Radified Community Forums - Creating Hard Drive Image

Radified Community Forums › Rad Community Technical Discussion Boards (Computer Hardware + PC Software) › Norton Ghost 2003, Ghost v8.x + Ghost Solution Suite (GSS) Discussion Board › Creating Hard Drive Image

(Moderators: Rad, Christer, NightOwl, Pleonasm, MrMagoo, El_Pescador)

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›

Pages: 1

Creating Hard Drive Image (Read 5600 times)

garion

Ex Member

Creating Hard Drive Image
Oct 30^th, 2006 at 9:37pm

I have just bought a brand new, Acer Aspire Laptop which came preinstalled with a whole heap of lovely c**p. I was talking to someone and they suggest that I wipe everything (Merge all three of the partitions and start again fresh)

So I did this and now I have a newly formatted Computer with two partitions. I have installed Windows XP Home and all of the necessary drivers.

What I would like to do is take an image of my hard-drive the way it is now (Drivers and OS Only) so that I do not need to install Windows XP or the Drivers again. I have tried to read the guides here but found them hard to use (Sorry, I don't mean any offence).

So my questions are: What's the best version of Norton Ghost I should get, keeping In mind that I do not have a Floppy Drive in this laptop and Do not wish to install anything on it. I would also like the Image I make to be burnt to a bootable DVD so that I can simply insert the DVD and boot from it to format the laptop. I do, however have a home wireless network at home if this helps at all.

Thanks In Advance,
Garion

IP Logged

El_Pescador

Übermensch

Offline

Thumbs Up!

Posts: 1605
Bayou Country, USA

Re: Creating Hard Drive Image
Reply #1 - Oct 30^th, 2006 at 10:05pm

Quote:

"... What I would like to do is take an image of my hard-drive the way it is now (Drivers and OS Only) so that I do not need to install Windows XP or the Drivers again..."

You could consider acquiring a retail boxed copy of Norton Ghost 10.0 (which comes with the legacy Norton Ghost 2003 CD as "lagniappe"!) and simply boot from the Ghost 10.0 installation CD itself into a Windows XP Preinstalled Environment. Then, immediately engage the legacy Backup/Restore or Clone "cold-imaging" procedures by following the path

'Recover > Recover Data on My Computer > Recover using a legacy Ghost image'

with the side benefit of bypassing both USB mass-storage device and SATA HDD glitches frequently encountered with DOS-dependent Ghost 2003. In essence, this procedure uses

restoreghost.exe

(an alternate name for

ghost32.exe

) to allow both immediate creation of legacy Norton Ghost Backup images or the converse Recovery of such images that are in fact totally compatible and interchangeable with those *.gho/*.ghs files created with the

ghost.exe

of Norton Ghost 2003 - but not with those created with Ghost 9, Ghost 10.0, or Norton Save & Restore during "hot-imaging".

Once you have achieved this level of stability with a legacy Norton Ghost Backup image (in your case having chosen the entire "disk-to-image" approach), you can then go over to the "dark side" to dabble in "hot-imaging" technology if you so choose. CLICK HERE to view my preferred - but admittedly convoluted - "path-less-traveled" which is a mature offshoot of the approach in the first paragraph.

IP Logged

garion

Ex Member

Re: Creating Hard Drive Image
Reply #2 - Oct 30^th, 2006 at 11:46pm

Thank you so much for your quick reply and help.

In reply to your answer, I was able to create an image (a *.gho if im correct Tongue

) and save this to my second partition.

However, when I rebooted in Windows (I was using Norton 10.0 with Recover using a legacy Ghost image) and checked the drive, Windows is able to subtract the amount of space from it, but I cannot view the file using a Windows environment. I plan to burn this, along with Norton 10.0 to a dvd (If I copy the Norton disk to a dvd, then add the image, I should be able to boot Norton from the DVD and have the image included there as well.)

What should I do now?

IP Logged

El_Pescador

Übermensch

Offline

Thumbs Up!

Posts: 1605
Bayou Country, USA

Re: Creating Hard Drive Image
Reply #3 - Oct 31^st, 2006 at 9:58am

Quote:

"... What I would like to do is take an image of my hard-drive the way it is now (Drivers and OS Only) so that I do not need to install Windows XP or the Drivers again..."

Quote:

"... I was able to create an image (a *.gho if im correct Tongue

) and save this to my

second partition

..."

Since I interpreted your original post to indicate that you desired to have an entire "disk-to-image" backup file, I am now confused as to how many physical (as opposed to logical aka partitions) HDDs that you have on hand because you state you saved such to a

second partition

IP Logged

Pages: 1

‹ Previous Topic | Next Topic ›

« Home

‹ Board

Top of this page

	Welcome, Guest. Please Login