How to use Ghost or Drive Image?

I am new on the field of Ghost or Drive Image.
I have WinXP. My HHD has C:\ and D:\, and both are NTFS. I have programs and files in both drives.
1-Would it be possible to image my whole C:\ and D:\ programs and files, at the same time, to D:\? (Does the idea of imaging files from D:\ to D:\ make sense?)
2- Would it be possible to image my HHD to CD disks?
Thank you

Hi.. you have to store the images on a different drive. C to D is no problem but D to D won't work because the image you'd be using to replace the old one would be deleted before it could be used...

In other words if the image is stored on D and you want to replace D then the image would be deleted by Driveimage before you could start (although you'd get a warning that you can't do that)

Another option would be to store in on CDR. Also the latest version of Drive image will create a new partition if you need it.. D could be divided into two to store both C and D images on the new backup partition.

Here's an excellent tutorial on Ghost:

Guide to Norton Ghost

Thank you, Fink. You answered my questions.

Thank you, SuperSparks. I will print the Ghost tutorial and read it.

With Ghost, you need a FAT16 or FAT32 formatted drive or partition to save an image file to. The easiest way is to plug on another drive and make an image file of the main drive to it. Use the switches to split the image file into file sizes that are burnable onto a cd. Example:
ghost -SPLIT=650 -AUTO
This splits the image file into 650MB files ready to burn to cds and the auto switch is simply there so it doesnt prompt for the next file while creating the image file. 650MB size is used so there is a safety zone to fit on a 700MB cdr.

Quote:

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Originally posted by shadow1
With Ghost, you need a FAT16 or FAT32 formatted drive or partition to save an image file to. The easiest way is to plug on another drive and make an image file of the main drive to it. Use the switches to split the image file into file sizes that are burnable onto a cd. Example:
ghost -SPLIT=650 -AUTO
This splits the image file into 650MB files ready to burn to cds and the auto switch is simply there so it doesnt prompt for the next file while creating the image file. 650MB size is used so there is a safety zone to fit on a 700MB cdr.

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Wow! It is getting complicated. So Ghost goes by FAT16 or FAT32. How about Drive Image?
Thank you, Shadow1.

I'm not aware of any file system restrictions with Driveimage. I've used it on fat16, 32 and NTFS drives which covers pretty much every kind of modern hard drive format you're going to find.

Having said that, needing fat16 or 32 for Ghost isn't exactly a restriction since win9x would be one of those two by default and win2k/xp would very likely be NTFS unless it was a non-factory custom installation to fat32. Both Ghost and Driveimage would deal with all that.

Ghost 2003 is quite capable of saving images to NTFS partitions - I do it every couple of weeks. And it can burn CDR's directly without needing to split the image on a hard drive first. It can also create images over a network.

I think it might be time for an upgrade, shadow 1 ;)

I was just reading the help files for Ghost 2003 last night. Here is one of the new features:

"NTFS support: Norton Ghost now writes to NTFS partitions. You can store
an image file on an NTFS drive and restore from an image file located on an
NTFS drive."


I imagine the folks at Symantec realized that NTFS is becoming more popular.

I suggest to use Acronis True Image. It can hadle with drive covered by bad sectors , while others ,like Norton Ghost ,can't.

What sizes are your partitions and what kind of files are on each?

If D is just data, I wouldn't ghost it. I'd burn all of it directly to CD's.

Then I'd also store a ghost image of C on D. I'd also burn a ghost image of C to CD.

"Norton Ghost now writes to NTFS partitions"

Quick related question...

Does Ghost 2003 write to NTFS after directly booting the "Ghost Boot Floppy" in DOS... or does it only work from the Windows GUI?

Also while at it :) same question for "PQ Drive Image" and "Acronis True Image" if anyone knows?

Regards :)

http://discussions.virtualdr.com/sho...hreadid=129258

you will learn so much (I did :) )

regards

Thanks for the link ahmedalmatook, it had the answer i needed :)

From that i gather Ghost 2003 will only write to NTFS when using its GUI within Windows. Which is what i thought since i can't find anything to the contrary but wanted to confirm... I suspect the same applies to "Drive Image" and "Acronis True Image" too? Yes?

I don't find having a FAT32 partition for storing images a problem tho, just trying to clarify what is meant by "NTFS support".

Regards :)

DI will burn NTFS directly to cd.

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