Thread: Using Norton Ghost

HI Dotnxtians,

I am Running a Cyber Cafe in my Home town for Last 4 years with BSNL Broadband Connection and 12 Pcs.
AS windows OS crashes so frequently i came to know about Norton Ghost. I installed the same on every PC and have taken the Backup of OS in another partition of HDD of every PC. The average backup size (Ghost Image) is about 3 GB of every PC.

I would like to one thing. as the Ghost Image is in another Partition of HDD (OS is installed in C:\ and the ghost image is in D:\ of every PC). What if at any day, any time i couldnt able to boot to Windows Desktop.

I mean if i am unable to reach to the Windows Desktop due to any reason how can i recover my PC from the Ghost Image., Even i dont know how to create a Bootable Ghost Image so that it can restore my system during Boot.

Actually what i need is :-

As every PC has its own CD - ROm (no Combo).. and the size of Ghost Image is almost 3 GB(cant be fit on CD) how it can be possible so that i can recover my OS from ghost Backup even in the case of System Failure (not booting to Desktop).

or in simple means,

lets suppose that i have Ghost Image in my HDD another drive, and i am not able boot to Desktop. How can i recover my PC using the Ghost Image?

Thanking you in anticipation please.

Your Kind help will be appreciated.

Although I am the best person to answer this question of yours but my guess is that if you get an external hard drive and save your stuff there instead of saving in the same hard drive in a partition it wont get lost and you can always boot from the external drive..

Get a 40 or 60 GB external hard drive which you can plug in using a usb port.

I would like to hear from those who have any better options in their mind

cant i make any bootable CD/or DVD to recover my PC..

i am satisfied with the response to use external HDD..

but what if .. some of my motherboards are not able to boot from USB drive..or what if system fails to boot to desktop??

please guide me step by step..

thanks in anticipation please.

Originally Posted by 9816063641

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Actually what i need is :-

As every PC has its own CD - ROm (no Combo).. and the size of Ghost Image is almost 3 GB(cant be fit on CD) how it can be possible so that i can recover my OS from ghost Backup even in the case of System Failure (not booting to Desktop).

Dont worry when you will start burning the image of your windows(using Norton Ghost) just keep inserting the blank CD's until the whole 3GB image is finished


Or you can do one more thing if by any chance your windows crashes(not booting to desktop) just insert any bootable image of windows and install the windows normally WITHOUT formatting the hardrive(s)

1.
Downlaod Norton Ghost recovery disc CD ISO-around 150 MB,
burn it to CD,
boot from it,
restore from the back up on your hard drive.
2.
There is also a better more efficient way but more tricky.
Don't boot from the windows partition(lets say "HDD-1-AA") on hard drive (HDD-1)you want to back up and restore.
Boot from another hard drive(HDD-2) with norton ghost installed on it.
Copy the original partition through Ghost from "HDD-1-AA" to "HDD-2".
It'll ask for some settings like copy MBR and Check for disk error etc.

Now you have all installed windows on your HHD-2,so whenever you need put the HDD-2 online and repeat the process of copying from HDD-2 to HDD-1(reverse of previous).

I know this is far more difficult than it seems,but once you know it becomes easier.
But there are problems with this procedure like pagefile conflict.
So make sure to plug out HDD-2 after copy and before booting to HDD-1.

I have an 80 GB + 250 GB SATA,
my C drive is 30 GB where 25 GB is occupied by installed programs,so writing to disc is of no use, so I use this procedure to copy all of my 25 GB all installed windows to copy to and fro .Works for me very good and saves my 3-4 hrs of time.

I don't expect you to understand much from the above,as I couldn't explain it so clearly,just play around with the tool for some time and you'll find everything you need.

If your Xp get corrupted then Plz do the following if you dont want to loose data

1. reinstall a fresh Xp Using "Leave the Partition Without any changes"
Instead of formatting your harddisk just choose the above option in the format your disk page. then you will be able to get your all the data recovered with out loosing anything later you can run your Ghost to replace.

2. By using repair Xp
You will get the option repair Xp two times while you boot from XP OPERATING system CD choose the option wheen you get it second time. it will repair or reinstall the xp without formatting or loosing any data in the C: drive.

Cautions: Please read all the details in the pages showing while installing XP.