place but it's not a particularly good backup solution compared with Ghost.

danyb wrote on Jan 1^st, 2007 at 6:40pm:

It would be much easier however to leave Ghost on the PC and be able to disable it. I now know why the thing is called Ghost. You can't kill it - it keeps roaming on your system!

Danyb, could you double check your Ghost 10 and verify that any/all backups that you have defined are MANUAL?
Open Ghost 10
Click Backup Now
Look at the defined backups and in the column called "next run" it should say "No Schedule".

Delete any backup definitions that you didn't create yourself.  There are options to create scheduled backups with Event Triggers such as these:

http://i24.photobucket.com/albums/c5/ghostimage/EventTrigger.jpg

Hopefully, this doesn't apply to you, but need to confirm that Ghost is not inadvertently running in the background.

Ghost4me,
You may be right there. I reinstalled Ghost yesterday to make a new image. I turned XP System restore off and in Ghost I have just one Backup with the mention 'No schedule'. I unchecked Ghost in startup also. Today the speed of my computer seems normal.
The difference between now and the previous time Ghost was on my system is :
I had XP system Restore running.
I had made some scheduled Backups but seem to remember I had deactivated those for some weeks.
So I am starting to think that maybe the problem was caused by XP System Restore running.
I am going to try to leave XP System Restore deactivated and leave Ghost on with an event trigger when new application is installed.
I have just one more question before I do this: Do I have to put Ghost back in my startup if I work with event triggers?

danyb wrote on Jan 2^nd, 2007 at 8:10am:

I have just one more question before I do this: Do I have to put Ghost back in my startup if I work with event triggers?

I don't think so.  If you right click on the GhostTray application, you'll see that it just provides quick links to the common Ghost functions.

Glad to see that it's working better now.

I've never heard of anyone using the Event Trigger to automatically make a backup recovery point image when new application software is installed.  I prefer to just manually take a backup image when *I* want to, not when Ghost wants to.

I've never had any problems with System Restore running.  Creating a registry restore point is fairly quick, and I believe XP automatically creates one each day when you first startup/boot the pc.  

My guess is that because you had the Event Trigger activated, Ghost was doing some type of background checkup or monitoring that was slowing your system down.

My choice would be this:  
1.) Disable Ghost Event Triggers (edit your backup settings)
2.) Enable XP System Restore
3.) Manually take a Ghost backup image prior to any new application installation.

Then wait a few days and look at System Restore and see how many checkpoints it took.

I disabled ghostray.exe in msconfig too.  So long ago that I can't remember why. It's not necessary. I don't like tray icons and it uses about 10 MB RAM.

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I disabled ghostray.exe in msconfig too.  So long ago that I can't remember why. It's not necessary. I don't like tray icons and it uses about 10 MB RAM.

You say: I disabled and it's not necessary : You mean it is not necessary to disable or it is not necessary in start-up?
Do you still use Ghost to make sheduled backups?

The tray icon is not necessary. It's just there as a "faster" way of starting the Ghost GUI than using the All Program menu. I do daily scheduled images. Removing the icon makes no difference to how Ghost runs.

There have been reports of ghostray.exe causing high CPU usage but I didn't have that problem.

Brian, when using Ghost 10 (i.e., purchased as an individual product and not part of Norton Save & Restore or Norton SystemWorks) in the absence of any other installed Symantec product, is there also a Norton Protection Center icon in the System Tray?  In other words, does the Ghost 10 product add a Ghost icon as well as a Norton Protection Center icon to the System Tray?

Also, does the removal of the Ghost 10 icon in the System Tray have any impact on the running of automatically scheduled backups?  (I thought its presence was necessary to enable the scheduling feature, but I may be mistaken.)

Pleonasm wrote on Jan 4^th, 2007 at 8:59am:

does the Ghost 10 product add a Ghost icon as well as a Norton Protection Center icon to the System Tray?

Pleonasm, there is only a Ghost icon.


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does the removal of the Ghost 10 icon in the System Tray have any impact on the running of automatically scheduled backups?

I disabled the icon in msconfig when Ghost 10 was first installed and there are no problems with scheduled backups.

It's been ages since I looked at NSR. Does it have two icons?

Brian, thanks for the clarification.

To answer your question, yes:  Norton Save & Restore adds its own icon to the System Tray as well as the Norton Protection Center icon (see this thread).