What's the difference btween ghost and xcopy?

[ffish]

The Norton's ghost tool can copy the data on a hard drive to anorther one, the DOS command xcopy can do the work too, what's difference between them? Thanks!

[not important]

I've never used XCopy but with Ghost 2003 you can do it from within Windows.

[TwoRails]

Ghost makes an image of the one drive to another, and they will be identical. It also happens very, very fast. (x)copy does only what it's name suggests; it merely copies files, and chokes on certain files like some system files and files in use, so when you copy a drive you may get only a partitial copy of it. Also, it is very, very slow in comparison...

[morriswindgate]

XCOPY will not copy long file names correctly, there is a freeware version that will called XXCOPY.

[racerbrownn]

yeah, i've used xxcopy but got tired of the limitations and specifics to remember.
ghost or any other copy program that uses a floppy to boot to dos to complete the task will do fine for future restoration if needed.
i've installed alot of video software etc and will be soon making a complete backup to my slave hdd if all continues to work well.
p.s. ghost is not cheap, but you can find it combined with other symantic software like system works or ?? 2002 or 3 for cheap. i use 2002 and it works well for copying to my slave hdd.

p.s. if youy want a copy of the operating system complete with the registry, it needs to to be copyed from dos. [before windows loads]
you can make images of things from within windows but not the registry last i heard.

[pawprint]

Copying your hdd is one of many features of ghost. I use it for primary backups of my hdd. Ghost explorer can also be used within windows to repace files, etc. For an excellent online tutorial of ghost, check out Radified's ghost tutorial site (http://ghost.radified.com/).
cheers, ~pawprint~

[ffish]

By racerbrown

ghost or any other copy program that uses a floppy to boot to dos to complete the task will do fine for future restoration if needed.


What are other copy programs? I only know ghost and xxcopy at present, are there any free ones?

I also wonder if ghost can work under Linux.

[morriswindgate]

Drive Image from Powerquest. I do not know of any free ones other than xxcopy.

[ffish]

What is powerquest?

[morriswindgate]

It is the software company that makes Drive Image and Partition Magic.

[ffish]

Thank you!
I tried Partition Magic today, I wanted to merge the D: and the E: logical drives into one drive with the Partition Magic 's wizard for drive merging , but got errror, after rebooting, there was only C: on the machine. Where is wrong?