Hi,

  I confess that I have never used Ghost, but my office and a number of my friends swear by it for cloning their computer operating system and files.  

  Since I recently had a hard disk failure and had to reformat and reinstall Windows XP Pro and all my software (plus copy most but not all    of my data files), I purchased Ghost 10 (retail version with Ghost 2003 included).  Then I started reading about how Ghost 10 wasn't "really" Ghost of yore.  

The version my office and friends use is the older version 2003.   But Ghost 2003 seems to be an all or nothing proposition, which doesn't make provision for incremental backups and individual file restores.    On the other hand, Ghost 10, does do backups and incremental backus, and individual file restores, but seems to be a challenge if you are restoring an image file to a new drive or cloning a separate HD as a backup.  

  It would seem that if you could have Ghost 10 AND Ghost 2003 installed, you would be fully covered.   BUT, the installation instructions for Ghost 10 say to remove ALL prior versions of Ghost before installing.   If that is really true, why on earth do they include Ghost 2003 with the retail version of Ghost 10?  

     Does anybody have both installed and functioning?  

   One approach I've considered is to install Ghost 2003 to my newly reconfigured computer.   Use Ghost 2003 to clone my system drive to a separate HD.   Remove the "clone" from the computer.  Uninstall Ghost 2003 and install Ghost 10.  Use Ghost 10 for normal backups and incrementals.  If I have another failure, replace the HD with the "clone".  Install Ghost 10, and restore from the Ghost backups.   But that seems to be a stupid way of doing it.  

    Can anyone direct me (novice with Ghost, but fairly knowledgeable with PC's and operating systems) to a step by step procedure for using Ghost 10 to fully backup the System partition that works?

    Thanks much for any advice that you might want to pass on.

LakeH
 

LakeH wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 12:36pm:

There is an alternative approach not yet mentioned, albeit only Pleonasm has reported actual experience.  View the image below to realize that there are indeed "two-sides-of-the-street-to-walk-on"  Actually, with just with your Norton Ghost 10 installation CD alone you have the choice of "walking-on-the-dark-side (hot-imaging)" or "walking-on-the-bright-side (cold-imaging)".   However, to do so satisfactorily you would be wise to restrict yourself to the "(whole)disk-to-image" legacy Norton Ghost Backup procedure with its concomitant "image-to-disk" legacy Ghost Restore whenever "cold-imaging"  

 

To enjoy such flexibility, start off by simply using the NG10 installation CD in booting up into what is called the Windows XP Preinstallation Environment to immediately engage the legacy Backup/Restore "cold-imaging" procedures by following the path

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

and create a "disk-to-image" legacy Norton Ghost Backup image to reside anywhere else other than on your MASTER HDD.  Doing this yields the side benefit of bypassing both USB mass-storage device and - most, if not all - SATA HDD glitches frequently encountered with DOS-dependent Norton Ghost 2003.  In essence, this procedure uses (an alternate name for ) to allow both immediate creation of Ghost Backup images or the converse Restore (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 files created with your Norton Ghost 10.0 software during
"hot-imaging" sesssions.

You could use Norton Ghost 2003 on bootable media to essentially do the same thing, but I have found Ghost Ver 8.2 running in WIN PE to be more robust under deteriorating conditions.  Be sure to perform an Integrity Check on your legacy Ghost Backup image so you can then get started on installing and enjoying Norton Ghost 10.  As an aside, if you really want to get downright fancy, you can even go so far as to incorporate the essential components of the "cold-imaging" Norton Ghost Ver 8.2 while generating a bootable BartPE or Reatogo-X-PE CD to run in the Windows XP Preinstalled Environment (see below).  In the event of a HDD failure or catastrophic viral attack, this is indeed a handy item to have to start down the road to recovery.

LakeH wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 12:36pm:

LakeH,

As others have pointed out, you can install Ghost 10 and run it from Windows to create full and incremental recovery points. You can use Ghost 2003 from DOS to create alternative backup images. So you can use both apps but both can't be installed in Windows at the same time.

LakeH wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 3:25pm:

A legacy Backup Image for sure, and I think it is possible to legacy Clone as well.  However, I try to dissuade folks away from cloning except under very limited circumstances.    

LakeH wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 3:25pm:

As stated above and back upstream, both legacy Ghost Backup and Ghost Restore procedures are definitely permitted with NG10 (whereas NG9 only permits the legacy Restore procedure), but I remain somewhat hazy about performing a legacy Ghost Clone procedure.



BTW  Strike the 'Quote' radio button in the upper right quadrant of my post to reveal such techniques.  I always 'Cut-and-Paste' the entire body of text and graphics to a temporary Notepad file for use while constructing a subsequent post.

Quote:


I'm almost embarrassed to ask (since this is my forum) .. but HOW do you do that? (include the "quote from" part) 

John. wrote on Apr 3^rd, 2007 at 5:05pm:


Hey, hey. Cool.

Thanks John.