Ghost 9.0 setup image

M

Mayhem33

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Oct 12, 2004
Messages
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I am wondering if anyone here has Ghost 9.0. I want to get a complete HD image with XP Pro / SP2 and all the other progs I like on cd/dvd to use as a setup disk or disks.

I have no experience with this so any help would be appreciated!

I would like to use this as a basic installation setup for any boxes I put together.
:D


 
That's messy. Ghost is a licensed program, so in theory you need a license for any machine build with a Ghost image. Also, you do have limits on what hardware types will take what XP image. For this you could cheat and set most any boxen to "standard" HAL and the image -should- lay onto most any other boxen using Sysprep. Then is comes down to your driver's but loading a NIC driver is way quicker than laying on XP.

I have ran across Ghost on peoples boot cd's, not sure how legal that is.

My guess is most folks would tell you to use a Linex boot Cd of something of that nature.

Marty
 
Linux! Linux linux linux!

You get the idea. Why are you using windows at all? Not trying to n00b-bash you, just questioning. Ghost isn't free, neither is XP ( :rolleyes: ), Linux is. I'll have an ISO up on the 8th or thereabouts.
 
Mage- Can you include VNC or something of that nature? I've got some 400's P2 which if I get them back together they can do the WU.

Marty
 
what do you need vnc for? the server, as well as the boxen themselves, are reachable by ssh (look up PuTTY). The boxen aren't running a graphical interface, so VNC wouldn't work. I could throw VNC on the server, tho.
 
The boxes I am talking about are mine and I am unfamillar with Linux. I have never used it, only windows.
By the NIC driver your are talking about installing from a drive image via network. If that is the case then what is the difference if it located on a cd?
 
^^^^^^

Linux noob.

Forgot no GUI. Well I'll just kick the boxen if it don't look like it's working. Inculde some porn tho to make up for the GUI ok?

Marty
 
There's a gui on the server, and there's a web interface to show you progress that's accessible from anywhere on the network.

I think 55MB is big enough already. Porn takes bandwidth, and that's in short supply around my house. :D

Since vncserver only takes 868 K, I guess I'll toss that in anyways. Enjoy.
 
marty9876 said:
^^^^^^

Linux noob.

Forgot no GUI. Well I'll just kick the boxen if it don't look like it's working. Inculde some porn tho to make up for the GUI ok?

Marty
Click to expand...

Nice Marty, thaks for your input. :(
 
Mayhem33 said:
By the NIC driver your are talking about installing from a drive image via network. If that is the case then what is the difference if it located on a cd?
Click to expand...
I think what he's taking about is that you have to get the machine networking right to have it fold right. That would involve NIC drivers.

Chill, fellas :)
 
Mayhem33- dude sorry. Those arrows were suspota point at me, I don't know crap about Linux. Also we posted at the same time, so yea it looks real bad.

Hey, we both can learn some Linux stuff. The price is right, free.

Marty
 
marty9876 said:
Mayhem33- dude sorry. Those arrows were suspota point at me, I don't know crap about Linux. Also we posted at the same time, so yea it looks real bad.

Hey, we both can learn some Linux stuff. The price is right, free.

Marty
Click to expand...

No problem Marty, and it is not that I am set against linux just new to it
 
marty9876 said:
That's messy. Ghost is a licensed program, so in theory you need a license for any machine build with a Ghost image.
Click to expand...

I use ghost at work all the time, and this is how our licence works (though it is admittedly for ghost 8.0): the number of licenses that a person has dictates the number of machines they can ghost at a single time. For example: if you have 4 ghost licenses, you can ghost up to 4 machines at once. You do not need to have a ghost license for every single machine that you have ghosted, but simply cannot ghost more computers at once then you have licenses. Hope that that clarifies the situation a little!
 
I've got the newest home(2003?) and enterprise versions(9.0 i think), I've really only used the enterprise but my understanding is- any machine created with Ghost/Ghost has ever touched in any way- needs a licenses. I'm pretty sure on this one since I had to ask my boss for +$3k to switch from an old Drive Image 2002 cloning util.

Mayhem- Let me/us know if you have any questions on this. Personally if you only have 1-2 boxen to do this on, I'd just to a painful straight XP load. Also, if it's different hardware your going onto from the source image, this really makes things more complex.

In a perfect world, someone here could make a cd which we could just pop in and fold under Linux, that would be sweet. If the box was only for folding, you could save the ~$150.00/per bucks on XP and buy another boxen.... :D

Marty
 
marty9876 said:
I've got the newest home(2003?) and enterprise versions(9.0 i think), I've really only used the enterprise but my understanding is- any machine created with Ghost/Ghost has ever touched in any way- needs a licenses. I'm pretty sure on this one since I had to ask my boss for +$3k to switch from an old Drive Image 2002 cloning util.

Mayhem- Let me/us know if you have any questions on this. Personally if you only have 1-2 boxen to do this on, I'd just to a painful straight XP load. Also, if it's different hardware your going onto from the source image, this really makes things more complex.

In a perfect world, someone here could make a cd which we could just pop in and fold under Linux, that would be sweet. If the box was only for folding, you could save the ~$150.00/per bucks on XP and buy another boxen.... :D

Marty
Click to expand...


Part of the reason I was wanting to try this is just for the experience. I slipsteamed SP2 into my XP out of the same reason.

I also play some games on my rig and the wifes is also used for internet and games office stuff. So I use XP more for compatabillity than anything else.

I have seen store bought pc's (crap) that came with the entire software package on cd, and I wiped and i restored them, they used ghost to make the discs. The install that way was very quich and painless. That is why I was wanting to learn to use it.


 
I downloaded but have never used sysprep. It does sound like an interesting tool to handle installations such as this.
Another program for me to play with and learn.



 
Learning is always good. Two things- using sysprep you need to create an image of the source under dos and not from inside windows. Booting form a floppie/cd what not, you can't do this from windows.

Also, using you slipstream CD might be problematic, I don't know. Sysprep is very version speific. Microsoft has a version for all service packs ect. I think. I started with XP Pro SP1, installed SP2 and all my apps, then syspepped it and IIS was flat out gone. I had to start with SP2 and go from there. Also I don't know if you can sysprep a retail version of XP, I've only done this with OEM/VLK version.

In one of the forums here there is a sticky "upgrading you motherboard" is the start of the title. Good thread on sysprepping.

I did basically this same thing last week to gat a bunch of boxen folding. What I did is in a thread around here.

Load up XP, install all patches, run disk clean up and include all but recent restore points. Defrag hard disk. Copy the sysprep files onto the source drive, c:\sysprep. Run the setupmgr.exe (?), this makes a neat sysprep.inf file. Somewhere on the net, I have this at work, is a dead XP activation key you can use in the script. Basically the sysprep.inf file answers all the questions you have on a XP install (way cool). COPY THIS FILE to someplace else before you sysprep the source box. All files in the c:\sysprep directory will be deleted.

Run sysprep, I generally use the GUI and not command line switches. Reseal (-reseal), Use mini setup (-mini I think). You might need the "reinitlize (sp?) Plug and Play devices (-pnp). Also look into the -bmsd switch to see if you need to build up the mass storage device list. And then you can go onto injecting all the drivers into the sysprep.inf (their locations) for you various hardware devices.

When you run sysprep it will turn off your machine. DON"T turn it on with out booting from a floppie/CD. At this point you need to boot off a floppy or CD. Snap you image and your done.

Next time you boot from you source harddisk, and all systems you lay this image on, XP will boot up and look like a machine you buy new. It's real cool... :)

Sysprep kills all user passwords (scheduled tasks ect.), some/most/all user preferances, I think it also wipes out the users files under my docs.

Good luck!

Marty
 
marty9876 said:
Also, using you slipstream CD might be problematic, I don't know. Sysprep is very version speific. Microsoft has a version for all service packs ect. I think. I started with XP Pro SP1, installed SP2 and all my apps, then syspepped it and IIS was flat out gone. I had to start with SP2 and go from there. Also I don't know if you can sysprep a retail version of XP, I've only done this with OEM/VLK version.
Marty
Click to expand...

Yes I believe you are correct on the speciffic version of sysprep. I downloaded it from Microsoft's IT site.
So I will have to reformat and get it set up with all the software I want on this disc before I make the ghost image, right?

Good info Marty, thanks!
 
I'm not sure. 1st off, using a retail XP might not work flat out, I don't know (or which version your working with).

First thing for kicks would be to grab an extra harddisk and just image your OS to the new harddisk. Then boot that harddisk and see if you can sysprep it. XP won't complain too much on this. Usually it just whines and wants a reboot. Sometimes in XP you make too many changes you will have to re activate it.

Starting with SP1, installing SP2 in windows will cause problems. Slipstream I don't know. Dooing all this under SP1, then having to install SP2 on all your boxes after you lay the SP1 image on them would really suck. All I can say for sure is IIS totally disaperears doing the SP1>SP2>sysprep deal. If you not using IIS, this won't matter to you. Or just uninstall it and reinstall it, in my sisitutation this was not gonna work.

I in no way want to tell you to start reformating you system. I do all my "testing", ok major goof ups, on test systems. All you really need is a spare hard disk to play around with. Install the slipstream SP2 on a spare drive and try to sysprep it is my guess, or just image your current OS onto the second drive.

Tip: Use different size drives. If you try and image your existing OS onto a blank drive, and go the wrong way, you end up with two blank drives. Been there, done that.

Marty
 
Marty

Restoring an image of a blank drive---COOL! :rolleyes:
I have 2 disks in my main rig so that is an option. I also have a folding rig to beat on (no work, try bigger hammer) :D so I can play around and tear up to much.
My goal is to have a good basic install image, you know office, acrobat, photoshop those types of things. There is nothing wrong with my rig now just want to try it.
One thing I have noticed is XP Pro works better by going to SP2 vs SP1 and then SP2.
Dont know why but boot times are better and it feels/ handles better by going straight to SP2.
Have you noticed this or tried it? Maybe its just me!! :eek:


 
I have a question about ghost. Since you guys have used it, figured I'd ask. I bought Drive Image 7 last year, before norton bought out powerquest. It works great for porting across RAID controllers. Have any of you tried Ghost on RAID arrays? The last time I bothered visiting the norton site, they wanted enterprise level, read very expensive, liscense to handle RAID controllers.
 
Leadman584 said:
I have a question about ghost. Since you guys have used it, figured I'd ask. I bought Drive Image 7 last year, before norton bought out powerquest. It works great for porting across RAID controllers. Have any of you tried Ghost on RAID arrays? The last time I bothered visiting the norton site, they wanted enterprise level, read very expensive, liscense to handle RAID controllers.
Click to expand...

Hey Leadman,
Actually I haven't really used it I mean I used some factory recovery discs that were made using ghost but I haven't made any images myself. Here is a noob ghost lesson that I am
thinking about trying out.

Noob Ghost Lesson

As I read through this last night I think I saw something about how to deal with raid
arrays.
Give it a whirl, thats what i'll do. I think you can get a demo download to try it out.
Good luck!


 
I have not tried RAID's yet. I know there is a bunck on info in the doc's abou them, it just does't pertian to what I'm doing so have not messed with it.

From what I can tell, Ghost/Power Quest does a good job at being backwards compatible. You can do the same as the older version, with more possiilites with the newer.

Marty
 
Hmmm, it's possible to do something similar with winnt.sif, and I did so. I got SP2, raid/sata drivers for 3112, and all that stuff in, and it automatically enters my license and skips some other useless stuff.

And now I use exclusively Linux, which skips that stuff anyways. Go figure. It took me HOW long to get that working?

marty9876 - when using arrows to indicate self, make them go <- that way. Less confusion.
 
Leadman584 said:
I have a question about ghost. Since you guys have used it, figured I'd ask. I bought Drive Image 7 last year, before norton bought out powerquest. It works great for porting across RAID controllers. Have any of you tried Ghost on RAID arrays? The last time I bothered visiting the norton site, they wanted enterprise level, read very expensive, liscense to handle RAID controllers.
Click to expand...
I have used it with my RAID0 setup. Backed up and restored. The restore with Ghost 9.0 works by booting off the Ghost CD and having your RAID drivers ready on a floppy disk. Press F6 at the right time and insert the floppy. Everything worked great.
 
Exact same procedure for Drive Image 7. I was asking because I ported an OS on a Fastrac RAID5 controller, to the SiI 3114 controller in RAID0. Wanted to put it on ICH5R controller, but I had problems, many problems. Thought it a limitation of the program. Not. After trying for 5 days, Abit site came back online. Imagine that a Taiwan based company having network problems. Couldn't have anything to do with a tsunami. Anywho, got a new bios revision for my IC7MAX3 dated Dec. 27. Flashed the bios, and all the RAID controllers, even the PCI based one decide to play nice together, for once :D . Cleaning the drives now.

Getting pretty nice data transfer rates with the 3114, but the Intel channel is purported to be much faster, especially with Intel RAID App Accel. Encoding/Educational/Folding box. Been running 600 pointers under 51 1/2 Hrs. for awhile, even though the Fastrac card was using 19% cpu. I'd love to run these suckers in 48 HRs. or less.
 
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