bainwave

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*.gho* files are Ghost image files that are created by the DOS based version of Ghost--so I moved your topic here.

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But, your question is actually not a *Ghost* question--but how to use an optical drive and optical disc in Windows!

There are commercial programs by Nero and Roxio that are optical disc *authoring* programs where you select the *source* file, in your case the 635 MB xxx.gho file, and then *Add* that to the the *destination* dialog box that represents the optical disc you want to write it to.  You then press *Record* and it should be copied to the optical disc.

You can get optical CDs that are 650 MB or 700 MB in size--looks like you should use a 700 MB disc.

There are also *freeware* or *shareware* trial versions of optical disc *authoring* programs that will do this as well.

Or, ... are you asking how to do something else with that Ghost file ... ?

bainwave

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So...I was right!  You do want to do more than what you originally stated!!!

I always marvel at how such a short sentence--I think I counted 21 words in that highlighted section above--would require such a huge number of words to answer such a *simple* request!!!

In very general terms--do you have the DOS *ghost.exe* program that created that *.gho* file?  That's the most basic requirement.  Any *ghost.exe* version and build that is newer than the *ghost.exe* program that created that *.gho* file should work.  But, a *ghost.exe* program that is older than the one that created that *.gho* file might not--as newer versions of Ghost are created, the file structure of the *.gho* changes, and older *ghost.exe* version may not work.

Then, you have to build a floppy DOS boot disk (or its equivalent if you do not have a floppy drive to work with--see this guide:  Creating Bootable CD/DVD's Without A:\Floppy Drive).  Most optical disc authoring programs offer to make a bootable optical disc by reading from a boot floppy disk in a floppy drive--so it's probably  the easiest way and a cheap investment to at least get an external USB floppy drive to work with.

You can download DOS boot floppy disks or from here:  Allbootdisks.com.  You could download the Win98se OEM floppy boot disk, have the downloaded *.exe* file create the floppy disk in the USB floppy drive, and then use that DOS boot disk as the source for the boot files to be added to the hidden boot sector of the bootable optical disc that you are making.

At the very least the DOS boot disk will have to load the basic DOS OS files and at least the DOS optical drive drivers so DOS assigns a DOS drive letter to the optical drive and can access and read files from an optical disc once booted to DOS.

The hidden boot sector of a bootable optical disc has a size limit of 1.44 MB--the same size as a standard floppy disk size.  Depending on how many boot files you have added, the *ghost.exe* program may or may not fit on the remaining space of the 1.44 MB disk.  If it does not fit, then you have to save a copy of the *ghost.exe* program on the data portion of the optical disc--using the same process I mentioned in my previous post. 

And, along with the *ghost.exe* file, if it's on that data portion of the optical disc, you would also place the *.gho* file to be saved to that data portion of the disc as well.

Then when you boot to DOS using that optical disc, you would change from the A:\ prompt to the drive letter that was assigned to the optical drive during boot--watch carefully and you will see what letter it is.  You type that drive letter followed by a colon and press enter:

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where *x* is the optical drive.

Then type:

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This will load the Ghost program.  Then you would locate the Ghost image file *xxxx.gho* on the optic disc as the *source* file, and proceed to do a *Local > Disk >From Image* restore.

But....

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That might be difficult.  If your Ghost image file (.gho) is an image of a OS that has been already installed on a previous system, then it has already gone through the process of discovering all the details of the hardware that it was originally installed to--this information is *set* in the registry of the OS and the various drivers are *linked* to that specific hardware.  Typically, a *new machine* is not exactly the same as the original source machine--and the newly restored OS from a different source machine will typically fail to boot and operate because none of the settings and drivers match up with the new hardware!!!

Now, the big corporate builders of computers will create a special Ghost image that has been *SysPrepped*--this is a special base image that has the ability to act like it has just been newly installed like installing from an Windows OS installation CD--it will go through the discovery and setting up of the necessary drivers in a similar manner to what the installation procedure does--so the system has all the needed matching settings and drivers for the hardware that it found.

But, just an image of an installed OS will not go through that discovery process.  You basically can only use that image to restore it to the same HDD or a replacement HDD of similar type that is placed into the same system that the old HDD was removed from and is being replaced.

You can read a lot more about this issue in this long thread:  Ghost image and STOLEN computer - please CLARIFY.