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One step recovery using Norton Ghost (Read 56989 times)
K Singh
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One step recovery using Norton Ghost
May 19th, 2008 at 1:58pm
 
Hi Folks
I have created a user guide to create One step recovery guide which would be similar to IBM and Dell recovery software using Ghost in DOS mode.

The manual doesn't fit in this text column hence i have uploaded it to {URL Deleted}.

I would request the administrator to provide some space on the forum where i can upload the document explaining the process.

I have few doubts and queries myself which are mentioned in the document. Please find time and see if you can solve them up. This would be good to for the community.

As far as Symantec is concerned, i guess they been too lazy to write a decent manual explaining the whole process. I wonder why?

The link to the doument in PDF format is
{URL Deleted}
http://www.esnips.com/web/kaviteshsingh/

Updated the URL with the trial version screenshots.


Feel free to contact me in case you find any mistakes in the manual or if you have other alternate file hosting servers.

Regards
K Singh.

EDIT:  URLs in this post have been deleted by Pleonasm (20 MAY 2008)
 
 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #1 - May 19th, 2008 at 5:42pm
 
Just so we're absolutely clear, where you link to the installer on the esdownload site and say to just extract the software:

Doing this and running Ghost from that archive is in fact illegal. It's piracy. You must have a purchased license for that version of Ghost to legally use it.

I'd be happy to explain more about how to use the tools, but as a Symantec employee it's not at all appropriate to assist with something which instructs people to pirate the software instead of legally buying it.

I do realise that arguing against piracy on the internet is a Quixotic exercise, and I have nothing against Rad and the technical community here, but honestly, this still makes me really sad.
 
 
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K Singh
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #2 - May 19th, 2008 at 9:47pm
 
Hi

I have updated the Document where i link it to the download site. Since i ran the 30-day trial and finished my testing, it was my obligation that i write and give back to this community what i learnt in the process.

As far as piracy is concerned debate is a never ending. Just imagine, i would like to buy the simple ghost executable without all the flings one get in Norton Ghost 14. Because my requirement is just to recreate one backup and restore whenever i want.

The ghost solution which does this work, comes for enterprise. But anyways I am not using nor buying it cauz there are free tools available which can do the job, if not better than Ghost.

I appreciate your help you have provided earlier and hope that you would look into the questions which i had posted on the manual. I would help ease the troubles other people may face.

Regards,
K Singh.

Quote:
Just so we're absolutely clear, where you link to the installer on the esdownload site and say to just extract the software:

Doing this and running Ghost from that archive is in fact illegal. It's piracy. You must have a purchased license for that version of Ghost to legally use it.

I'd be happy to explain more about how to use the tools, but as a Symantec employee it's not at all appropriate to assist with something which instructs people to pirate the software instead of legally buying it.

I do realise that arguing against piracy on the internet is a Quixotic exercise, and I have nothing against Rad and the technical community here, but honestly, this still makes me really sad.

 
 
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Pleonasm
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #3 - May 20th, 2008 at 8:13am
 
Nigel, based upon your comments, I have deleted the URLs provided by Kavitesh Singh, to avoid supporting activity that in any way may be inappropriate.

Kavitesh, I understand that your intentions to help other users are noble, but I also trust that you understand this decision to edit your initial post in this thread.
 

ple • o • nasm n. “The use of more words than are required to express an idea”
 
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K Singh
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #4 - May 20th, 2008 at 11:16am
 
Though i dont challenge the decision of moderators of deleting the URL linked to manual, i have updated the manual removing the links.

If i had any intentions of encouraging piracy of the software, i would not have updated the document immediately upon Nigel's comment.

People who have bought this software would find the manual very useful since symantec never bothered to write about the feature which was present but not widely publicized. The feature is available to all the users with a recovery manual but lacked critical details of implementation.

I am not here to argue over any decisions made by forum moderators but would still request them as well as Nigel to go through manual once again and see if the part which caused this issue has been removed or not.

Incase, still any of the you find its not useful, i chose not to pursue this further.
In case any person on the community would like my assistance over this issue i would be glad to help them. I hope i am allowed to do so.

And clearly i try out softwares for learning purpose. I have made an evaluation request to Acronis and paragon as well to check out there one step recovery. But that is a different story.

When i installed this software, it told me it was 30-day trial with 5 user license. I accepted it and uninstalled after testing. But lets not drag it too long.

I rest the decision to the community.

Thanks.




Pleonasm wrote on May 20th, 2008 at 8:13am:
Nigel, based upon your comments, I have deleted the URLs provided by Kavitesh Singh, to avoid supporting activity that in any way may be inappropriate.

Kavitesh, I understand that your intentions to help other users are noble, but I also trust that you understand this decision to edit your initial post in this thread.

 
 
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Pleonasm
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #5 - May 20th, 2008 at 12:39pm
 
Kavitesh, I did not realize that you edited the PDF in an attempt to correct the problem.  Perhaps you could send a copy of the PDF to Nigel (through a “private message” on this forum) and – if he is will willing to review the document and if his concerns have been addressed – then the URL link to your PDF could again be added to this thread.

Thank you for your understanding and for your cooperation.
 

ple • o • nasm n. “The use of more words than are required to express an idea”
 
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ben_mott
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #6 - May 20th, 2008 at 3:55pm
 
To date the ghost.exe version 7.5 and 8 are still the best Recovery method for OEM .
I explained on 911cd forum (ghost bootable Cd ) 3 or 4 years ago
when  i was still in IT  how to
use it with Bootable Cd/DVD or from a hidden partition
using IBM bootMGR pressing F10 or F11 on power up

at present PC Angle LE seem to be what HP and some others use
on 60% of World PCs .

it is a shame because Ghost was and is still the  best , when others let you down , ghost.exe (630KB !!!) saves the day in DOS mode!!

If you wrote that software you must be congratulated
I do not think any body can write small But powerful software like 
that any more.

regards Ben
Smiley
 
 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #7 - May 20th, 2008 at 8:33pm
 
Pleonasm wrote on May 20th, 2008 at 8:13am:
to avoid supporting activity that in any way may be inappropriate.

Actually, this isn't even the worst; there were about four links provided to illegal copies on Ghost here in the last few weeks - the worst and most blatant being this thread, in which "somms" links in his personal signature to a download which is illegal for anyone without a full license to 2.5 - it's been reported to the esdownload folks who I understand will make that particular one go away, but that one's the one to kill because that kind of direct link represents a more serious legal problem for Rad.

That's, by the way, the most serious concern; what folks need to bear in mind is that if you want to encourage others to do illegal things, you should do it on your own website and not on equipment run and paid for by Rad, because this kind of thing puts him in harm's way (both for direct legal liability, but also for subpoenas for website logs and such). It's disrespectful to him and to the members of the community here to endanger him and the community itself that way.

By the way, I personally wouldn't link to a Win9x or MSDOS boot disk either, not when FreeDOS exists and *is* legal.

Just so it's clear, posting a direct link even to the trialware isn't ethical - you needed to register with Symantec and go through a license agreement to get the trialware and when you register to download it you are provided by e-mail a license key. It's not legal to use any component of those downloads without going through that trialware licensing process - full stop, end of story, no debate.

 
 
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K Singh
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #8 - May 20th, 2008 at 9:45pm
 
Nigel it seems you have not taken considerable time to go through the manual and have been jumping to conclusions.

Saying that i have been linking to Win98 or MS-DOS, just check out the link wwww.bootdisk.com which gives the images which ship with the Win98 setup etc. They dont provide nor endorse in selling DOS or Win98 setups.

And for your kind information, i had installed Free DOS as well for this purpose, but guess what GHOST crashes in that one.
When i run sys C: command it copies bare minimum files to boot the system and doesnt install the setup of win98 or DOS.

It turns out you are in no mood to look into the good part of the manual. But lets bring it all to an end.

We have no further correspondence or argument on this issue. Should any of the community member wants my inputs on the functionality i tested, i would surely help them out.

Pointing to people and saying they are encouraging piracy by adding links to downloads, I ask simple question to you and Symantec. Why did they not block that link when the software is licensed and let anyone download for free. Are they not themselves encouraging it. Think about it and you would understand.

Have a nice day.. And as said no more questions and answers.


Quote:
Pleonasm wrote on May 20th, 2008 at 8:13am:
to avoid supporting activity that in any way may be inappropriate.

Actually, this isn't even the worst; there were about four links provided to illegal copies on Ghost here in the last few weeks - the worst and most blatant being this thread, in which "somms" links in his personal signature to a download which is illegal for anyone without a full license to 2.5 - it's been reported to the esdownload folks who I understand will make that particular one go away, but that one's the one to kill because that kind of direct link represents a more serious legal problem for Rad.

That's, by the way, the most serious concern; what folks need to bear in mind is that if you want to encourage others to do illegal things, you should do it on your own website and not on equipment run and paid for by Rad, because this kind of thing puts him in harm's way (both for direct legal liability, but also for subpoenas for website logs and such). It's disrespectful to him and to the members of the community here to endanger him and the community itself that way.

By the way, I personally wouldn't link to a Win9x or MSDOS boot disk either, not when FreeDOS exists and *is* legal.

Just so it's clear, posting a direct link even to the trialware isn't ethical - you needed to register with Symantec and go through a license agreement to get the trialware and when you register to download it you are provided by e-mail a license key. It's not legal to use any component of those downloads without going through that trialware licensing process - full stop, end of story, no debate.


 
 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #9 - May 20th, 2008 at 9:55pm
 
ben_mott wrote on May 20th, 2008 at 3:55pm:
I do not think any body can write small But powerful software like
that any more

Actually, most of the bloat introduced since then is a consequence of some design decisions made by the same developers of the edition you like so much; the original Ghost codebase was largely pure C, written by purely self-taught developers, with some serious consequent maintainability problems.

The original Ghost was small, but it wasn't designed to be flexible or maintainable - and the folks working on it then swung the pendulum too far the other way by using C++ as a technological "fix", but since they were again learning it largely as they went, they made a number of design mistakes (which, by the way, were mostly pointed out to them at the time) which are responsible for almost all of the growth in the executable size. The newer Ghost versions doesn't have the maintenance problems in the source code that the old one did, but in solving that problem they traded away the ability to make the code small. It's a shame, but overall I think it was still a reasonable tradeoff to make since the things the newer code needs to do are things that would have been effectively impossible to write if Ghost had continued as it was in 7.5/8.0

Writing small code is, as you say, largely a lost art but that's largely a natural thing; writing truly small code requires a great deal of intellectual effort (and quite a bit of time, which equates to money) to do it in a way that doesn't compromise the system's ability to grow and change. It's comparatively easy to write small code to do a small thing, if you don't have to keep adapting it and extending it for over decades - by which stage it's generally no longer attempting to solve a small problem any more!

The people with the kind of talent required to do this are rare in the first place, and in the modern educational environment for students of the engineering arts, the right techniques are rarely taught, and further to that most developers simply don't improve that much over their careers. If you read Joel Spolsky's The Perils of JavaSchools you might get a flavour of the problem, but there is more to it than that: consider also Steve Yegge's (whose blog is top reading, by the way) Being the Averagest.

But to be fair, there's no real incentive for individuals or universities to do better unless you have a hankering to work for Google - they deserve real kudos, by the way, for making engineering talent seem like something worthwhile for engineers to attain and companies to seek, because few other software businesses even bother pretending that developer talent is anything other than an interchangeable, fungible thing. I have no idea whether the reality for most of their developers is particularly inspiring despite what Steve says, but even having that image of developers being important is a good thing in and of itself.
 
 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #10 - May 20th, 2008 at 10:47pm
 
In general Ghost works fine with FreeDOS - QA does test that periodically, and I just ran a clone with it now using the release build from GSS2.5.

We know lots of businesses do use FreeDOS precisely because it is legal, and we definitely intend for Ghost to continue to run on FreeDOS. If a legitimate customer has a problem with Ghost on FreeDOS, report it via technical support or on the official forums and we'll look into it (but please, with some more detail than "it crashed" - we do run it ourselves so if it doesn't work for you then you've done something different to what we do, and figuring out what that difference is matters otherwise we can't reproduce the problem ourselves).

Actually, we'd have loved to have included FreeDOS with the base GSS2.5 distribution as well as PC-DOS, and we regularly discuss it; however, there are some pretty hideous legal and logistical options bundling it because it's something of a patchwork license-wise: see http://www.freedos.org/cgi-bin/lsm.cgi?mode=dir&dir=base just for the base OS, to say nothing of the other parts. Since it's not covered by a single license clearly permitting commercial distribution, for us to bundle it with the product is a compliance nightmare.
 
 
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TheShadow
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #11 - May 21st, 2008 at 6:09pm
 
Nigel,
I've been an ardent admirer of Ghost and those who wrote it since first using it back in (about) 1997.  My boss at that time found a 30 day trial of Ghost on a web site and I simply fell in love with it.  I'd never seen anything like it, and haven't to this day.

I own Ghost 2003 and use the Ghost.exe file from it to make my own Ghost boot disks.  I found that a boot disk made with Windows ME is far superior to some of the alternatives. 
Is there any problem with me doing that for my own use?
I also own my copy of Windows ME.

thanks in advance,
The Shadow  Cool
 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #12 - May 21st, 2008 at 8:34pm
 
TheShadow wrote on May 21st, 2008 at 6:09pm:
Is there any problem with me doing that for my own use?

Check the EULA for Ghost 2003 (I don't have a copy to hand). It has always been the case that a license for Ghost was intended for use with one machine per client license. That was always the basis on which it was sold, although the intent wasn't clear once lawyers got involved - the formal EULA unfortunately is written to deal with US Law and that tends to lead to a lot of obfuscation.

A single copy of Ghost 2003 is for use with a single machine. That's the overall intent. It's also a consumer product not intended for business use, so consumer law applies (and if you're a business, you shouldn't be using it and should be using one of the commercial editions).  It's what happens when machines come and go where this gets complicated.

In practice, what the EULA of the time probably didn't spell out (and remember, those things are written by lawyers, not human beings) was any rules or process for transferring those licenses. In fact, I think the new GSS2.5 EULA is the first time it's been specifically addressed in a clause, although the new EULA still fails to address all kinds of other processes.

This is complicated by quirks of law, some of which are unique to the US. In most countries, there are consumer-protection laws that are quite different from those governing commercial contracts, and each jurisdiction contains unique provisions, many of which don't have any real body of case-law built up for how they apply to software products (and some of which by virtue of being general consumer protections are treated as "rights" that override other laws and can be used to annul other arrangements).

The US in particular has this strange thing called the "First Sale Doctrine". How overarching pieces of legal doctrine like that which control the transfer of license between individuals might affect or be applied to the transfer of licenses from machine to machine I won't speculate, not being trained in U.S. law. Suffice to say it's murky.

Honestly, it's a mess for everyone. For your situation you would have to read the Ghost 2003 EULA and then match it up with the applicable body of consumer law.

Frankly, though, as long as you've been using it just as a home product, I wouldn't worry too much (assume good faith and all that). It's really only use of it for commercial operation that's really a problem, since Ghost 2003 is not and never was sold for commercial use - that's what the commercial editions were for.

Bear in mind that we no longer sell Ghost as a consumer product, only commercially. Different rules apply to commercial products.

What the current EULA says specifically is that once you use Ghost on a machine, that consumes a license until said machine is decommisioned, and decommision is defined in the EULA thus:
Quote:
17.2.2      Permanently Decommissioned is defined as physically deleting all software, including but not limited to, the Licensed Software and all operating systems, from the hard drive(s) of the Device so that the Device is no longer operable or used by You in any capacity.


Now, also bear in mind there exists and has existed for many, many years (back to the Binary days from memory although the contracts back then were probably more bespoke than off-the-rack) VAR licenses, which are different from the regular Ghost licenses. Under this licensing model, you can use ghosteom.exe with a machine for well under a dollar per machine. If you want to use Ghost commercially with multiple machines, this license type has been the right type to get if all you need is the basic disk imaging tool and not anything else in from the full commercial editions.
 
 
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TheShadow
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #13 - May 21st, 2008 at 8:57pm
 
I never install Ghost on a PC.  Period.  With Ghost 2003, that's completely redundant.  "Ghost.exe", the real Ghost, runs best from a boot disk.

Since Symantec will not sell it or support it, that has led many to think of it as Abandonware.  I've seen it on many "Abandonware" sites.
If Symantec still claims to OWN it, then they should also support it with help and updates.  Isn't that only fair? 

It's my feeling and the feeling of millions of other PC users, that EULA's and licenses have gotten completely out of hand.  When a company no longer will support a piece of software, then it should be declared "Public Property" and open to use by anyone wanting to use it.
Likewise DOS and old versions of windows.
Every copyright should have a set timeout period.  Patents do!

Don't worry, you won't find me selling it on a street corner someplace, it's just my personal feelings on the matter.

Thanks for your expert reply.  I do appreciate it.
Cheers Mate!

The Shadow  Cool

 
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Nigel Bree
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Re: One step recovery using Norton Ghost
Reply #14 - May 21st, 2008 at 10:13pm
 
You use it with a machine, that's what counts. Ghost is licensed code, you need to abide by the terms of the license agreement to use it. Full stop. You've put Ghost on a boot disk and run it, the reality, the legal substance, is precisely that you've "installed" it on that boot disk.

TheShadow wrote on May 21st, 2008 at 8:57pm:
Since Symantec will not sell it or support it

Untrue. Ghost is sold and supported in GSS2.x, and you can still buy it. You cannot buy the consumer 2003 version, that is all. If you wish to use current licenses with an older version of the code (i.e, "downgrade rights") I don't know off-hand whether there is a formal policy with respect to that, but for anyone acting in good faith it would be appropriate to do.

We don't sell the single-license consumer product, that is all. Claiming we don't sell or support Ghost is really just a way of saying you don't like the price of the corporate product without being man enough to actually admit that.
 
 
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