I love the Offsite Copy function of Norton Ghost 15, but I miss a lot of control off it.
Most important: does anyone know if there is a way to manually start an Offsite Copy? I know that it is started when it detects the external HD or network path, but when I attach my computer to my network, Norton Ghost does not always ask to start the Offsite Copy immediately. Sometimes this question comes after a few minutes so that I have to keep staring at my task bar. Because this question is there only for a few seconds and if you miss it, there seems to be no way to start the Offsite Copy again, besides making a whole new local backup again and cross your fingers that the question comes again afterwards.
Second: is there a way to monitor the progress of the Offsite Copy? Sometimes the icon in the tasbar only sais that everything is backup up, but when I see my backup data growing on my networkshare, I know that Ghost is doing an Offsite Copy. It then seems that checking my backupshare on my network is the only way to see that Ghost is busy and there is now way to check the progress when the Ghost icon doesn't give me a percentage done.
For Ghost to be aware of the network, off site drive, it is necessary for the computer to boot with those devices attached. This is when Ghost does its inventory. Booting then attaching means that you will have to wait for other activity to make Ghost aware of the change.
Keep us posted
I don't have an answer to the second question. Hopefully one of our experts will chime in with that answer. Then we will both know
Why not just set up a batch file or task using Task Scheduler to run the command line tool RoboCopy. This would be a great way to copy the image files.
Thanks for your answer! Does it mean that any time I want to initiate the Offsite Copy I will have to restart my computer when attached to my network? Then, after the restart, do I immediately get this question to start the Offsite Copy?
Like I said, after a backup this message pops up after an arbitrary amount of time. If you miss it, there's now way to initiate it again besides making a whole new backup and hope that I get this notorious question again. The question only pops up once after a backup (if you are lucky).
Indeed it is possible to do it that way, but Norton claims to have this functionality so it would be nice if I really could use it.
By the way: there is no need to use the Task Scheduler. You can automatically let Ghost initiate the Robocopy after a succesfull backup. It's just that I want to use the Ghost functionality of an Offsite Copy.
Of course I can uncheck this question box, but an offsite copy takes a few hours to complete. If I uncheck this box Offsite Copy automatically starts after each backup. If I'm not aware of that, and I turn off my computer, the Offsite Copy will be corrupt.
So I DO want the question so that I can decide when to make this Offsite Copy. But the best option is that Norton would build in a button to manually start the Offsite Copy whenever you want. I do not understand why they decided not to give any level of control to the Offsite Copy. I miss it, otherwise it would be a very usefull function!
Thats' the beauty of using Robocopy. You can mirror the folder where your backups are and if it is interrupted during a copy, it will pick up where it left off next time it is run. I never thought about having Ghost call it to run after a backup completes. Good idea.
EDIT:
I used this command...
robocopy "E:\HD IMAGE" "F:\HD IMAGE" /MIR
It works beautifully. It syncs up the second folder perfectly, even if interrupted and run a second or third time.