Ghost 2003 and partition information

[vacanthead]

I want to ghost my 20GB harddrive onto a new 40GB (or possibly 60GB, haven't decided yet). It is currently FAT32 formatted and partitioned to C:5GB, D:5GB and E:10GB. I understand that I can ghost the entire drive as-is and the formatting and partition information will be retained, my question; the extra 20 GB(or 40GB) will be put into which partition?

[pawprint]

check out radified's excellent ghost tutorial for extensive information on using ghost

I understand that I can ghost the entire drive as-is and the formatting and partition information will be retained, my question; the extra 20 GB(or 40GB) will be put into which partition?

I am not familiar with ghosting entire drive as is, except if it was only one single partition. Otherwise, you restore each individual partition one at a time.

I would create exact same-sized partitions on new hdd to restore images to. You could then use remaining space to create new partition(s) for data/storage/ghost images, etc.
cheers, ~pawprint~

[TwoRails]

Originally posted by vacanthead I want to ghost my 20GB harddrive onto a new 40GB (or possibly 60GB, haven't decided yet). It is currently FAT32 formatted and partitioned to C:5GB, D:5GB and E:10GB. I understand that I can ghost the entire drive as-is and the formatting and partition information will be retained, my question; the extra 20 GB(or 40GB) will be put into which partition?

Hi vacanthead,

If 2003 works the same as 2002 (and I hear it does) then you'll have no problem: When you do a drive-to-drive Ghost will allow you to "size" your new partitions.

The only tricky part is that it won't let you set a total size higher than the total space on the HD, so sometimes you just can't start at C and make it large.

The easy workaround is to go to your last drives and make it just over the data size. Then you can make C & D what you want, then just give E all the remaining space.

HTH

TwoRails

[FarOut]

Just to add one more comment. Once you have your new HDD imaged. You can use Partition Magic (PM) to resize any partition on the new drive. Ghost and Partition Magic together takes what use to be an all weekend job, and turns it into about a 1hr. (depending on size of source) learning experience. You can even resize the boot partition of your new HDD, the possiblities are numerous.
And for the price of PM it makes it one of those software programs that are just a must to have around. Believe me, it pays for itself just with one use.

EDIT - I should have also said that if you use PM, that you should use PM to partition your new HDD the first time. FDISKed partitions and PM do not play well together.

BTW - Thanks Pawprint for the link to that Ghost site.

[TwoRails]

I should have also said that if you use PM, that you should use PM to partition your new HDD the first time. FDISKed partitions and PM do not play well together

Actually, that would be redundant. Ghost does all the partitioning And formatting in less time than it will take Windows to Format just 1/3 of the drive.

If you want your new drive to have more partitions than the one you are cloning, Ghost comes with Gdisk, which is a hi octane utility that does what Fdisk does, only better. If you set the new drive up this way, then you'd just do a Ghost partition-to-partition clone to put the "old' partitions on the new drive.


TwoRails

[FarOut]

I guess I didn't state what I wanted to say in the best way, my apologies for that. What I meant was that if I was going to use a partition management tool like Partition Magic in the process of setting up a new HDD (which I do). That I would use PM for it's strengths (management of partitions) and Ghost for it's ( imaging). I can see where I would not necessarily need PM in the beginning, or maybe never. It is down the road when it's powers might need to be called upon. Especially if I need to make alterations to the partition(s) due to size mis-calculations or any other change that has an impact on the partition(s). And not knowing what those alterations might be, I prefer to have a product that was developed solely to handle those possible issues. And If I used a partition management tool like PM to do the initial partitioning of the HDD, I stand a better chance of not running into any incompatibility problems.

Imaging & Partition Management technologies are far enough apart that I just like to use the best tool designed for the job at hand. I guess my thoughts on all this stems from my many years of being around large networks, where there seemed to be, and still is to some degree, a seperate software tool for everything. I guess the “old dog\new tricks” philosophy best describes me.

[TwoRails]

Hi FarOut and All,

I know what you mean, as I'm almost never as clear as I'd like to be

Ya, PM is a fantastic tool, even if I've never used it personally. My actually point was not to slam PM even the slightest, but to point out that if someone doesn't already have it, they don't need to spend extra bucks to set up a hard drive if they already have Ghost.



TwoRails

PS: I just picked up some OEM copies of Norton System Works Pro (which includes Ghost 2002) for some builds from NewEgg.com for $14. Know of where to get OEMs of PM??

[FarOut]

Hey TwoRails,
Didn't even eneter my mind that you were slamming PM. My bad habit is when I am trying to say something it is either to short or it turns into a dissertation. I can thank my college prof's for the latter.

I guess I suggest a partition management tool when working with new HDD's simply because of my experience's. I must remember that others probably don't screw up or change their minds as much as I do .

We get PM full version OEM's for around $15.00US, but they are not for distribution outside of our organization. The cheapest I have seen PM 8 is $37.99US @ viosoftware.com. If I do find a good outlet I will let you and all know where it is.

PS: Just so everyone knows who they are dealing with, I still use products such as LapLink, and CopyII PC. Sometimes the old way is the better way, at least for me. Unix & DOS forever!
Have a Good One!

[glc]

FarOut: I hear ya there! I still use Norton Commander ver 4 - it has a very nice parallel and serial port link function in addition to its file management features and it even runs at a win2k and XP command prompt. Not shabby for a 10 year old piece of software that fits on a single floppy disk. Only problem is it mangles long file names.

[vacanthead]

OK, thanks for all the infos. I'm just about ready to go ahead and buy a 60GB disk and proceed. However, a couple of points I noticed in the Ghost guide link given by pawprint. Firstly, someone noted that the old drive should be removed before rebooting due to registry problems in NT based OSs (as in XP, right?). Secondly, does the ghosting retain the active partition information, or should I go into fdisk on boot to set the active partition manually?
Further comments greatly appreciated.