Norton ghost Qs

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RancidWAnnaRIot

EspantaPajaros
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Messages
11,033
Hello,

So i finally decided how to back up my stuff.. i'm gonna go with norton ghost.. but i have a few Qs.

is the lastest version of ghost 2003? cause that seems to be all i can find.. also.. I don't have a DVD writer. How much drive space can i back up with CDs???

how would i back up my drive with CDs.. i mean how much can possibly fit?

thanks
 
I found system works which includes norton ghost for like really damn cheap on ebay... what do you guys think?
 
I'm personally a fan of g4u.

It's a free unix-based utility, that works over a network (via FTP) rather than using media such as CD or DVD.

You can, however, easily put the image on a CD or DVD after you've transferred it to the remote computer.

http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/
 
1. Never buy software off ebay unless the seller is a computer business and has several hundred positive feedback, and is selling it in original packaging.
2. Ghost is incredibly easy and powerful. For a backup noob, I'd recommend it over g4u, especially since you can explore ghost images as if they were a FS from ghost under windows.
3. A CD holds 700MB. Ghost will compress. How well depends on the makeup of the files on your harddrive. Note that pics, video, and music do not compress.
 
Does norton ghost let you span an image across multiple CDs???

THanks for the ebay tip.. i was just trying to find a good deal... but i guess i'll just end up paying the $60 - $70 for it..
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
Does norton ghost let you span an image across multiple CDs???

THanks for the ebay tip.. i was just trying to find a good deal... but i guess i'll just end up paying the $60 - $70 for it..
Click to expand...


YES.
 
I bought the deal off of Ebay and it was fine. If a seller has a good rep there is generally no problems as they don't want negative feedback. Think I got mine for $5 + shipping.

If you can back your stuff up to another drive or even through the network it is easier, but spanning onto multiple cd's works well too.
 
sorry.. this is my last question.. can it back up on CD-RWs, or just CD-Rs??!?!

Thanks a lot for the replies :D :)
 
Yes and if I'm not wrong it will span them also since you can set the image size.
 
RancidWAnnaRIot said:
sorry.. this is my last question.. can it back up on CD-RWs, or just CD-Rs??!?!
Click to expand...
It will allow either. You can even mix DVD and CD. The way it works is it will continue to ask for writable media every time it fills a disc. Insert any blank media and it will continue until its full.
 
Are there any Free Ghost programs out there to download? Also wut exaclty is Ghost and how does it work?
 
Falcon said:
Are there any Free Ghost programs out there to download? Also wut exaclty is Ghost and how does it work?
Click to expand...

Norton Ghost is a program made by Symantec (makers of Norton Antivirus). It makes an "Image" of your hard drive. Basicially this is an entire copy of every single little thing on your hard drive. What it allows you to do is restore your entire system if for example a hard drive dies, you hose your OS by messing with a driver or something strange like a virus etc.

Here is the product listed on the Symantec website. Have a look. They offer a brief description there.
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

It's an extremely useful tool if you want to do a quick restore. It's much quicker to restore a system from a ghost image than to re-install the operating system, updates, drivers and software etc. A very convenient tool.
 
g4u is a free ghost program.

If you have a conscience, as well as would like to save money (I personally don't see how a little more convenience justfies buying expensive Norton software).

g4u is *nix based, and you can find it on the Ultimate Boot CD, just google for it.

How g4u works is it copies and compresses (using gzip) bit by bit the entire partition or hard drive you tell it to, and sends it via FTP to another computer (usually on LAN).

It is very well documented, and read the entire documentation first.

Best of all.. it's free. And either way, the Ultimate Boot CD is an invaluable resource, and a must for any computer user to have.

I wouldn't spend money on software that something free can do just as well.
 
Since we are on the subject of Ghost, I have a quick question. Can Ghost backup to a windows share or an ftp instead of removable media?
 
With the ultimate boot cd i burned the .iso file on a cd usin nero is that all i have to do?
 
CaptRR said:
Since we are on the subject of Ghost, I have a quick question. Can Ghost backup to a windows share or an ftp instead of removable media?
Click to expand...

I'm not positive about that since I have only used the DOS versions of Ghost and I only backed up to another partition when I used it but if Ghost does it's stuff in windows now as it says then I see no reason why it couldn't back up to a windows share. Just tell it to put the image there. If it doesn't pick up the windows share, try mapping the drive and then it would have to work I would think.
 
Falcon said:
With the ultimate boot cd i burned the .iso file on a cd usin nero is that all i have to do?
Click to expand...

That is correct. Then you reboot your computer, and go into your BIOS settings (hit delete or F2 or whatever to get into setup when your computer starts up) and set the Boot Order to CDROM first.

Pop in the CD rom.. then use the menu.

g4u is a command line interface, so if you're not comfortable with it, read the documentation thoroughly.
 
I did all that and it didnt give me the menu. Wut do u think im doin wrong?
 
I know here at work we've got a customized ghost boot cd that we use that has some free TCP/IP for DOS utilities that will do just that

Canon said:
I'm not positive about that since I have only used the DOS versions of Ghost and I only backed up to another partition when I used it but if Ghost does it's stuff in windows now as it says then I see no reason why it couldn't back up to a windows share. Just tell it to put the image there. If it doesn't pick up the windows share, try mapping the drive and then it would have to work I would think.
Click to expand...
 
Falcon said:
I did all that and it didnt give me the menu. Wut do u think im doin wrong?
Click to expand...


Have you ever booted your system off a CD before? If so, perhaps you used bad media. I know for a fact that with certain drives it won't let you boot into bad (cheap) CD-Rs.
 
Kelvie said:
Have you ever booted your system off a CD before?QUOTE]

Yes, i tried to boot my XP cd and it worked so i must be doin something wrong when i either burn the image or somethin else. Although i have found that when i download the .iso for the Ultimate Boot CD it automatically changes it to an Easy CD Creator image file. i duno if that makes a difference or not.
Click to expand...
 
Falcon said:
Kelvie said:
Have you ever booted your system off a CD before?QUOTE]

Yes, i tried to boot my XP cd and it worked so i must be doin something wrong when i either burn the image or somethin else. Although i have found that when i download the .iso for the Ultimate Boot CD it automatically changes it to an Easy CD Creator image file. i duno if that makes a difference or not.
Click to expand...

Yeah, programs like Easy CD Creator usually associate themselves with ISO files,so that's normal.

I'm not quite sure then.. it should work.
Click to expand...
 
Falcon said:
With the ultimate boot cd i burned the .iso file on a cd usin nero is that all i have to do?
Click to expand...
Those "Ultimate Boot CDs" can be unreliable (they are pirate blends of utilities), but still should boot from the CD as with any other bootable disc. Provided you burned it from an ISO, the boot information is present, and all that is needed to ensure proper functionality is a boot order placing the CDROM above the hard drive (typically called HDD or HDD0). It should be working, provided the disc is not error-filled. This is one reason to buy genuine Symantec software.
 
Try burning the image with burnatonce

Edit: Did you check the md5? 2a9c89f9129596d8a21300b831bc10f1 if you downloaded the *.exe, 10db8f4df5f44caa0af3ed8c83bad682 for the extracted *.iso

Falcon said:
With the ultimate boot cd i burned the .iso file on a cd usin nero is that all i have to do?
Click to expand...

You did use "Recorder > Burn Image" (Nero 6.x) or "File > Burn Image" (Nero 5.x) I trust?
 
M11 said:
Those "Ultimate Boot CDs" can be unreliable (they are pirate blends of utilities), but still should boot from the CD as with any other bootable disc. This is one reason to buy genuine Symantec software.
Click to expand...

You seem to suggesting that the Ultimate Boot CD contains less than legal or non-free components. It is reliable and there isn't any shady integration of non-free tools. g4u isn't as flexible as Ghost in a Windows environment but is very much so in a heterogenous computing scenario.
 
Ok i got it to boot. Now i have to upload it onto an FTP Server. Where can i find one and how would i upload the disk image onto it?
 
Falcon said:
Ok i got it to boot. Now i have to upload it onto an FTP Server. Where can i find one and how would i upload the disk image onto it?
Click to expand...
Well, your disk image will be so large that assuming you're not on a T3, will be impossible to upload over the internet due to its immense size causing time constraints. Thats assuming you find an FTP that will accept gigabytes of data from anonymous users (not a reality). You'd be lucky to find such an FTP, and even then, why would you want to send a disk image of your system to a random stranger on the internet? They could then access anything that was on your system at the time of ghosting. Your best bet is to set up an FTP server on your LAN and send the image to it. Look into the IIS FTP built into XP Pro or Cerebrus FTP to provide such functionality.
 
Create an account with the username "install" in it.

Then follow the g4u's documentation. It's pretty straightforward given you read the documentation.

Oh yeah, did you defrag and zero the drive first? It saves a lot of space for the archive (it's in the documentation).
 
Using Symantec Ghost 8 Corp I got images that were about 50% the size of the original disk/partition. I'm not sure if Norton Ghost has TCP/IP abilities like Symantec does but if it does I'd use that to dump the image on another computer. Symantec is the corporate version of Norton Ghost. I think it's an extremely badass program. The one stupid thing I found was that although you can create bootable ghost discs by copying to files from the boot floppies to the dvd that you dumped the image on, it still requires that you have disc 2 to boot off the cd/dvd.
 
Ghost can do whatever you want and more, no reason to fiddle with anything else imo. Transfer over networks, directly to cd, pc to pc, over usb. Pretty much whatever you want.
 
i just got ghost for $7 shipped!!!!!!!... haven't been abl to try it out yet.. till i get back to my apartment
 
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