Norton Ghosting

[Turbo91Bird]

We are gonna use it here at my new company and I was just curios on what everyone's thoughts were about the program and how easy it was to use or any tips. Thanks

[rcvalencia9]

How will you use it. You can use it to clone hard disk or create ghost file for back up. I am using it to restore my PC if anything goes wrong. I cloned my hard drive to an enclosured 2.5" drive to restore from it.

[Turbo91Bird]

It is going to be used to make clones or certain PC's with exact hardware. So I take a clone of one machine and use it to put it on another pc so I don't have to load the OS, software, and everything else one by one and instead use a Ghost "clone" of a similar machine.

[doctorgonzo]

We do the exact same thing where I work. The only thing you have to remember is to run the Ghostwalk utility (or its equivalent) after cloning to ensure that the clones don't share the same SIDs.

[Turbo91Bird]

Do u guys use a CD or how do u go about putting the "clone" on other pc's and is that GhostWalk Utility on the Norton Ghost software or is it seperate?

[doctorgonzo]

We have our clone images on our file server. I created a boot disk that takes care of the process automatically: I pop in the floppy, log in to the network, and it puts the image on the computer and runs Ghostwalk afterwards.

Ghost Walker comes with the Enterprise version of Ghost, I believe. There are freeware alternatives, though: here's one.

[rcvalencia9]

If you are connected to a network you can store your ghost in to your server.

[Turbo91Bird]

Alright. So I am just gonna make a "backup" of the machine and then I can put that image file on the network wheever I want it and then I run that image on the pc I want but how do I go about running it if there is no OS on the new pc.

If the PC already does have an OS on it, do I have to have Norton Ghost on that machine too or not?

[doctorgonzo]

We run Ghost from the network too, or you could put it on a CD or floppy if it will fit.

Ghosting overwrites whatever is on the destination computer, whether it is blank or has an OS. It's a sector copy of the source disk.

[rcvalencia9]

You don't need an OS for the destination but if you're using a server an OS is present right. If you create a clone everything will be overwritten but if its just a ghost file.. It will be just saved into the server.

[Turbo91Bird]

I think creating a ghost file would be more practical for my situation since the "clone" that I seen seems like it needs to have another drive on there with similar size and the hard drive on the machines I am doing are small (maybe 8gb, 4gb used) so putting the image file on the server seems like it might work better.

How do I run the ghost image file on the destination PC if there is no OS though? Is there a boot up disk or CD I am suppose to run in order for a machine that has no OS be able to boot up with the image file and I am able to transfer that image to the new machine?

[doctorgonzo]

Yes, you can create a floppy with Norton Ghost on it, I believe. How you will do this really depends on your networking system.

We have Novell, so what I have is a DOS floppy that has the Netware DOS client on it. I use that floppy to log in to our network. Then, I run Ghost from the network.

If you are going to save the image files on your network, you will have to have a boot floppy or CD that will give you access to your network.

[Turbo91Bird]

Cool. Thanks! And I have to have Norton Ghost on the machine that I am copying the image to correct?

[doctorgonzo]

No, the destination computer doesn't need anything. It can't use anything, because Ghost will overwrite the hard drive anyway. You can use the same floppy disk with Ghost on it both on the source machine to create the image file, and on the destination machine to put the image file on it.

[Turbo91Bird]

Awesome. Everything worked great! Thanks a lot people!

[DragonNOA1]

Originally Posted by doctorgonzo We do the exact same thing where I work. The only thing you have to remember is to run the Ghostwalk utility (or its equivalent) after cloning to ensure that the clones don't share the same SIDs.

We only have SIDD problem's with Win2K, not XP. What about you? DO you use walker on XP machines too? j/c, thanks