Ghost : DOS-problem & partition strategy

Rad, I really appreciated your articles on Ghost etc.

Especially I found this idea excellent:
Typing "ghostpe.exe -split=640 -auto" to activate spanning at 640MB and auto-naming.

First DOS-problem:

And the advice on reintroducing the MS-DOS files to the floppy is interesting, as I too banged my head into this problem of Ghost not recognising other harddisk than the primary one.

The way that worked for me was to create a boot floppy in win95 (spare computer) with the system files and then adding ghostpe.exe. However, this setup still has flaws for both my win95 and my w2k computers. On neither computer am I able to write TO an image - not even on the same physical disk. All other options work fine.

Any ideas of what to do? Anybody?

Second DOS-problem:

Using CDs for backups is not good if you want to keep long names of folders and files. They all end up castrated. Therefore harddisks is THE choice.

BTW: Handy Backup is the best non-imaging backup tool I have seen so far. It compresses even folder structures into zips, making ‘Word-folders’ 1/3 of the original.
It also has a ftp function: http://www.handybackup.com/

- My 3 year old Tape streamer (4 Gb) is simply too slow and awkward to be of much use compared with using harddisks.


Partition strategy:

I am very satisfied with my own arrangement, 'learned' after many crashes:

3 similar disks: (IBM X60 - 60 Gb)
ONE in the w2k computer
TWO in the fireproof garage basement.
For backup only ONE is taken into the house at the time.
The whole disk is backed up each time (1/2 - 1 hour depending on how many ghost images I have on the disk).

On the disk there are images of the partitions with operating system as well as a zip of all email files (Outlook Express)

In order to achieve this arrangement, the folder location options of the free program Xteq - http://www.xteq.com/
A marvellous tweak program - simply the BEST with new add-ons coming in a continuous stream.

The partitions are as follows:
C - Master: w2K + smaller programs
D - Slave: larger programs, seldom changed
(Office, CorelDraw, Photoshop, Templates )
E -EMAIL: all communications (fax, email) , addresses etc.
F- DOCS: all documents, written by me or others
G- PROGRAMS: The store of several crucial Backup of all crucial data and downloaded programs, one section for all setup programs (back to 1997) and drivers. Some CD's are also included, in order not to have to insert them every time they are used, such as Microsoft British Reference, Microsoft W2K, Microsoft Office 2000 etc.
H - GHOST: Backup of email (zip) and of crucial PC data + ghosts of the partitions Master and Slave, in various stages.

"Master" and "Slave" will be formatted in NTFS
The others in FAT32 in order to be readable by other computers and in order to be able to store Ghosted images there.

Always keep a record of GOOD changes to the architecture, and after a crash, use the latest good image and do the changes that were good. The use cleanup programs (ashampoo2000 for redundant files, Norton Windoctor, and then a better registry program, such as NBGclean registry and Registry First Aid. Then use Norton Speedisk to defragment. And finally ghost the new setup of 'Master' under a new name (e.g. GHOST-09 ) to the Ghost partition preferably on another disk for faster speed. If the setup proves to be a good idea, the older images (e.g. GHOST-06) may be deleted. The best thing is to save them of course, by using the switch mentioned above:
Typing "ghostpe.exe -split=640 -auto" to activate spanning at 640MB and auto-naming.

The Slave will not be imaged anew often, since it is only changed when major programs are installed.

This means that the images of "Master" and "Slave" will be under the spanning limit of 2 Gb. It also means than backups and recoveries of Master will be much faster (twice as fast in my case)

Additionally, there are a few disks in the win95/Linux PC with backups and ghosted images.


Good luck all!
Comments are very welcome!

Best wishes!
Vennlig hilsen! 

Arno


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Arno Mong Daastøl (Daastoel), Drs. Oecon
Utsiktsveien 34, NO-1410 Kolbotn, Norway, Email: am@daastol.com, 
Ph: (prefix 47) 6680 6373, Mobile: 9002 4956, Fax: 6699 5325
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