I am replacing two HD's in Raid 0 enviroment. I have two WD drives ready to install but must clone my PC to an external drive.(I have XP SP3) I What steps must I take to ensure that the backup will restore everything so that I can boot up on the new drives as it currently does. I read that Ghost has several drive to drive options and want to check the correct ones. also, should I create a boot disk ?
Hi dunroin,
Welcome to the forum,
I am a Ghost 12 user but before we start to answer your post I think you need to read this thread and instructions from BrianK Here and read it all through.
Ghost 12 doesn't have the option to clone a drive as such, that option is replaced by the "copy a drive" function.
A true clone is only available with Ghost 2003 so if you read all that thread I think it will explain the difference with a "clone" and a "copy".
What you can't do is run a clone onto an external drive but what you can do is copy a image of your computer onto the external drive.
I am not into "Raid" so I can't comment on that aspect but you should create a SRD ( Symantec Recovery Disk) that can include all the necessary drivers for your system.
I run a multi boot machine and use Ghost 12 to backup, create a recovery point or image onto external drives and I have to say that Ghost 12 is very good at and I wouldn't be without it to be honest.
Using Ghost 12 when backing up a multi boot (in my case 4 O/Ss ) by highlighting all 4 drives Ghost 12 will copy and recover with "One Touch"
Deric
Edit, sorry about the font size I hit the wrong button.
Thanks for the link. I will try to read all but did notice most refer to Ghost 15. I have Ghost 12 and want to create a copy of my existing HD's including the OS and the boot up so I can restore my PC to it's original with the new HD's after they are installed. Your response is most appreciated by this amateur.
Like I said in the previous post I am a Ghost 12 user and you will have gathered that I don't do cloning drives, having said that I would think that you could use the "Copy Drive" function to to copy a drive (Clone has now been dropped) see pic.
Normally what most of us do is to install the O/S on the bootable drive, usually C:and install Ghost and "Copy My Computer" only onto an external drive, these backups are called restore points or images and you will be able to recover your computer with the backup that you created. see pic.
If you are not too sure of the correct steps to take get back to us and we will set out what you need to do to ensure a safely backed up computer.
Trust me Ghost 12 is very good and once you practice creating restore points or backups you will see how reliable Ghost is.
Deric
Thanks for the input. After 4 or 5 chat sessions with Norton India, I relized I was chasing the wrong procedure. Copy will make the destation drive the C drive , a full backup allows me to restor the entire C drive after I installed the new drives, which is what I did. Now I will try to restore my Raid 0 envoirment which is a Bios problem but is doable with my Norton backup on an external HD.
Thanks again
I have just had a very bad experience with Ghost 12. Total crash of Vista and 12 did not recover my disk copy-image-clone (the names keep changing!). Don't remember what version of Ghost and Windows that worked perfectly for me in the past, but this time it has been a disaster. I'm spending HOURS having to rebuild my system with all apps, etc, etc, etc that it takes to have a working environment.
Can someone please give me some guidance, pointers and references so that I either don't try this again, or can learn to use the tool correctly. I have the "disk copy" on both an internal disk 1 and on an external USB drive. Neither were recognized when I tried to recover. Got error msg and told to chkdsk, which did not run completely, then eventually did. Saw that earlier versions of 12 were flawed, and have now updated to the latest. Will this latest version really work? What are the limitations? Can I "image" my system on a partition of Disk 0 to another partition, and then recover the entire system when needed?
TIA, pjl
I use Ghost 12 on a regular basis to re image as and when necessary and I can safely say I haven't had any problems at all and as a matter of fact it will also run on Win 7.
To use Ghost 12 properly you need to create a recovery point preferably on an external drive for obvious reasons, but you can also create a recovery point on an internal drive.
In your case once you have loaded Vista and a few necessary apps create your first recovery point by doing the following:-
1) Install Ghost 12 on the drive with the O/S installed, or on the last drive inline on a multi boot machine.
2) On the main UI (Home) select "Run or Manage Backups"
3) Select "Define New"
4) Select "Backup My Computer", don't include "Files and folders"
5) After clicking Next Highlight the drive or drives you want to backup
6) Work through the settings and select run now.
Depending on whether you specified the destination drive as your USB external or your internal drive a copy of your computer will be placed on the designated drive.
Please note that "recovery point", "Backup" , "Image" in the case of Ghost all mean the same, it is a true copy of your computer, do not get confused with "Clone" or "Disk Copy" they are Not backups.
If you are still struggling getting your head round the terminology I can post the exact steps to take with a series of screen shots.
I reimage, recover, backup my computer manually and don't use incremental backups, all my data is contained on a separate drive and that is backed up by a third party software automatically on a daily basis.
A recovery of a single drive with Vista loaded and a couple of apps should only take a few minutes, in my case my multi boot machine (4 drives) is recovered in 20 minutes.
Once you have taken the correct steps to backup your computer the recovery operation never fails.
Deric.
I'm looking for reassurance after having a disaster with my primary system. Vista crashed due to a power interruption and all efforts to recover failed: restore, recover, reimage, internal drive, external drive - I thought hat I had alternatives in case of a failure, but all let me down.
Best explanation came from a comment that Gho 12 had early bugs that got fixed and that now the latest version is stable and rock solid. Anyway, I'm now trying to find a method that I can trust.
Can you please provide the method that works for you? Are there any special requirements, like the two internal drives be the same size, or whatever. I remember that the early Ghost stuff made an exact drive image that was bootable, using DOS running outside Windows, that could be copied back to the Drive 0 position that worked 100% solid. Is that possible today?
Will appreciate feedback in this thread, or directly to pjl@comcast.net. Pls notify email if you post to this thread, as I don't know otherwise how I will know if this gets a reply.
TIA, pjl
You can't expect a "disk copy" to work when using an external drive. You need both drives directly connected to the motherboard in order to get a working copy.
The systems motherboard is needed to provide the correct geometry and drive translation, something an external drive in a USB2 case just can't do.
However, images are better for making backups for several different reasons and they can be written to an exteral drive with no problems because they are just normal files.
Dave
Ghost 12 is a very good computer backup software.
I assume that your computer has 1 drive C:\
Simply the procedure is as follows:-
1) Create a recovery point or Image on your USB external drive.
2) Follow the screen shots shown below
3) This method will create a backup of your computer that you can recover from at any time.
Pic 1 shows the home page, I use a USB external drive as shown.
Pic 2 shows select "Run or Manage Backup"
Pic 3 shows "Settings" selected, I have 4 drives but you only need to select C:\
Pic 4 Shows USB external drive selected with folder to place image in
Pic 5 shows next stage
Pic 6 Shows the final stage having skipped a couple simple stages
The click "Finish" and your computer will be backed up onto your external drive in the folder that you create on the drive.
Try the above procedure and once you have completed it I will take you through the recovery stage.
Deric.
If the second drive is internal and I mark the coy bootable, can I switch the positions of the HDDs and expect the "copy" to boot and thus provide a 100% backup of the system?
Are there limitations about the size of the drives (must be the same size) or will not handle using only a partition on the drive to make this method work?
My goal is to have a 100% solid way to recover my system in the event of a disaster, which I just had, without the pain of reloading the OS and all the apps. In today's world, what is the best way to do that?
Having gone thru that pain and recovering data from a backup, I find that all files now carry a date of the backup, not the date they were created, which really makes life for someone like me who uses chronology to quickly locate stuff!
TIA for your comments.
pjl
D, thx for the detailed directions. However, I do have a second internal HDD, a legacy from the days before reliable USB2 HDDs.
I'm looking for the best way to have a reliable way to restore the system without reinstalling the OS and all the apps. What do you recommend?
TIA, pjl
Just completed test on lap (switched internal HDDs after doing a copy of the disk 0 to the disk 1) expecting this to successfully simulate recovery of a damaged system, with all apps intact.
Dell Vostro 1710 rebooted, all looked normal, but nothing would run. Task manager would run if it was the first thing tried after reboot, but test was definitely a failure.
Any comments or suggestions? The HDDs are different size (80 and 160 GB).
pjl
The only posative way to safeguard your computer is to run a "Backup" as outlined in the previous post onto the external drive, that is what Ghost is designed to do and it does it well.
In the case of an emergency a recovery is achieved by booting with the SRD or installation disk and reloading the backup, dead simple.
Disk copy or Clone is not a computer backup and does run into trouble, but, if you follow my instruction pics you will be safe in the knowledge that you can recover your computer to a working state, try it and let us know how you get on.
Deric
Deric, if the failure requires (after all other efforts have failed!) formatting the drive and reinstalling the OS, am I correct that recovering the data from a backup will not restore the application programs?
From a time standpoint, it takes many more hours to get the OS updated and all the apps reinstalled and working after the basic OS is running.
pjl
Paul,
If you follow the steps outlined in previous post (message 10) Ghost will recover All the data on that drive including Apps and O/S.
If you decide to use Fdisk to delete and reformat drive C:\ as soon as you have reloaded the O/S and a few essential Apps run a full backup onto the external drive.
Once you have done that you can do what you like with the laptop because you can recover to that image at any time.
All I would say to you is keep your data separate to the O/S drive that way you can very quickly recover to the date you created the recovery point.
Remember, "Recovery Point", "Image" and "Backup" in Ghost terms all mean the same, it is a fully operational system.
Forget about "Clone" and "Copy Disk" at this stage, get the backup done first, then you can experiment.
Deric
If you never tried the ghost system recovery disk, I suggest you try it and you will see what Deric is talking about.
It won't make any changes unless you tell it too, you can boot to it and look at the options and use it to explore your system.
Dave
Thx, I'll try that.
pjl
My luck or Ghost? Got an error with sreshell.exe, memory could not be read. Windows memory test (probably RAM?) revealed no problems. The error address given appeared to me to be RAM.
Where now?
TIA, again, pjl
How much RAM do you have? 512MB or more is prefered. You could Try the Ghost 15 SRD.