Norton Ghost...Any Good???

dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
edited September 2004 in Science & Tech
Hi Guys, us again.

I bought Sally 2 x Seagate 120MB 8MB Cache Sata150 drives to go with her newly built computer today. Yeah, yeah, i know, lucky girl. I'm just TOO good to her, lol. Anyhow, we need to copy the complete content of her C: onto one of them new flash ones. I believe if you "Ghost" it, you are supposed to be able to remove the old HD and then use the new one as the operating disk with Windows, programs etc.

We do have ghost on one of our Norton disks and Sally tried it before and it would not work for her.
Is it able to do what i am trying to achieve or am i once again barking up the wrong tree. Maybe there is a trick to it or something. If anyone can shed some light on this i will be one happy chappy, or at least Sally will be happy as it is for her puter. :aol:

Sally is reading up about Norton Ghost again and asked if i knew the difference between "Clone" and "Peer to Peer". I must look like a walking encyclopedia maybe.

Sally is not very nice. She just read the last part of this post and called me names. All i'm trying to do is help her out. I just call it as i see it, lol. :-/

Thanks Jon

Comments

  • dancerdancer Blue Mountains, Australia
    edited February 2004
    Hi mate.
    As you can see i'm in aus too.

    Now what you want to do is what ghost is made for.
    A complete clone of one hdd onto another.

    When you boot into dos and start up ghost, you will want to select disk, to disk, then select eh source disk, and then the destination disk. (This assumes that the Orig hdd and the New hdd are in the machine at the same time.)
    And away she'll go.

    Any probs send me a msg or ph: 0410694907
    Thanks Regards Michael.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Beware cloning from ATA to SATA :(

    It has a reasonable but far from perfect rate. Especially when Windows as needs the sata adapers drivers present in the OS layer.. BEFORE you start ghosting.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    G'day Michael, nice to meet another Aussie.
    Your advise makes it sound easy. Just about the only way i can deal with puter problems, lol.

    After reading your post, Sally appears to understand a bit more, as she made a few comments like, oh, so that is what you do, etc.

    Got to love these forums. Make life a lot easier.
    Sally posts under the username of "JonsHandbrake". Handbrake is my pet name for her, cause she "Slows me down". Hehehe.

    She just went to have a look at the different drives, so she knows where to "Ghost" from and to. Our newly fitted Sata150 drive is nowhere to be seen. (On the screen that is). Now to work out where that has gone.

    Sally just went into administrative tools and found it. Needs to be initialised.
    Learning something new everyday. Never had this problem with my Abacus when i was little. (Just turned 57).

    Michael, would you also know if, when we ghost from one to the other, the content is automatically partitioned as you would with a new install of XP??
    All these things are now coming to mind, trying to think ahead, to avert possible problems.

    Thanks

    Jon & Sally
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Shorty wrote:
    Beware cloning from ATA to SATA :(

    It has a reasonable but far from perfect rate. Especially when Windows as needs the sata adapers drivers present in the OS layer.. BEFORE you start ghosting.

    Hi Shorty. Just read your post after posting my reply to Michael. As you may/may not know, Sally has been getting quite a good grip on some of the problems we have been getting of late.

    I just read out your reply to her, and the most intelligent part of her comment was: "HUH". Unfortunately, we have never done anything like this before and seem to be learning as we go along.

    Is there something we should be doing prior to "Ghosting" from one to the other? Like format the new drive?? Any advised will be greeted with joy.

    Not sure what you meant by your comments. Does it mean we are better off loading XP on, etc, like you would with a new puter??
    Really hope not as Sally, with all of the other puter problems setting up the new one, has had to ring Microsoft a few times to obtain new rego numbers. They are starting to think we are cheating or something. Not our fault we are having to re-format the rotten thing.

    Thanks Jon
  • dancerdancer Blue Mountains, Australia
    edited February 2004
    I think what Shorty mant was to make sure that the driver file for the SATA controller is properly installed so that when it's ghosted, windows will be able to actually say "Oh, there is a controller here, and a drive is on it."
    Otherwise, windows would spit the dummie with a "Boot device not accesable" BSOD.

    In regards to partitions, If you do a disk to disk clone, then you can (depending of the version of ghost) actually specify what size you want the disk to be.
    IE: say you have a 40gb hdd with 1 partition, then you have the 80gb sata, you can make 1 80gb partition as 1 drive, or create it like a 1 60gb drive or whatever size.
    Then when in windows you can then add another partition to that.
    I hope this helps.
  • ShortyShorty Manchester, UK Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Sorry guys, I was writing my reply fast as Im a bit busy at the saltmines (my real-life job) today :o

    Dancer intepretated my response in more detail :thumbsup:
  • dancerdancer Blue Mountains, Australia
    edited February 2004
    I love ghost. I use it all the time at work.

    Especially the Ghost Boot CD i made.
    Contains Win 98se,ME, and 95c (Why the last 2 i don't know) as images of a setup up to the first reboot of when setup detects the drivers.

    Can shave about 5-10mins off an install to a quick computer and about 30-45mins off a really slow one.
  • Straight_ManStraight_Man Geeky, in my own way Naples, FL Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    If I use Ghost to copy, I look out for two things:

    First, when you "Clone" you are making a copy of the HD on the new HD image on the new HD. Ghost like to hide either the source or the target, you will have two sets of data, one on each HD, but if you do not hide one XP will happily build a second boot line adn then ask you which you want to boot from. So, Ghost hides one copy.

    Second, make sure the version of Ghost that you have will in fact run on XP, early versions might not make great copies of things it does not understand, like XP boot sectors. Then you might have to delve into the recovery console with FIXBOOT and FIXMBR in order to get your copy up and running, and if you in fact do get it up and running I would run CHKDSK to check the copy and fix any journals-- with all the optional check boxes checked.

    If you like Ghosting once you get used to it, use it to both backup and to recover. The recovery will let you unhide your copy, among other things, or let you run your copy back onto the original.

    Ghost does copy all data on HD that it understands, it does not, by itself, let you have one or two files recovered.

    Bascily, there is one thing that you can do, with Ghost, that will let you have a running Windows without reregistering:

    On the target, as you recover, prep it first by wiping it. Install a basic XP. then load ghost. Use ghost to recover your entire image. Then you have your old image coming from backup as source, and your target as the XP fast install. Tell it to hide source. The result will be bootable if you use the latest version of Ghost, but if you use an older one you might get to use the XP install CD Recovery Console to get the boot sector and the boot record squared away(put in right for XP so XP boots).

    FIXBOOT has a command called /SCAN. This command locates all XP installs on a box. Then you can tell FIXBOOT to write over the boot record on your cloned copy if you want, but I usually use FIXMBR and then just tell it to wirte a new MBR based ont the scanning result, which in fact does fix what an older GHOST will do if it knows about NTFS but does not know what an XP boot record should be(some versions know the one, but not the other). Rather than giving you an exact sequence, I would try this:

    Boot from install CD.
    When it gets to the install screen, it has an option to press R to go into the recovery console, and this is what you want for this purpose.
    It will want the administrator's pasword you set up at install, to log in.
    When you get to a C:\Windows> prompt, type in FIXBOOT /HELP.
    Take a look at the options. USE pagedown key on keyboard to list the rest when you are done with first page-- some computers will not show all the help on one screen.
    When done, press CTRL-C if you do not have a C:\Windows prompt at bottom of screen.
    Now repeat, but in this pass you use FIXMBR /HELP instead of the FIXBOOT command you got into that command's help with.

    Note, there is a valid HELP command from the C:\Windows> prompt, it will list a bunch of commands you can use in recovery console, but to get help on any one of them you need to use the syntax COMMAND /HELP as I illustrated above with FIXBOOT and FIXMBR and substitute the command you want help with for COMMAND. IF you remember what / subcommand (or software switch) you want to call and know what command to use, you can get a brief output from the command itself as to how the syntax works with COMMAND /? -- to get this for FIXBOOT you would use FIXBOOT /? .

    Figured you might want to know how to get info from the Recovery Console's mini-help system, or Sally might want this before she is done.

    John D.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Thanks for the replies guys. Fair bit to absorb, so just doing a print out of Ageek's reply for Sally (the household puter guru). Means she knowns more than me, lol.

    Unfortunately, Sally is starting to get a bit stressed about the whole thing. I'm sure you would be aware of our problems this week and they have still not been resolved 100%. Per suggestion, we bought a new mobo battery today and fitted it awhile ago.

    Also checking for an update for the bios, just incase.

    Now we'll start having a go when we've sorted through things and see what happens.

    Regards

    Jon
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Trying to nut out the replies, gives me cause for a couple of questions.

    Sata controller?? A search through google makes me believe it is a PCI card, set up to allow sata disks to be used on your puter.

    This being the case, our new mobo is already setup to take 2 x sata HDD's. It actually came with 2 sata cables and a single Molex to 2 sata plugs for powering up the sata drives. I have fitted 1 x Sata driveto the mobo and when we restarted the puter, it came up with "New Hardware found". Me thinks this to be the new drive and XP now knows about it.

    Does XP still require additional driver(s) and if so, where do we find them and install them.

    Standing by for additional information.

    Whilst i am waiting i'll take 2 more valium to take the edge off. (just kidding).

    Thanks in advance.

    Jon & Sally
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2004
    dragonV8 wrote:
    ...Sata controller?? A search through google makes me believe it is a PCI card, set up to allow sata disks to be used on your puter.

    This being the case, our new mobo is already setup to take 2 x sata HDD's...
    Does XP still require additional driver(s) and if so, where do we find them and install them...
    The only difference is that your SATA controller is built-in. The PCI card type is for MB's that don't have it. They operate the same way, it's just a differnce between fitting in a slot or being soldered onto the board.

    You'll need a driver either way. The question is, does Windows already have the necessary driver in its database, or do you need to download it from the MB manufacturer. Check in Device Manager and see if the SATA controller is recognized properly. Windows might spot new hardware, but that doesn't always mean it knows what to do with it.
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Hi Prof. Read your reply and have been trying to work out whether the drivers are installed or, if i can find them on the web for download. They might be on the mobo disk, but unless someone puts a big arrow pointing to them, i would not know which ones i'd need. Bit thick this way.

    Sally looked in the Device Manager and clicked on IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers, found lots of storage controllers. This confused me even more as none stated SATA. Found IDE, Ultra ATA and other stuff.

    If you have any thought as to where i may find the appropriate drivers i'd love to know.

    Searching through google has produced nothing todate. I'm going to change the wording and keep searching. This is nothing like i expected. Should have left those disks on the shelf in the shop, less problems.

    Thanks anyway.

    Jon
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2004
    This is the Driver page from Gigabyte for that board. They don't list a seperate driver for the SATA adaptor; it appears that it is included as part of the Intel chipset driver. Look in Device Manager. Are there any "Unknown" devices or devices marked with a yellow ! or a red X? If not, it should be ok.
    This confused me even more as none stated SATA. Found IDE, Ultra ATA and other stuff.
    Is there anything under "SCSI Controllers"? Windows usually lumps any non-IDE controller in this category, even if it's not strictly "SCSI".
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Well, Sally is now having a go at Ghosting the HDD's. A few things come to mind as we sit here patiently, as nothing seems to be happening.

    1. The screen Sally can see is gray. Nothing else on it. Is this normal??

    2. It seems to take it's time. Is this a slow process??

    The puter should be a pretty quick one now, Intel 3.2, which i expected to show at least SOMETHING in the HDD activity light.

    Any thoughts, experiences???

    Jon
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    I may not understand what's going on here ...Ghost shouldn't be this difficult.

    Are you guys making a floppy or cd to boot from and run the program?
    Where are you planning on storing the ghost?
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    Sally said she made 2 boot disks in previous attempts to use ghost, so she figures using one of these when required.

    We are trying to "Ghost"(clone) all of the C: drive onto our (temporary) D: drive.
    This includes the XP OS.

    Once D: drive is an exact clone of C: drive, we plan to remove C: drive out of the computer, place the cloned D: drive in it's place and then put a new HDD in the D: drive slot.

    C: at present is a WD800JB, D: at present is a 120G Seagate Barracude Sata/150.
    The spare HDD, which will end up as D:, which is also a 120G Seagate Barracuda Sata/150. This way we will have 2 x 120G Sata/150 drives in the new puter.

    Hope this all makes sense. It does to me, but i normally use hand gestures in my speech, which is hard to convey in text, lol.

    Jon
  • profdlpprofdlp The Holy City Of Westlake, Ohio
    edited February 2004
    Attached is a great guide to Norton Ghost. Too bad Symantec didn't see fit to write as good a one themselves. :vimp:
  • BlackHawkBlackHawk Bible music connoisseur There's no place like 127.0.0.1 Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    Well didn't read the whole thread since it seemed a bit hard to understand but from what I see, the problem is that you need the SATA drivers for Ghost to work. Older versions used to work from within windows but now it reboots. If there is a SATA driver for DOS then make a bootable disk, put the driver there, load with the disk, install the driver then insert a disk with ghost on it (ghost.exe will do). Then theoretically it should work. Ghost should be able to see the drive. Unless the SATA drive is faster, why not just leave the 80GB and use the others as storage?
  • csimoncsimon Acadiana Icrontian
    edited February 2004
    dragonV8 wrote:
    Sally said she made 2 boot disks in previous attempts to use ghost, so she figures using one of these when required.

    We are trying to "Ghost"(clone) all of the C: drive onto our (temporary) D: drive.
    This includes the XP OS.

    Once D: drive is an exact clone of C: drive, we plan to remove C: drive out of the computer, place the cloned D: drive in it's place and then put a new HDD in the D: drive slot.

    C: at present is a WD800JB, D: at present is a 120G Seagate Barracude Sata/150.
    The spare HDD, which will end up as D:, which is also a 120G Seagate Barracuda Sata/150. This way we will have 2 x 120G Sata/150 drives in the new puter.

    Hope this all makes sense. It does to me, but i normally use hand gestures in my speech, which is hard to convey in text, lol.

    Jon

    so she makes the floppy and boots to the floppy but can't find the hard drive where ghost is located correct?
  • dragonV8dragonV8 not here much New
    edited February 2004
    I'll try and keep to the basics.

    Prof, thanks for that file. Full of good info. Sally let go of a few "Yeehar's" as she is looking through it. The fact it has screen shots makes it lot easier to understand. The printer is now working overtime.

    VoE, the "new" disk is faster (and bigger). The version of ghost we are using is 2003 and has had the latest updates done.

    We wish to end up with 2 x 120g Sata/150 HDD's. The "old" 80g will go into our backup computer as a backup disk. This will not be needed unless something goes wrong with our new one. ATM the old one just sits there and folds.

    csimon, Sally has not got to the part where she MAY have to use a floppy. Talking with Sally about "ghost", it appears she has a problem with "partition". Default is 2 Meg, not sure what to set it at as we don't need to split the disk.
    Basically learning from mistakes made as we go.

    Hopefully, the link supplied by prof and info supplied by others, will see her right. Not always that easy to grasp things first time at our age, lol.

    Thanks guys. Much appreciated.

    Jon & Sally
  • poolsharkpoolshark
    edited September 2004
    I think you shuld use the software that came with your drives to duplicate your OS on to anuther Drive i have tryed this and it works ( i used Data life gard 11 )
    but i am shure Max blast must have a similer Drive tools

    Good luck.
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