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Norton Ghost 2003 - an Underappreciated Backup and Spyware Protection Tool

News Introduction Recommended Links Recommended Papers Ghost 2003 menu options References FAQs Using in Spyware Removal
Windows Filesystems Recovery Filesystems Internals Disk Partitioning Dual Boot Working with disk images Alternatives Discounted Norton Ghost Using dual boot for recovery
Spyware Antispyware Tools Spyware Removal Disk Backup Tips History Humor Etc

For the discussion of the history of this program and its capabilities see the article:  Nikolai Bezroukov A Slightly Skeptical View on Norton Ghost.

Norton Ghost 2003 and earlier version of this abandoned by Symantec program is a  fast, versatile DOS utility for copying disks and partitions similar to Unix dd but much more capable. Symantec run it into the ground like it did with many other acquired products (Norton Utilities, PC Tools, etc). Excessive commercialization dictates annual updates and with no new ideas those "stupid" updates gradually destroys the appeal of the original program and this GUI madness is more pronounced in versions after 10.  If you are using XP simply save your money and use iether Notron 2003 or free Linux-based SystemRescueCd

Since sector-by-sector image-based backup only copies raw data, usually backups made using this method have "all-or-nothing" property: they cannot be used for the restoration of a single file or directory. But in case of Norton Ghost this is not true.  Advanced utilities like Norton Ghost permit to mount a partition image as a logical drive and can recover a single file from within the image-based backup. 

That provides unique capabilities that are far beyond the capabilities of  Unix dd and similar primitive image tools:

Recently Norton Ghost emerged as a powerful anti-spyware tool. See Softpanorama Strategy of Fighting Spyware

Recently Norton Ghost emerged as a powerful anti-spyware tool. See Softpanorama Strategy of Fighting Spyware. This is especially important for computers from vendors that does not supply "factory install image" on a special partition of the harddrive (HP and IBM PCs have such partitions and a special software to restore them).

Note: Older versions of Norton Ghost (2003 and earlier) cost almost nothing and are still quite capable for users with regular desktops (less so for laptops). With the current double layer  DVD technology there is a possibility to write an image of C drive on one double layer DVD.  

It makes a perfect backup solution: you can create a compressed image of the disk partition and then burn to DVD each week.  In most cases "clean" image of the boot drive (usually around 10-12G for a typical Windows XP installation) can be compressed by Ghost into the image that is 7-9G.  Absence of a set of  "recovery" Ghost images can be considered as one of the most dangerous mistakes any PC user can make and can cost many hours of troubleshooting even if you know windows reasonably well. 

What is very important is that during restore of the partition Norton Ghost automatically adjust the restore process for disk parameters of the target disk, so within some reasonable range you can use a different size of partition or disk for a target than you used for the backup. This feature is extremely convenient for disk upgrades. For example if you changed 20G drive to 40G drive on your laptop during the restoration of the original disk image GHOST will proportionally increases each partition so that they fill entire 40G. Moreover after such upgrade you usually will not have any problems with installed applications and do not need to re-register them. Differences covered by Ghost and similar programs include a difference in the size, number of heads, number of tracks per cylinder, or even the numbers or size of the sectors in a given track.

Please note that for restoration of the image you need to know registration number that is created during each installation of Ghost 2003. Ghost 2003 itself it not copy protected; also it works both for servers and workstation the feat that some commercial alternatives like Acronis True Image  were never able to replicate (they want more money for the server and I can kind of understand them :-).

You need to write down and save the registration number as without it image is useless.  I recommend storing it with the image. You can also write create a floppy with Ghost and write it on CD/DVD as it will have the same installation number as Windows version you used to created the Ghost image.

In case you need to create a backup on CD/DVD the right way is to use Norton Ghost 2003 not some semi-debugged half-baked programs like Nero backup: with the latter you face real (I would repeat it -- real!!! ) risk not being able to restore the data (unless you perform testing beforehand).

Ghost 2003 is much better then many similar (often half-baked) commercial partition backup programs like partition backup option in Nero Backup. In the latter case you might be deeply disappointed if you have disks other then IDE when you need to restore the partition. I was ;-)

If you copied images to CD or DVD please write down the installation number on it so that you can restore it without problems. alternative is to include the copy of ghost executable itself on the CD or DVD (it is a stand alone program).

The speed of Norton Ghost 2003 in disk-to-disk operation is really amazing:

For comparison to create a RAR archive for the 4G partition takes over an hour on the same computer.  Just to copy image of drive C: from harddrive to another (two different physical drives) takes more then 20 min. For this reason I still feel more comfortable with Ghost 2003 then with Ghost 2005 (Ghost 9). IMHO Ghost 2003 has the value of its own due to its DOS roots. For example, if your computer is infected with Spyware it should be restored using DOS boot. Another positive feature of Ghost 2003 is the ability to work with Ext2 and Ext3 partitions. 

I would call Ghost 2003  "The Last Classic Ghost" as  newer versions are descendants or completely different product: a rebranded Drive Image, the product, Symantec acquired at the end of 2003 when it bought its competitor, PowerQuest.  Ghost 2003 introduced several interesting features like support for  Linux Ext2 filesystem as well as NTFS support; it largely eliminates the need for a boot disk. Also it lets you join two PCs via a USB, parallel, or network connection and then clone one to the other. CD also contains Norton's disk-wiping tool -- handy for destroying all data on a disk before reusing it.

As for RAR its non-competitiveness with Ghost for creation of partition and disk archives does not mean that RAR is useless and should be totally replaced with Norton Ghost. Quite an opposite, RAR can serve as a good complementary tool for Norton Ghost if its role is limited to creation of incremental backups. RAR also has an excellent integration with FAR and Total Commander.  Both are excellent tools for complex cases of restoration of files from incremental backups.

You can burn the image directly to DVD. Ghost2003 (aka Ghost 8) supports many drives out of the box, but the speed is very slow (takes hours to burn 4G). Also with Ghost 2003 you can only use drives recognized by Ghost DOS image (and that's, for example, puts drives in laptop docking station generally out of the reach). With Norton 9 and 10 any CD/DVD drive that is recognized by Windows is OK. 

Note: Norton Ghost 2003 is very slow for burning the image directly on DVD. If you want this functionality you need to upgrade to Norton Ghost 9 which can burn the image without rebooting to DOS and is much faster in burning the DVD.

That means that backup of image directly to DVD is a convenient option only for Norton Ghost 9 and 10.  With Norton 2003 you need first to write disk (or partition) image to a file and then burn it using you regular CD/DVD burning program.  That actually creates a possibility of storing several small images on one two layers DVD.

Note:
It is prudent to use a separate small 4G partitions for software development and personal documents as both backup and restore became much faster; also it you use FAT32 partition the content can be restored on any other computer. I generally do not understand the wisdom behind the current "One C: drive under the sun" mentality :-). Please remember that for naive users (and sometimes for seasoned professionals too, misery loves company) the shock from not having a backup when your C: drive which contains all your precious data (usually in My Documents folder) went south is really hard to imagine without experiencing such an event yourself. So you better don't.

Such sufferings do not make you a better human and can really cut your life expectancy and chances to enjoy your 401K, if any. There is no wisdom in serving as yet another confirmation of Benjamin Franklin shrewd and cynical observation: "Experience keeps a dear school, but fools will learn in no other". 

Therefore any amount of efforts to prevent such an event is completely justified. See Disk Backup for details. Also please remember that money spent on backup hardware like USB drives, DVD burners, etc, are money well spent. 

Anyway IMHO you should have enough extra drive space to store the image on the hard drive (IMHO with current desktop hard drives it's typical to have half drive empty; with laptop USB drive can be used) so that it can be later burned into DVD.

Do not expect harddrive last long: for laptops anybody who is using a drive that more then three years old is taking huge chances. If you data are valuable you better replace it with a new drive. See Slashdot Google Releases Paper on Disk Reliability

If you need to burn the image of a large harddrive on CD the best way to do it is to create it on hard drive (using the ‘-split=700’ command, a large drive can be saved into multiple 700 MB images) and then burning those to CD using XP native capabilities or any commercial burner like Nero. 

Norton Ghost 2003 (Ghost 8) and earlier is unable to create image in Windows mode and needs to reboots to DOS. There is simply no option of creating image without booting into DOS. That creates a couple of difficult problems for solving which Ghost 9 can be more appropriate (  Ghost 2005 (Ghost 9) contains Ghost 2003 on the CD):

As Norton Ghost 9.0 review by PC Magazine stated:

When you need to restore, you start up from the bootable CD, built on Microsoft's Windows PE (Preinstallation Environment), which slowly but surely finds network drives from which to restore images.

The new version can also restore backup images created by earlier versions of both Ghost (thanks to the inclusion of Ghost 2003 in the package) and Drive Image. It retains Drive Image's ability to load a backup image as if it were a real drive with a drive letter. Ghost 9.0 runs only in Windows 2000 or XP, but Ghost 2003 can run under Windows 98, Me, and NT.

It is important to note that Norton Ghost 9 (2005) introduced the ability to create partition images without rebooting into DOS. That makes is closer to disk backup utility then previous versions of GHOST.

Ghost 9  is actually a completely new product, a derivative of Drive Image 7.0 that Symantec have bought. Original Norton Ghost was discontinued at version 8 (Norton Ghost 2003).  Along with the ability to create "hot" backup images without booting into DOS it also added incremental and scheduled backups.

Version 9 of Norton Ghost (Norton Ghost 2005) is actually a rebranded Drive Image, a product originally developed by PowerQuest (Symantec purchased on PowerQuest Dec 05, 2003). 

If you are still using Norton Ghost 2003 (Ghost 8) and/or need a free program to make hot images then you can try   Driveimage XML (free software, XP only):

DriveImage XML is an easy to use and reliable program for imaging and backing up partitions and logical drives. The program allows you to:

Image creation uses Microsoft's Volume Shadow Services (VSS), allowing you to create safe "hot images" even from drives currently in use.

There are also several commercial competitors for Norton Ghost but neither looks too attractive to me to justify the switch:

I would simply upgrade to Norton Ghost 9 or 10  (OEM Ghost 9 can be bought for ~$20 or less on Amazon) if the ability to create "hot" images is important for you (IMHO it is important mainly for laptop users).  Norton Ghost 9 has a backup scheduler letting Ghost run unattended.  As Ghost is now burderned by GUI running it from other scheduler is not that easy.

If you have a really large set of installed programs and as a result your C drive compresses into more then one double layer DVD you can try to shrink the size of your OS partition before that. Sometimes 20-30% by removing trash, unnecessary programs, temporary Internet Explorer files and old cookies.  Actually non-essential programs can be installed on the second partition instead of typical C:\Program Files location that is used a s a default by most programs.

Norton Ghost can be used for resizing partitions as it always restores the image using the size of target partition. For example I used it once to extend the size of C : partition on my laptop. The laptop has a 30G drive that was split  into three partitions:

  1. C: 12G(NTFS)
  2. D: 7G (FAT32)
  3. E: 9G (FAT32).

I did not have a version of Partition Magic 8.0 that can do this trick and Partition Magic 6.0 did not have the capability to extent the NTFS partition. So I  proceed using Ghost in the following way (please note that partition moving operations are pretty dangerous staff ):

  1. Backup all the drive (partitions C, D, and E) on USB drive using Norton Ghost one partition at a time
  2. Backup the whole drive into one image into USB drive (this will be the rescue image in case I mess something)
  3. Delete content of partition E: by quick reformat
  4. Create image of partition C on partition E: using Norton Ghost.
  5. Delete partition D using Windows  XP disk manager
  6. Delete partition C and recreate it to the larger size 12+7=~19G  using Windows install disk
  7. Restore the image of C partition from E: drive to newly created partition using Norton Ghost 2003 booted from floppy. 

The whole operation took more then three hours and I probably would save some time by getting Partition Magic 8.0 and using it, but still it shows that the same goal can be achieved with just Norton Ghost.  

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Old News ;-)

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001

[Jul 18, 2007] Norton Ghost 12.0 is no phantom of its former self

THERE HAVE BEEN many changes to Symantec Norton Ghost over recent years. Changes from being just a file based back-up program, to a sector based back-up product after PowerQuest was enveloped in the company.

This was a big change, as their DriveImage software now became Ghost 9 and helped drive it to more respectability in advanced users and the enterprise. Now entering its umpteenth edition, shipping as 12.0, a bit misleading as it’s not really the 12th iteration. This time it’s the 2005 acquisition of Veritas to become a part of the fold and incorporated into Ghost with some of those suites.

Symantec decided to drop a release and skip a year, missing version 11 altogether. They did release the Norton Save & Restore during this time, a junior version of-sorts, built on Ghost technology and filling the gap in a way.

Absent from the recovery disc and sorry to dwell, is the feature to cold-image. As in take an image of the HDD or partitions without impacting the system by installing software. This is normally done through the boot CD provided. As to restore a whole OS, you need to boot to the recovery disc anyway.

It’s a feature that has been missing-in-action and since Ghost 2003 (four editions ago). In saying that, there was a cheeky, undocumented way to do it in Ghost 10. All in all, it’s a very useful tool and is sadly missing from 12.0, we still hunt around for it every time a new version of Ghost arrives.

For one, you could take an image of a dead system before you restore, obtaining valuable files to recover at your leisure. With that in mind, there’s a new feature coming across from the LiveState recovery Veritas software that enables you to convert a Ghost 12 image into a virtual machine image. This would be excellent if doubled up with the cold-imaging function for use in corrupt system recovery.

We were told in our briefing by the Symantec Ghost product manager that this new software was able to restore previous images, so we tried just that. It failed to restore the Ghost 10 images or even recognise the old .gho images via the recovery disc. Not the best for legacy images then, even though two years does not equal legacy in our books.

Just a quick note on dual-boot systems and non-Windows file systems back-up and recovery. It’s possible and supported within Ghost 12, just as long as it’s hidden initially from the OS – it can be seen from Norton Ghost. We tried this and all seem to work rather pleasingly.

 

[Jul 7, 2007] Clone your hard drive with Ghost

Here is a short tutorial that will quickly explain how to use Ghost 2003 to clone your hard drive to another hard drive. This is very useful for someone that wants to install a larger hard drive but doesn't want to go through the effort of reinstalling the operating system and all of their programs. When you do this, your new disk should be the same size or larger than the original hard disk.

[Jul 7, 2007] PC Pro Product Reviews Symantec Norton Ghost 10

Backwards compatibility with version 8 and 9 format images is welcome, as is support for legacy PowerQuest Drive Image files. Unlike True Image, you can also back up to CD and DVD without the need for additional software, use Iomega Zip and Jaz and, at long last, both USB and FireWire drives are properly supported. There's also full integration with Maxtor's OneTouch system used on many of its external drives. As with True Image, there's even the ability to mount backup images as drives for easy data exploration.

Compared to True Image though, overall performance begins to look a little dated, and Ghost soon falls behind. A 10GB partition of mixed data took 25 minutes to produce a 7GB image - three minutes faster than True Image but a substantial 1.5GB larger. For restoration, Acronis took 24 minutes, against Ghost's 38 minutes. We also ran into trouble with our first image-restore test, because our external drive was assigned letter Z, the same letter used by the recovery CD for ms-ramdrive, causing a conflict. This isn't mentioned in the documentation or in Symantec's online support knowledge base, but was a common gripe in online forums.

The recovery CD is slow to boot too, taking three minutes in our tests, compared to just 30 seconds for the True Image equivalent. It won't let you create an image while using it either. This prevents the recovery of data not previously backed up from a crashed partition. True Image has no such limitations. You could achieve this by using the DOS-based Ghost 2003 CD that's included in the box, because Ghost 10 only supports Windows 2000 and XP, but that's a clumsy solution.

The biggest flaw that holds Ghost back is that it hasn't followed True Image by enabling the backup of individual files and folders, and thus isn't a true all-in-one backup tool. Instead, it's a complete image or nothing - apart from incremental backups, that is. Even here, though, it falls behind Acronis by not having an option for differential backups. Although there isn't much between the two on pricing, the value proposition is another thing altogether. For sheer number of features, flexibility and real-world performance, Ghost 10 fails to compete with True Image 9. As such, unless ease of use is paramount, we can't recommend it.

[Jul 7, 2007] PC World - True Image 9 Edges Past Norton Ghost 10\

The statement "When it comes to features and price, you can't beat True Image 9. But I give credit to Ghost 10 for making an esoteric task easier for new users."  looks too strong. Symantec dis screw the product as it usually did with acquisitions but the core is still solid. Also  Ghost 10 can be bought for less then $10.

Disk-imaging software lets you create sector-by-sector copies of hard-drive partitions, including boot information--so when disaster strikes, system recovery is a snap. Symantec and Acronis take different approaches to this crucial task in the latest updates of their disk-imaging applications. While Symantec's $70 Norton Ghost 10 focuses on improved usability, Acronis's $50 True Image 9 contains several new, must-have features.

Both programs perform the same basic functions of creating and restoring full and incremental images to hard drives, CDs, or DVDs. And the two apps simplify automating and scheduling those processes. But the shipping version of True Image 9 that I tested permits differential images, which Norton Ghost 10 does not. Whereas incremental backups include only the data that has changed since your last backup, differentials allow you to create a single file containing all of the changes that have occurred since your initial full backup. That way, you never have to restore a large number of small incremental images.

Equally useful is the new option to back up selected files and folders, which eliminates the need for a separate file-level backup program. Acronis has also added a Snap Restore function so you can work in Windows before you finish restoring an image--great if you're on deadline.

The biggest change in Norton Ghost 10 is the program's new interface, which does a nice job of guiding beginners through tasks while keeping various advanced options out of sight--but not out of reach.

However, Ghost 10 cannot create an image while operating from its extremely slow-booting installation/recovery CD. So if your system goes down, the utility can't create an image to help you recover any un-backed-up data stored on a crashed partition. Symantec does bundle the older Norton Ghost 2003 (included mainly for Windows 98 users), which can create an image while running from its CD. But True Image 9's recovery CD handles everything that its Windows application can, and that's a far better approach.

When it comes to features and price, you can't beat True Image 9. But I give credit to Ghost 10 for making an esoteric task easier for new users.

[Nov 14, 2006] What to do if data on laptop drive are lost due to drive corruption and image is almost a week old.

Q: I used two drives on my laptop (C610) one as system drive and the second as the drive with all my data (in the bay instead of CDW-DVD).  I backup the second drive each Friday. This Thursday the drive started to behave strangely: first it start to write data very slowly and then stopped writing them at all. When i rebooted the laptop the drive stop to be recognized at all and start to generate strange clicking sound. What are my options?  I put a lot of new information exactly this week including several important programs and to recreate them I will require another 40-50 hours overtime. I do not have this amount of time and the project is due soon. I am really desperate. Please help...

A: In all such case the drive usually start clicking on boot-up (click'o'death; http://www.jeff7.com/anandtech/hitachidrive.mp3  has the sound).

The most reliable way to recover data is to use professional restore services it is important to minimize the psychological which is often more severe that data lass. That they are expensive and unless your information is worth several thousand dollars you probably should not use data recovery services (if data are worth that much you should not attempt to do anything yourself as each click increases the damage to the data; around 20% of the hard drives received by data recovery services are not recoverable due to excessive platter damage).  Google is your friend and you can learn a lot about this problem by searching "IBM Travelstar click of death".

Outside paying recovery services your options are really limited. According to internet  folklore sometimes cooling or even freezing the drive sometimes helps to revive it for a couple of minutes but in most cases that's it as the reason might be that magnetic substance is gone from the plate and no amount of freezing can change that.  

Still this cannot hurt and according to enthusiasts you need to get an external USB enclosure, then slowly cooling the drive first on the lower shelf then up to the freezer (to avoid condensation, if this is possible at all). After 24 hours take either try to run it while it is still in freezer (need a long USB cable) or get it out with a couple of cool packs and try to power it up and read. Again this is mostly folklore...

In case drive is at least partially readable there is also a trial version of Dmitriy Primochenko's HDDREGENERATOR  from http://www.dposoft.net

The best strategy in such situation is to keep long time perspective and try  "don't sweet the small staff and its' all small staff". Don't overreact.  View the situation from the point of view of one year later. This way you can protect yourself from many useless or even harmful steps people do after losing important data.  I know cases when people in a frantic activity after the loss lost even more data.

Now about your options. As I mentioned they are few:

But the most important is to find a reliable way to avoid this situation in the future: you need to do daily incremental backup (Types of backups) and not only to USB drive like many users, but on DVD or CD too. Please remember that USB drive also can fall from the table or just fail. Like with laptop drives there is no guarantee...

Daily DVD or CD backups are some kind of guarantee. They are pretty reliable long term storage of your data and now are reasonably cheap to use one or even two a day. For most of us the daily working set of files is really small (5-10M).  Windows XP Professional has free backup  utility but it is limited and I recommend RAR. If you have Microsoft Services for Unix installed you can use tar and gzip or zip. Your mileage can vary. There are many good incremental backup programs both free and commercial (just do not buy them from Symantec's Save and Restore -- this is in essence rebranded Ghost and in comparison with Ghost 10, NSR is pretty backward, unreliable and very slow :-) Actually classic Microsoft command like utility xcopy can also be used to copy files to special folder and then burn them as it has option of copying the files that were modified today.

I know that information about such problems evaporates in a year or two but please switch to daily incremental backup in addition to weekly full backups. Our data are worth more then we usually assume and if you ever to hear that “click of death” coming from your drive, you’ll be happy to know your most precious data are safe. This peace of mind worth quote a lot.

[Nov 14, 2006] Question from a reader about slow speed of Ghost backup

Q: Message: Thanks Dr Bezroukov, for your article about GHOST backup. I am currently using Ghost 2003 to back up my laptop (about 30GB of data) to an external IDE hard drive in a USB 2.0 case. The data transfer rate reported by the Ghost screen is 31MB per minute. The process is taking about 14 HOURS. Am I doing something wrong???

A: Looks like you are using USB 1.0 drivers. This can be due to the fact that your laptop has only USB 1.0 ports (many older laptops for example Dell C600 or C610 suffer from this).

In this case you need PCMCIA card with USB 2.0 (for example from Belkin, approximately $30 on Amazon; can be cheaper on eBay) ports to speed things up.

Also in Ghost during the dialog that asks about USB drivers you should specify USB 2.0 drivers in "Advanced options" dialog. This should be done each time as for some reason Norton ghost GUI does not remember previous setting.

[Jun 9, 2006] Question from a reader about "Lost image":

Q: i have experienced a problem with Norton ghost 2003 which i have tried many methods to solve.. i tried to backup my partitions. After image creation, i moved the image to another partition for storage purpose, but realize that when i use ghost explore, i cannot find the image i moved. i even moved the image back to the original partition to check, but the image still can't be found. pls help.. thanks.

A: There is a possibility to open any ghost image in Ghost explorer (File-Open), not only files from quick list in file menu. So if an image is not visible, then it probably no longer have the right extension (*.gho).  You can try to view file in all files mode to see if this is  the case. Also if you move an image from partition to another you need to remember that for large images (over 2G) it consists of several files. All files need to be moved.  

 

Slashdot Symantec Sues Microsoft, May Delay Vista

"The interesting point here is XImage, which will likely replace ghost - the only symantec app that wasn't *total* crap yet..."

your point "d"

(Score:5, Interesting)
by Anonymous Coward on Friday May 19, @02:15AM (#15363620)

Hmm... Don't know if Microsoft has been in talks with Symantec, but as for steam rolling over them, I would very much say so (not saying it's necessarily a bad thing though):

What's left? Winfax? Nope. Already a basic fax client in windows (it sucks, but I can't say winfax is great either, and most people/businesses that still use faxes nowadays don't do it via PC either). Doubt they sell many licenses.

Oh, PCAnywhere! Well, terminal services/citrix ICA is what everyone and their dog seems to be using these days (and apps like VNC/radmin). I haven't seen someone using it in a LONG time - definitely NOT mainstream either.

What else? Partition magic? Bleh. Those who wanted it bought it while it was Powerquest's - and it doesn't even seem to be updated anymore (symantec's specialty seems to be driving products into the ground - like novell seemingly). Buggier than ever, sounds like everyone prefers acronis apps for this nowadays. ...and the list goes on. And their apps are getting a LOT more bothersome for their clients - especially the activation part. Someone I know bought NAV, only to discover it wouldn't let him activate it on 2 PCs or something (unlike the old version), and now it's not working anymore (plus pay for updates - getting too expensive, he moved to AVG too). And incredible bloat (NIS will bring a 2GHz PC to its knees), and countless bugs (we had tremendous problems with SAV at work, countless crashes, problems with office, you name it).

The only thing they seem to have left that's worth buying is their new acquisition, veritas products. But I'm sure they'll manage to make them suck too, and drive them into the ground like everything else.

It seems they're not improving anything, they'd be the LEAST innovative company I could think of, and their junk just keeps getting worse.

Perhaps Veritas licenses alone can't keep the company afloat (unsurprisingly), and they're looking for a ne business model ala SCO (litigation, to prevent a new/better/more secure OS, or plain extortion)

I'm sad to see many companies and products having been crushed by Microsoft over the years (OS/2, Corel stuff, you name it), but if there's one company I won't miss, it definitely is Symantec.

[May 2, 2006] Question from a reader: can't restore from an external Maxtor One Touch II USB hard drive

Q. I can't restore from an external Maxtor One Touch II USB hard drive to a Dell XPS 400. Norton Ghost v.10 is installed and I can create an image on the Maxtor USB hard drive but, with the Norton Ghost CD booted in recovery mode, the Maxtor cannot be located to recover from and technical support was without any fix. The drivers validation is ok with the recovery disk. Besides burning the backup file to a new partition on the internal hard drive or spanning DVDs, any fix appreciated.

A: You can try to create Norton 2003 bootable floppy, boot from it and see it if the drive is visible.  If it is you can use Norton 2003 for creating images in the future.

As for the current image repartitioning of existing drive, creating FAT32 partition on it and copying image to it probably the most sensible option (you actually mentioned it).  And this is not just a hour or so completely wasted: this partition can save you a lot of time in the future. It is always nice to have a FAT32 partition for your most valuable data and images as FAT32 recovery is much simpler that NTFS. 

You can also install an additional IDE drive into DELL XPS 400 install Windows 98 on this drive, move image to it and then restore image from DOS boot disk mode. Windows 98 installation can be very helpful in many troubleshooting situations.  



[Apr 15, 2006]

Computer Power User Article - Symantec Norton Ghost 10.0 by Warren Ernst




	
... Ghost 10.0 seems nothing like earlier versions. This version (for Windows 
	2000/XP) makes creating whole-system backups painless and easy, not to mention 
	almost totally automatic. This is as close to a RAID 1 (mirrored drive) emergency 
	backup system as you can get in software. 

	

	GoBack is essentially a way to roll your system back to a known good configuration 
	should you encounter computer problems, such as a virus or spyware. Ghost can 
	do this, too, but Ghost can also take those images and store them on external 
	or secondary hard drives, network storage, or burnable DVDs or CDs, allowing 
	for a recovery from a bad hard drive. The recovery takes longer than with 
	the DOS-based Ghost 2003 (included in the box for Windows 98/Me machines), but 
	the Windows recovery console-based bootable recovery CD can connect to USB 2.0, 
	FireWire, and network drives much more reliably. The recovery 
	disc can restore older Ghost images, too. 

	

	Whereas Ghost 2003 had an interface only a techie could love, Ghost 10.0 shuns 
	technical terms and employs wizards throughout. Want to schedule automatic backups 
	at night with the files encrypted and stored on the LAN? Child’s play. 






How to obtain a copy of the Symantec Ghost or Norton Ghost manual 
Click one of the following to download an electronic version of the Symantec Ghost 
or Norton Ghost manuals:



[Mar 4, 2006] Question from a Softpanorama reader: Restoring disk image 
to a larger hard drive



	
Q: Does Norton Ghost 2003 or new version 10 allow you to take 
	your clone or image of your entire hard drive and restore that image (operating 
	system, program applications, registry and all) to a new hard drive that is 
	larger than your original drive?

	

	I was planning to store my image in another computer on my network, and restore 
	my clone to a new computer with a larger hard drive.

	
A: Yes, both Norton 2003 and Norton 10 supports this operation. 
	For example let's assume that you have two 9G partition on a 20G drive. After 
	you create the image of the whole drive, you can restore it into to a new 40G 
	drive. In this case Norton Ghost will create two 18G partitions and  restore 
	data on them. 

	

	This way you can also repartition your existing drive if size of the existing 
	partitions proved to be suboptimal. For example if you have 30G drive and partitioned 
	it as 9G and 18G  partitions with 9G partition allocated to C (bootable 
	or system partition). then later when the size of your OS exceed 9G you can 
	create two images, store them on a USB drive or on a networked computer. Then 
	you can repartion the drive to say, 14G +14G partitioning scheme and restore 
	images into new partitions from USB drive. this way you essentially add 5G to 
	your C drive partition.   Of course the partition that shrunk should 
	have initially have enough free space so that data fit into a in smaller partition.
	






NewsForge An open source ghost story



	
This story began as a review of g4l, a Norton 
	Ghost-type utility for Linux. But that's not how it ended up. Instead it's a 
	story of two open source ghosts: g4u and g4l. As ghost stories go, this one 
	is more sad than scary: the tale of a bastard son refusing to recognize his 
	lineage, and of the resulting bad feelings on both sides of the dispute. But 
	I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's start at the beginning.

	
Hubert Feyrer wrote
	g4u about six years 
	ago. It's a NetBSD-based boot diskette similar in functionality to the popular
	
	Norton Ghost. G4u's name is shorthand for "Ghost for Unix." 

	
Although Feyrer no longer has time to maintain 
	the project -- he is now working on his Ph.D. dissertation -- it is still available 
	for download on his Web site. I downloaded the CD ISO version and gave it try. 
	It works just fine. I cloned a local partition on the same drive, after spending 
	just a little time matching up the partitions as I knew them in Linux (hda1, 
	hda2, hda3) with the names they are known by in BSD. 

	
You can also clone entire drives, or backup to 
	and restore from an FTP server. All in all, g4u is a very useful tool. Better 
	yet, while it boots NetBSD, it can be used on drives and partitions containing 
	all sorts of operating systems, from Windows, to OS/2, to Linux, to what-have-you.
	

	
The user interface is legacy command-line -- 
	no pretty GUI, not even DOS- style colored menus. It's lean and mean, and it 
	works. Feyrer licensed his gift to the world of free software using the BSD 
	license, which requires nothing more than attribution of his work. 
	

	
Years pass, g4l arrives 

	
Early last year,
	Ghost for Linux 
	appeared on freshmeat. The earliest versions of g4l bore a striking resemblance 
	to g4u, but there was no attribution given Hubert Feyrer or g4u in the GPL-licensed 
	Linux version. 

	
The resemblance between the two projects was 
	so striking that g4u's creator Hubert Feyrer felt compelled to perform a
	detailed analysis 
	to demonstrate that g4l was based on g4u. 

	
That analysis was apparently more than g4l's 
	creator -- known only as nme -- could bear. He walked away from the project 
	in a huff, saying of Feyrer that "He now wants to force me by law, to add his 
	license and credits to the code I wrote. This is not acceptable for me, so I 
	quit work on g4l. Because of certain people, programming isn't much fun anymore."
	

	
And quit he did, but the project did not die. 
	This is an open source project, after all. A new maintainer named Frank Stephen 
	stepped forward and took over. 

	
It would have been a perfect time to heal the 
	rift between g4u and g4l, but that was not to be. The new maintainer insisted 
	-- against all the evidence -- that in his opinion, the original project had 
	not been based on g4u. Besides, Stephen points out that (in his opinion) the 
	project is so much different now than it was in the beginning that the whole 
	issue is "old news." 

	
Well-known Linux/free software advocate Rick 
	Moen stepped up and wondered if Frank Stephen might just be nme behind a different 
	name. Whether that is true or not, the two do share a certain aversion to giving 
	Feyrer and g4u their due. Moen commented on the freshmeat project page:
	

	

		

			I have no horse in this race, other than 
			caring about the reputation for integrity of the Linux community, and 
			it's extremely obvious to me that, your assertion notwithstanding, v0.12 
			blatantly copied Hubert Feyrer's work, illegally and dishonestly stripping 
			his author credit. (Contrary to the assertions of some, fixing that 
			wouldn't quite suffice, since G4L's GPL terms clash with Hubert's old-BSD 
			licensing's advertising clause. G4L would have to include a license 
			exception, to fix that additional glitch. Additionally, G4L would have 
			to clarify that Hubert's terms, not GPL, apply to Hubert's work incorporated 
			in G4L.)

	

	
An effort to heal the rift 

	
Just when it looked as if there might not be 
	a reasonable man within earshot of the g4l project, one stepped up. Michael 
	Setzer II had made some modifications to g4l that he and other users needed. 
	Since the project had an open upload policy at the time, he was able to make 
	his version available to others. Both of the original authors, nme and Frank 
	Stephen, eventually contacted Setzer, and gave him alone the ability to upload 
	new releases to the project. 

	
Probably the most important change Setzer has 
	made was to finally give Hubert Feyrer and g4u some long overdue props. The 
	opening screen for the current version of g4l now states: 

	

		

			Disclaimer concerning Copyright: Prior version(s) 
			of g4l appear to have been based on G4U (Ghost for Unix) a NetBSD-based 
			bootfloppy/CD-ROM by Hubert Feyrer (hubert@feyrer.de) Copyright (C) 
			1999, 2000, 2001, 2002,2004

		

			

			G4U: http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4l.html

	

	
The disclaimer continues with a history of the 
	project, including its maintainers and releases since the beginning. You have 
	to give Setzer credit -- he even included a link to Feyrer's code analysis page.
	

	
But although it is a big step forward, it's not 
	what Feyrer would like to see. What he wants to see is for both licenses to 
	be lived up to. 

	
In response to an email query about the disclaimer 
	he added to g4l, Setzer told me: 

	

		

			I was trying to come up with a compromise. 
			At the time, I had no contact with either of the g4l authors, and I 
			did get a nice response from the G4U author, but his reply basically 
			said that he wanted the original stuff put in, and still had never even 
			looked at the later code. Not being able to get resolution to the situation, 
			I added the disclaimer, and basically leave it up to the users to decide. 
			If they think there is an issue, don't use g4l. But I don't know enough 
			on the issue to make a complete judgment.

	

	
Tainted code 

	
Given the resolute refusal of g4l's original 
	authors to credit 4gu as their starting point, that's probably as good as it's 
	going to get. Setzer cannot speak for either of them, so he can't do as Feyrer 
	wants. Feyrer, on the other hand, doesn't have the time to go through the latest 
	version of g4l code to see what's left that was copied from his work. 
	

	
In the end I'm left with the feeling that something 
	has been stolen -- something intangible. One of the greatest benefits that comes 
	to the authors of free software is the feeling that they have done something 
	worthwhile for the benefit of all, and the ego gratification of seeing others 
	extend the work. To see your work taken by others and then claimed as their 
	own steals both the joy and the gratification. 

	
As Isaac Newton is reputed to have said some 
	430 years ago, and open source people are fond of repeating because it so aptly 
	describes the process, "If I have seen further it is by standing on the shoulders 
	of giants" -- a noble sentiment that, at least until Setzer appeared, was not 
	a part of this tale. Its absence has left an indelible mark of shame on the 
	project.

	

		

			Links
		

		

			

		

	

	
    
		
  1. "g4u" - http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/ 
		
    2. 
		
  2. "Norton Ghost" - http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/
		
    3. 
		
  3. "Ghost for Linux" - http://freshmeat.net/projects/g4l/
		
    4. 
		
  4. "detailed analysis" - http://www.feyrer.de/g4u/g4l.html
		
    5. 
	












Norton 
Ghost 9.0 review by PC Magazine 



	Norton Ghost 9.0 
	is based in large part on PowerQuest's Drive Image, which Symantec acquired 
	in late 2003. Norton Ghost shines at full-system recovery, and with its 
	new incremental image feature, it becomes viable for single-file and 
	folder restores as well.
Ghost can 
	create backup images of your entire hard drive to local storage, network drives, 
	and optical discs (including DVDs), so you'll be certain that every bit of information 
	is copied without fail. Norton handled media spanning flawlessly; Acronis does 
	not support DVD writing.

	
The new incremental feature lets 
	you create a baseline image, and then smaller incremental images moving forward, 
	typically multiple times per day. Full images 
	can take a long time to complete and can slow down your foreground operations 
	(if you're invoking a backup before installing something new, for instance). 
	We measured a 30 percent CPU drain during the full imaging, but incremental 
	are fast. If you need to restore a file or folder from a full or incremental 
	image, the Symantec Backup Image Browser lets you view and extract individual 
	files and folders from your images.

	
We found it a bit inconvenient to have to choose 
	the image to restore from first. We would prefer to choose the file first, and 
	then be presented with a list of restore points. Also, the interface would be 
	more helpful if it presented links to common file storage areas like the My 
	Documents folder and the desktop.

	
Norton Ghost 9.0 is easy enough for anyone to 
	use and provides an outstanding level of protection for your system. Those 
	considering Norton Ghost might find Symantec's Norton SystemWorks 2005 Premier 
	($99.95 list), which includes Ghost, GoBack, and other useful utilities, a good 
	value












[July 21, 2005] Discounted Norton Ghost half-year update :-)



[Dec 4, 2004] 

Amazon.com Software Norton SystemWorks 2005 [AntiVirus, Utilities, GoBack, Check 
IT] Free from Amazon $60-$60 rebate =$0.  Limited time offer. 



	
Includes: Norton AntiVirus, Norton Utilities, 
	and Norton GoBack! Also provides CheckIt Diagnostics, System Optimizer, and 
	additional problem-solving tools. 






PCWorld.com - Acronis Revs True Image In my 
informal tests, Ghost 9 imaged a 3.2GB partition in 1 minute, 25 seconds, generating 
a 1.4GB image file. My shipping copy of True Image 8 completed an image of the same 
file in 2 minutes, 42 seconds, but it produced a smaller, 1.2GB file. (True Image 
7 took 5 minutes, 34 seconds, making a 2.5GB file.)



	
The new Acronis True Image 8 feels more 
	like a maintenance release than a major upgrade over version 7. It does, however, 
	boost the backup application's performance to levels comparable to those of 
	Symantec's recently launched (and quite speedy) Norton Ghost 9.

	
Both programs create sector-by-sector snapshots 
	of your hard drive for easy recovery after a system crash; but in tests conducted 
	for our recent review of
	
	Ghost 9, it performed dramatically faster 
	than True Image 7 did, producing smaller images. Like Ghost 9, True Image 8 
	skips the re-creatable swap and hibernation files, yielding similar speeds and 
	even smaller image sizes. 

	
In my informal tests, Ghost 9 imaged a 3.2GB 
	partition in 1 minute, 25 seconds, generating a 1.4GB image file. My shipping 
	copy of True Image 8 completed an image of the same file in 2 minutes, 42 seconds, 
	but it produced a smaller, 1.2GB file. (True Image 7 took 5 minutes, 34 seconds, 
	making a 2.5GB file.)

	
Though Ghost 9 is speedier at creating images, 
	True Image 8 is much faster at booting from the recovery disc. In my tests, 
	Ghost 9 took a whopping 2 minutes, 25 seconds to launch, while True Image 8 
	took only around 15 seconds.

	
New tweaks in True Image 8 enable you to verify 
	images before restoring them; and like version 7, version 8 can create incremental 
	backups.

	
True Image 8 enjoys some clear advantages 
	over Ghost 9. It works with any version of Windows (Ghost 9 works only with 
	XP and 2000), it doesn't depend on Microsoft's .Net framework the way its competitor 
	does, and its full version is $20 less expensive.

	
The worst drawback of True Image 8: Owners of 
	previous versions have to pay $30 for this decidedly minor upgrade. 
	

	
That said, if you're looking for a solid-performing, 
	reasonably priced drive-imaging application, Acronis's latest True Image is 
	a good choice. 




[Dec 3, 2004]
The FreeBSD 
Diary -- Disk cloning with Acronis True Image



	I was chatting to people on IRC about my hardware 
	failure. I mentioned I planned to ghost the disk ("ghost" being a synonym for 
	clone, derived, I expect from
	Norton Ghost, a 
	well respected disk cloning application). 
	
Cloning an XP disk is not as simple as it sounds. 
	During my googling, I found a few references to id generation. That is, 
	XP keeps an ID somewhere on the drive and this ID has to be reset when cloning 
	the disk. The references indicated that commercial products such as 
	Norton Ghost and Acronis True Image can reset this ID appropriately. A straight 
	dd won't do that. 

	
My experience supports that idea, but I have 
	no proof. I may be encountering some other problem. I found that Acronis True 
	Image did what I wanted. Using dd failed. Mind you, I'm now unable to boot from 
	the original system drive. I don't know why. Perhaps it has been corrupted during 
	the process. I suspect that is why I didn't get dd to work. Read on! 
	

	
Disk Cloning with Acronis True Image 
	

	
I expected that installing RAID under XP would 
	be the most challenging. It was actually straight forward. I installed a 3Ware 
	card, hooked up the drives, and pressed ALT-3 when presented with that option 
	during the booting process. I configured the disks for RAID-1 (mirror).
	

	
The difficult part was to clone the existing 
	XP boot drive into the RAID array. A hardware RAID array looks exactly like 
	a single drive to the operating system. That should simplify things. 
	

	
The cloning software I chose was recommended 
	by someone in the Bacula 
	IRC channel. They mentioned
	Acronis 
	True Image 8.0 by Acronis. 
	This product has a free trial version which lasts for 15 days. I tried it. It 
	worked. I cannot tell the difference between the original drive and the RAID 
	array. Acronis True Image has a nice little Wizard which guides you through 
	the cloning process. I will not go into detail. 

	
... ... ...

	
I have great words to say about
	Acronis 
	True Image 8.0. I looked at using Norton Ghost. Actually, I bought Norton 
	Ghost, but will be returning it unopened. The advantage I see in using Acronis 
	True Image is price and download. Acronis True Image costs less than Norton 
	Ghost and you can download it. 




[Dec 2, 2004] 

Ghost Image How to Create a Ghost Image



	See
	
	How to Create a Ghost Boot Disk if needed.

	Complete the following steps on the Ghost server 
	(ghostsvr01.cns.ufl.edu). Login with your Gatorlink username and password.

	

		
    
			
  1. Run GhostSrv.exe 
			C:\Program Files\Symantec\Ghost\GhostSrv.exe
			
    2. 
			
  2. Enter a session name
    3. 
			
  3. Select "Create Image"
    4. 
			
  4. Enter a descriptive Image File name. 
			The format is modelName-OS-validInfo
    
			Example: For a Dell GX260 running Windows 2000 with 
			the Novell client installed an appropriate name would be 
			GX260-win2k-client.gho
			
    
 
    
			
    5. 
			
  5. Click on "Accept Clients"
    6. 
		

	

	
Complete the remaining steps on the workstation 
	from which you are creating the image.

	

		
    
			
  1. Use the Ghost Boot disk to boot up the 
			computer.
    
 
    2. 
			
  2. When the program starts, select 
			GhostCast and then Unicast from the menu.
    
 
    3. 
			
  3. Enter the session name you chose 
			when starting GhostSrv.exe
			
    
 
    4. 
			
  4. Specifiy the ip address as the 
			ip address of the machine running 
			GhostSrv.exe 
    
 
    5. 
			
  5. Hit OK.
    
 
    6. 
			
  6. Select "High Compression" and "Proceed 
			with Disk Image"
    
 
    7. 
			
  7. When completed, remove the floppy and 
			reset the computer.
    8. 
		

	




[Dec 2, 2004]

Corrupt Ghost Images Norton Symantec Data Recovery Drive Image SWStars



	Southwest Stars {www.swstars.com} 
	is the key to unlocking the door into the other side of your PC. You can only 
	go so far. Let our data recovery experts help you reload Norton Ghost images.
	

	

	Corrupt Norton Ghost images, found under many circumstances, are usually 
	influenced by one of the following three factors:
	
Here at Southwest Stars, our specialty is
	
	data recovery from any type of operating system, platform, or media. Our 
	data recovery experts handle virtually any request, including retrieving information 
	from corrupt Norton Ghost files, hard drive crashes, corrupt drive images, corrupt 
	ghost drive images, damaged media, virus attacks, recovery file, disk recovery, 
	recover deleted file, hard drive data recovery, hard drive crash, exchange server 
	recovery, and flash cards. 




[Nov 15, 2004]

Norton Ghost 9.0 Personal Symantec Recovery Disk lets you restore data from 
a backup image even when the computer can’t start up into Windows. 



[Nov 15, 2004]

Symantec - Norton Ghost 2003 tutorial 




Norton Ghost 2003 Product Review



	
Earlier this year in their January issue, PC 
	World published a short but decidedly
	
	negative review of Norton Ghost 2003. Sadly, after testing this newest version 
	of Symantec's renowned backup / disk imaging program, I have to concur.

	
Norton Ghost 2003 promises a lot, but for 
	me and many others, it failed to deliver anything but trouble. Those are difficult 
	words for me to utter, as I am a long-time fan of Symantec products and a successful 
	user of Norton Ghost 2002, which I recommend in my latest book, 
	
	
	PC Fear Factor.

	
First, the positive news about NG 2003. This 
	latest version of Ghost has many great new features, including a Windows based 
	user interface for launching backups (to replace the DOS user interface), support 
	for more internal CD writers, support for some USB and firewire CD writers, 
	and support for some DVD writers. The user can now set a password on his hard 
	disk backup without having to run Ghost using a command line switch, a task 
	that would vex most mortal PC users.  In addition, the product comes with 
	some truly outstanding interactive tutorials that help compensate for the (still) 
	Einsteinian product documentation.






Amazon.co.uk Customer Reviews Software Norton Ghost 2003



	Reviewer: A software user from not Moscow, 
	Russia 
	

	If like me you are somewhat perplexed by the erratic reviews that this and other 
	‘disk imaging’ utilities receive, both here and on amazon.com (always a useful 
	source of opinion…), then hopefully this one may help. 

	
I’d used Ghost 2002 extensively and agree that 
	it was far from user friendly, especially for the novice. I was forced to upgrade 
	because it supports XP’s NTFS. 

	
Although I’m an experienced PC user, I probably 
	only utilize ~10% of the product’s capabilities, i.e. I simply want a complete 
	backup image of my main hard drive for fast recovery purposes. Whilst the product 
	claims to backup directly to CD/DVD, my experience with this method has been 
	problematic and is probably related to the painfully slow burning process rather 
	than Ghost itself, but do first check your drive for compatibility against Norton’s 
	database. Instead, I back up by first creating images on another hard drive 
	(or partition, space permitting) and then burning those to CD using XP or Nero. 
	[Tip: using the ‘-split=700’ command, a large drive can be saved into multiple 
	700 MB images for later burning if required]. 

	
The 2003 upgrade is a definite improvement 
	on its predecessor with a much friendlier user interface and backup/restore 
	capability from within Windows. Whilst my backup method may not be acceptable 
	to everyone, it works reliably and that’ll do me.  






Norton Ghost 2003 user reviews - Norton Ghost 2003 user opinions - Backup and recovery 
- CNET Reviews

It is better than those recovery cds that come with your computer"


	

		
Sam on 25-Sep-2004 08:50:44 
		PM 

	

	
Pros:  This is an excellent 
	product. I obtained a Ghost software cd with an external USB hard drive that 
	I had bought and I'm glad that it came with it. Using those recovery cds that 
	came with my computer took about an hour to install, whereas; Ghost fully restores 
	my system in as a little under than 10 minutes. That is using USB 2.0. Another 
	good thing about Ghost is that it restores all your documents, settings, and 
	tweaks. You'll have your computer back to what it was before some disaster.
	

	
Cons:  Doesn't work with 
	a USB 2.0 PCMCIA card.




RAID killer" Mark McGinty on
22-Sep-2004 08:20:47 AM 



	

	Pros:  The damage is does is repairable, 
	if you know what you're doing. (It really ought to display a big banner when 
	you install that says "NO RAID". I usually don't read the help until I have 
	a problem, but for this that's way too late.)

	

	Cons:  Irresponsibly alters the 
	MBR and boot record, without making sure it can put them back. I didn't find 
	out that RAID was unsupported until *after* it rendered my machine unbootable. 
	Nice! But, as opposed to all of the other accounts I've read, I merely booted 
	the recovery console (no ASR disk), ran FIXBOOT to make the ghost partition 
	NT bootable, copied NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, and BOOT.INI, and then booted XP from 
	ghost's twisted little partition. Then I used PartitionEdit to remove the BS 
	partition and flag the original one active. Yes I was down for a few hours, 
	yes it was frightening, but thanks to my investments into a laptop, USB floppy, 
	and substantial skill set, it was not a catastrophe, I didn't lose a single 
	file. Still it was an ugly incident, why couldn't it offer the option of a test, 
	to make sure it can write to the drive under DOS, before it alters it in Windows? 
	The boot loader will support booting DOS, why not use it, so worst case the 
	user can still boot his/her O/S? It seems so simple!
	




T on 01-Sep-2004 11:41:03 AM



	
Pros:  Does 
	what it's suppose to. Image a drive. Great User Guide that covers everthing. 
	Didn't run into any problems like those other people who complain about it. 
	Just read the guide.

	

	Cons:  The DOS interface is a 
	little hard to use but if you take the time to look at the user guide, you'll 
	understand it. The GDisk feature is rather weak in my opinion and clunky to 
	use with the DOS command. 




[Oct 21, 2000] 
Signal Ground: Stupid dd Tricks (or, Why We Didn't buy Norton Ghost) 



	
"The company that employs Tom and me builds big 
	pieces of food processing machinery that cost upwards of $400K. Each machine 
	includes an embedded PCs running -- and I cringe -- NT 4. While the company's 
	legacy currently dictates NT, those of us at the lower levels of the totem pole 
	work to wedge Linux in wherever we can. What follows is a short story of a successful 
	insertion that turned out to be (gasp!) financially beneficial to the company, 
	too." 

	
"...Ghost works well; it does exactly what we 
	wanted it to. You boot off of a floppy (while the image medium is in another 
	drive), and Ghost does the rest. The problem lies in Ghost's licensing. If you 
	want to install in a situation like ours, you have to purchase a Value-Added 
	Reseller (VAR) license from Symantec. And, every time you create a drive, you 
	have to pay them about 17 dollars. When you also figure in the time needed to 
	keep track of those licenses, that adds up in a hurry." 

	
"It finally occurred to me that we could use 
	Linux and a couple of simple tools (dd, gzip, and a shell script) to do the 
	same thing as Ghost -- at least as far as our purposes go. ... The Results? 
	We showed our little program to management, and they were impressed. We were 
	able to create disk images almost as quickly as Norton Ghost, and we did it 
	all in an afternoon using entirely free software. The rest is history."
	




Recommended Links


See also Norton Ghost: Recommended Papers




Ghost (software) - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia




Norton Ghost Product Overview - Symantec Corp.




Symantec Support - Norton Ghost 9.0





Symantec Ghost Tutorials


**** Radified 
Guide to Norton Ghost by Symantec A Tutorial on How to Create and Restore Ghost 
Images



	New version: 02.august.2004 -
	Symantec 
	announces the release of
	
	Ghost v9.0. Ghost 9 is
	
	controversial, because it's not really Ghost. It's actually Drive Image, 
	a similar imaging/cloning product originally developed by
	PowerQuest, a company 
	Symantec purchased on 05.dec.2003. 
	
The reason Ghost 9 (Drive Image in disguise) 
	is
	
	controversial is because it supports a feature Symantec calls 'Hot 
	Imaging', which allows you to to create images of/from a 'LIVE' operating 
	system, while files are able to change. Hot imaging might sound attractive 
	to the casual user, but it comes with hidden risks that concern many veterans 
	of the program.

	

	NOTE: To keep this introduction uncluttered, the remainder 
	of this discussion on Norton Ghost v9.0 continues on its own 
	page:>
	Norton 
	Ghost v9.0 + hot imaging. I recommend you take a look. At the bottom of 
	that page is a link that will bring you back here.

	

	If you have no idea what an imaging/cloning program does or how it works, you 
	should first read the
	Program 
	Introduction. Then come back here & read the ditty on Ghost 9 & Hot-imaging.
	




Soulmaniacs 
- Ghost Tutorial





Bitbender Forums - Making an image of your hard disk using Norton Ghost


[PDF]

How to clone a Windows NT Gates PC using Norton Ghost 2002




Utopia Tech - A Guide To Ghosting


Symantec Ghost 
Parition-Image Backup Basics and Ghost Backup Introduction-Linwei Technology




Norton Ghost 2001


References


Symantec documentation



Discounted Norton Ghost 

(July 2005 update)


 [July 21, 2005] Discounted Norton Ghost half-year update :-)



Ghost 2003 menu choices



Ghost Advanced




New features in Norton Ghost 2003: 



Etc




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Based on the exclusive Acronis Drive Snapshot 
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