Using Norton Ghost

[Surge1243]

Hi, I'm considering purchasing Norton Ghost but I'm sort of unclear about how it really works. I just bought a new 60 GB hard drive to add to my system that has 20 GB drive in it now. I want to copy everything from the 20 gig and put it on the 60 gig. I'm then going to use the 20 gig in an upgrade that I'm working on. Now can I simply use Norton Ghost and copy the entire drive, OS and all, and put it on the 60 gig drive? The 60 gig has no OS as it's slaved (well, cable select slave) to my 20 gig. Can I then just erase my 20 gig and put it in the new computer? Also, how does copying the entire drive work in Norton Ghost? I mean, does it save it to a CD or something cause that would be a pretty large amount of CD's to clone an entire 20 gig drive. Thanks a lot guys. Oh, I am using Windows XP Pro and the upgrade computer will be using it as well.

[doctorgonzo]

Yes, you can copy the 20 GB drive to the 60 GB drive no problem. You do not need an OS on the 60 GB drive. Ghost will copy the contents of the 20 GB drive bit by bit, so you will get a perfect clone. Then you can erase the 20 GB drive and do whatever you want with it. It is really quite simple.

You can also copy a drive or partition image to CD in Ghost, but you don't have to. You can just copy from one HD to another as you want to do.

[mike breck]

Hi Surge1243,

This is a good guide for Ghost

http://ghost.radified.com/

HTH

[Guardian]

Surge1243, I just bought a new 80GB WD Special Edition and used Norton Ghost 2003 to clone it from my original 80GB.

Follow the instructions on the Norton (www.symantec.com) web site. One of their FAQs pretty much spells out exactly what you need to do.

I had no problems. I'm using the second 80GB HD to make backup images and to store downloads. I also found it real easy to do backups to a mapped drive on my network!

It's just great!

[vacanthead]

OK, I'm thinking of doing something similar, I have a 20GB HDD (which is rapidly filling up) partitioned to C, D and E (5, 5 and 10 GB respectively). I have Win 98 on C:, XP home on D: and I use E: for programmes, games, storage etc. I'm thinking of putting in a second 40GB, 7200rpm and naturally want to run my XP and programes from this. Is it just a case of copying the D and E images to the new HDD using ghost? Will the new drive default to D:? I will then reformat the 'old' D and E partitions and use them for storgae. I want to keep C: as it is for my kids education software and older games etc.. Is there anything else I should take into consideration? I will probably partition the new HDD into a 5, 15 and 20GB partitions, with my OS on the 5GB. Is Ghost really that easy to use?
Thanks in advance
Paddy

[glc]

I would personally put the new drive in as a slave, ghost (drive image, drive copy, whatever) all 3 partitions from the old drive to the new drive, then swap the new drive to master and old drive to slave, then wipe the old drive and redo it the way you want.

[vacanthead]

Thanks glc, I thought about that option too after I posted. Do I need to format / partition the new drive prior to ghosting the old one, or does it do it all in one neat procedure?

Edit: Having checked the manual, it seems ghosting the entire drive will write over any partitioning information any way, but what about the formatting? If I fromat the new drive before ghosting, will this formatting information on the unused portion be retained (remember, I will be ghosting <20GB onto a 40GB drive)? What will the new partitioning look like on the new drive? 5 + 5 + 30GB, or 5 + 5 + 10 + 20?
While I'm here, what is the best Master / Slave set up? I will have the new drive as Master on the primary IDE, I will then have the old drive as a slave somewhere (primary or secondary IDE?) and also a CD-ROM and a combi CD-RW/DVD, but in what config should I have the 2 CD-ROM drives? I was thinking along the lines of:
Primary: 40GB HDD master, CD-ROM slave
Secondary: CD-RW/DVD master, 20GB HDD slave

Sorry, so many questions etc etc........