Norton ghost question

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 17 Nov 2008, 20:08

Ok, im making a fresh XP install , everything will be pretty clean , once i get my setup exactly how I want it, i need to back it up as an image file with nortons ghost, so for the future it will be alot easier to reformat. I recently downloaded Hirens Boot disc 9.6 patched, and it has ghost 11.5 i think built in the boot cd, i guess my question is how do i copy it to a usb back up drive then reput it back onto my pc later?

I have not tried nortons ghost out yet, does it just burn all my drive into a .iso file where ever i want on my usb drive? then later if i think im infected i can just format my HD, put in Hirens boot disc, load ghost then some easy click , click thing to copy it back onto my PC? thanks

Post by **bad_brain** » 18 Nov 2008, 05:22

well, been a while since I've used Norton Ghost, but it don't creates iso images, it creates special Ghost files, and you also don't have to format the drive first before you restore a backup....you simply boot the Norton Ghost disk, pick the image there and then it restores it for you.
storing the image on a USB stick should be no problem....

Still_Learning · Post by **Still_Learning** » 22 Nov 2008, 18:41

Thanks, i got it recorded in ghost format to my usb drive, but have not tried restoring the image to a drive yet. Any suggestions between the diffrence of backing it up by drive or partition? which is better? I selected drive.. it took almost 25 hours but have it backed up now for later. When I selected partition is took only say 4 to 8 hours.. of course that is before i added 10 gigs of music. so say the whole back up was 30 gigs instead of 40..

So now i have the ghost image can i copy it to any PC i want? say every PC in my house could have the same set up that i have on mine? is it as easy as copying it to the USB drive? can i just copy it back to the hard drive? if im useing version 11.5 will my version 11.5 ghost back up work on a newer version of ghost? I seen the new smaller laptops at Target/Walmart today for only like 350 to 500$ but they did not have a cd-rom or dvd-rom installed? Im guessing USB sticks are the future or what?..
A dvd carrys 8 GB's, a small USB stick can carry like 16GB from what ive seen.. depending on how much money you have it goes up

Post by **bad_brain** » 23 Nov 2008, 05:48

hm, yeah, you should be able to restore the image on any HDD, I am only not sure about the size....let's say the backup was taken from a 40GB drive and you restore it on a 120GB one, I am not sure if the remaining 80GB will be usable out of the box.

and well, manufacturers don't add CD/DVD drives anymore for 2 reasons, first they can build slimmer notebooks and second they can make extra money by selling external CD/DVD drives then...USB is not just USB sticks, and installing a whole OS from an USB stick could be a real pain in the rear because most sticks have still a pretty low transfer rate. would be ok for a slim Linux distro, but a full Vista install from an USB stick would be horror I think...