I have not created it myself but have tested a bootable CD with the same stuff as on the Ghost Boot Disks. It loads much quicker but there is no perceivable difference in performing the tasks.

Quote:

Creating a dedicated Ghost partition for Images is a good idea and an even better idea is to never defragment it.

Christer

I should have just messed around with this myself instead of even starting the thread in the first place - I mean, c'mon, there's only 5-6 total files on the boot floppy.  I tried moving more off the floppy to the HDD but it seems like Autoexec.bat, Command.com, Io.sys, & Msdos.sys need to stay on the floppy.  I can live with that, just getting Ghost off speeds it up enormously.

I have 2 additional but unrelated questions regarding Ghost boot floppies in general.

1. SET TZ=GHO+05:00

I've seen that in some autoexec.bats.  What the heck does it do/mean?

2. The boot floppy the Boot Wizard makes creates a separate Ghost folder with the executable in it, thereby requiring the line 'CD Ghost' in the autoexec.bat. What's the purpose of doing that as opposed to just having all the files together in one place?

Thanks.

I kinda figured my first question was related to timezone stuff but I couldn't figure out why it would need to be included in an autoexec.bat entry.

C man,
The only thing limiting you to how you use Ghost 2003 is your own imagination.

Everything you said about booting from a FD and then running Ghost from your D: drive, is absolutely do'able.  But hey, why even bother with the slow boot from the FD at all?

I used to have only my trusy old Ghost boot floppy and of course it worked like a champ, but wait.....I also run a bunch of batch files from that disk too,,,,,,to clean up all the junk from my HD before I actually run Ghost.  Those batch files have to go back to the floppy for every line they run.  That process seems to just drag on forever.  

So the next step was to get my floppy copied onto a CD for much faster program/batch file execution.  That works great!!!
The only drawback is that I can't edit the files on my CD.  I have to do all my updating and editing on the old floppy and then burn a new CD (Nero does this just fine).

The next step was to get my Ghost boot floppy onto a Flash Drive.
HP wrote a great little program that takes a boot floppy and copies it to a Flash Drive, making it bootable.  I now have several Flash Drives set up to boot to Ghost.  Your mobo needs to be able to boot from a USB device in order for this to work for you.  It's almost as fast as running the programs off'n a HD.
And, if you want to edit a file, or add a file, that's really easy with the flash drive.

Relying on running Ghost off'n a HD, is very iffy at best.  What happens when the HD squalls, balls and smokes?  You wouldn't want your latest Ghost backup file(s) on that HD either.

I do use the HD to HD format for a Quickie backup which I do several times a week, but for a permanent Ghost Image I let Ghost burn the Image to a DVD and put my floppy info on the DVD making it bootable.  Now, THAT's A BACKUP!!!!

Ghost 2003, being designed to run from a floppy disk, won't even offer to take the boot info from a CD or other source, when you want to make a bootable DVD.  If the "Ghost.exe" file is not in its own Ghost folder on the A: drive, the process won't work.
Ghost will still write the data files to the DVD, but there will be NO boot info. included.

For bona fide Ghost owners, I will share a copy of my own Ghost boot disk with all the cleanup batch files, etc.
here's the Ansi Color Menu from my Ghost 2003 boot disk:

1.  Run Ghost to make a new image. (Windows XP Only)
       This program will delete all temp files, cookies, histories, etc.
       The Cleanup works only on a FAT-32 partition.

   2.  Run Ghost
       This program runs Ghost alone, with NO cleanup being done.
       Use this version to do Ghost Restores or Ghost image without cleanup.
       You must use this option on any NTFS partition.

   3.  Run Ghost on Windows 98 or ME (del the Swapfile and all temp's, etc.)
 
   4.  Delete all Restore points (Windows XP. Works on FAT-32 partition only)

   5.  Delete Windows "Pagefile" (Windows XP. Works on FAT-32 partitions only)

   6.  Remove all the old Restore files in Windows ME.

  (Revised 12-17-06)
  Type in a number at the DOS Prompt and press ENTER.

*******************************
As you can see from this menu, this disk will run Ghost 2003 on any M$ OS from DOS to Windows XP.

By running a thorough cleanup on my HD before running Ghost, I save about 2 gigs of space in my Ghost Image files.
(having my HD's all in FAT-32 mode, makes all this possible.)

Good Luck and Happy New Year,
The Doctor  8)