Creating a Ghost Image for Windows XP or the like

Norton/Symantec makes the software, known as Norton Ghost.

official product link:
http://www.symantec.com/sabu/ghost/ghost_personal/

Basically, "ghosting," (otherwise known as "imaging") is a snapshot of
your system partition (usually c: ) into 1 single file. When you want to run
a restore, you run a backend boot menu and restore from that file.

It's really easy and you can restore your pc in about 15 min usually. The
only catch is, you can only ever use that image on the hardware it was
created from, or obviously it won't work properly because of drivers, etc.

The technique has been used for years, but usually on a corporate level.
This is how large companies push out so many new pc's in a short time,
by "ghosting" them. If they have 100 pc's with exactly same hardware,
they load 1 from scratch and then ghost it, creating all the others from
that same image file. Since all the hardware is the same, it will work
99% of the time (I've seen some not work and have to be redone).

This concept is the same for a personal pc as well.

An example of what you can do with it to save you some time when a
restore is needed:

1. install windows
2. load all your apps and fav programs that you always use
3. then do the ghost image
4. whenever windows acts up from heavey usage or just basic probs,
re-image to get it back to the way it was a lot faster than a full re-install.

It's very slick and saves you so much time. It takes me approx 6hrs to
finalize a fresh install - 15 min with Ghost.

Ok i get what you said but whats the difference between Ghosting, and a full system back up. also if it isnt a full system back up where does the missing data come from? alittle bit confused on that area.. how you can go from a blank hard drive to fully loaded computer from just a ghost image.. please elaborate..

thanks

it's a snapshot - basically just a copy and paste of your c:. You are
formatting and then copying that image file to a clean hard drive, and
because it is all the same hardware, it will work.

As far as system restore, it serves the purpose of NOT doing a total
re-install from scratch. The image already represents the hard drive's
status you want it to be right after installing everything. You just don't
have to actually do it.

You can ghost your entire hd if you want, and save the image on a
partition for restore. Very easy and makes it convenient.

Make sense?

yes thanks it does.. i was think in terms of having enough space for a full system backup.. but an image is more or less the bare essentials for restoring your HD.. thanks...

yeah it is, but usually a system restore is for the OS only. A ghost saves
and backsup everything on that drive into 1 file. that file is not
necessarily the same size as the drive though. There's some
compression ran on it to save you that space.

I installed over 100 XP Pro images with about 16 apps loaded at this
company, and the image was less than 1g.

If you do it right, you can get it down to less than 1 cd-r. Then you
aren't using any hd space.

I picked up a copy of Norton Ghost 2003 today, and I'm so glad. It's
even easier to use than before, and the utiilities for compression are
really improved.

I images my current configuration in 19min, dumping 8gigs into a 4.6gig
ghost file out on my network. that's pretty darn good.

I don't plan to reinstall windows ever again from scratch after this next
time. I'm stoked about this, since i can actually use it at home and not
only in the office.

Very well put UNFLUX.

we use Ghost at work just like you subscribed it.

only we use boot disk to map to the network and pull the file ...

very handy and rapidly sets up any pc in minutes.

we have several images as well in order to accomidate
the securities and applications. for instance depending
on job function for the new user machines, we deploy
images based on setting requirements.

just got it downloaded i cant wait to try it out.. this may be the answer to my backup needs...

I use Norton Ghost myself. That's the only backup program that i have.

let us know how it goes.

what if you want to burn the image and its to big for one cd does norton ghost allow you to make multiple files out of one hd image

great question -

you actually will send the image to the cd burner right within the
program's interface. When it gets to the end of disk 1, it will ask you to
put a new one in and continue. When restoring from the image, it will
also ask you for the next disk when it gets to the end of the first.

The image I use at work is actually 5 cd-r's because of all the software
the company uses. Works very well.

Ghost is a good program to have, used it a few times. But I used a fresh Install of windows and add the cab files to a directory on C: (C:\win98 for windows 98) Then I ghosted an image and made it a bootable CD rom. Now I can build a complete system with OS and a few small programs, usually in under an hour. After the image is loaded on the hard drive once the computer starts up for the first time it finds all the hardware for the new system. This probably isn't the most correct thing to do, but hey it saves me any were from 2 to 6 hours on waiting for software to load.