I havnt found any good answers for these question so I wanted to ask people who have tried this product. I am interested in buying norton ghost to make a image of my computer.
1. Will all my software that needed activation codes, such as windows vista, microsoft office, matlab, engineering software and photoshop ask for the activation code again?
2. If they do will they allow me to reinstall with the same code?
3.I have a 320 gb harddrive. but only have about 20 gb of data, about how many cds or dvds will this take (and is there a difference in cds and dvds like in terms of buying different disks)
4.If my hard drive fails can i recover with this disk (rebootable) and same questions as 1
5.About how long does this usually take to make a image?
6. Is norton ghost valid for many years or does it expire?
7. Last question.. If i dont have to re activate software what stops (or doesnt) people from doing this and install there image in many computers?
Thanks
Message Edited by Tailhunter on 12-27-2008 09:33 AM
Hi Tailhunter,
Welcome to Norton Community!
If you perform a Full system backup (disk image) which backs up everything on a hard drive or partition, no need for activation code again. If you have already activated the programs and then created a Ghost image of the hard disk, you will not need to reactivate any of the programs when you reimage the hard disk.
The Norton Ghost product CD is used to install the product and to start a computer by using the recovery environment. This disk is known as Symantec Recovery Disk. If you have purchased the download version of the product, download the Symantec Recovery Disk image file and create a Symantec Recovery Disk. You may also create a custom Symantec Recovery Disk for your computer. If you need to restore your computer, files, or folders using Symantec Recovery Disk (because you cannot start Windows normally), you can use the product CD to start the computer using the recovery environment.
The number of CDs/DVDs depend of the image size and data you have to backup. For 20 GB of data , it may go up to 4 DVDs(8GB each). There is also an option for backing up data in compressed and encrypted form which minimizes the storage space. Even if you use this option, some of the file formats can't be compressed further(for eg. Movie files like.dat,.mpeg). When you save backup data to CD/DVD, it is automatically split into the correct sizes if the backup spans more than one media. The size of recovery points depends on the amount of data you have backed up and the type of recovery point being stored. The speed of creating an Image depends on the destination at which you are storing it and the amount of data you have included in the image. For creating Images in CDs/DVDs may take more time as it is depended on the speed of the Writer.
Once you install and activate Norton Ghost, it is valid until you uninstall it. There is no subscription renewal for Norton Ghost Stand alone product.
For your last question, the answer is a simple one: End User License agreement. Unless you don't have valid License(for both Operating System and Other programs installed), you cannot use the same image in many computers. If you have valid licenses, you can use the same image, but you may need to reactivate those programs separately.
Yogesh
Thanks for the quick response Yogesh,
I think you answered my most my questions thoroughly. I guess i dont understand the license thing. See I bought like $300 in software (not really that much) but I still dont want to lose it. Is there like other hardware code that tells the products that it is on the right computer besides the hard dive. I feel like restoring an image on my hd will make it seem like another install and thus windows and other programs will prompt me for a code. Or is there like something in the mb that says its the same?
It seems like I might be digging to deep but I dont want to waste money. I have a the disk that came with the computer and i back up my data regularly.But I wamted something that would restore my software and settings and such if something was to happen.
Also, it sounds as though symantec uses its own environment or set-up to restore the computer. Is ths true? Like will it be as simple as placing the first disk into the drive if the time comes to restore? And will symantec need to still be installed on my computer to run it?
Thanks again
Hi Tailhunter,
Sorry for late reply. An End User License Agreement is a legal contract between the manufacturer and/or the author, and the end user of an application. You have to accept this agreement to install the application(software/operating system). The EULA details how the software can and cannot be used and any restrictions that the manufacturer imposes. Most EULA’s of proprietary software prohibit the user from sharing the software with anyone else. That is, if you have purchased an application with single User License, you can install it on only one computer. In that case, creating an image of the same application and using it in many other computers is illegal. But, you can create the image using Norton Ghost or any other Backup program and restore the it on the same computer whenever you want. You can copy and use the images of applications/operating system in more than one computer only if you have multiple User License of the same.
Symantec has it's own recovery environment, and Norton Ghost needs to be installed on the computer in order to use the Recovery Disk. The recovery environment of Norton Ghost makes restoring your computer possible after almost any computer disaster. Occasionally, a computer failure can leave the operating system intact but prevent you from restoring a recovery point after restarting. Or, a computer failure can leave the operating system inoperative, making restoration seem impossible. For these types of situations, you can restore your computer by using a recovery point from within the recovery environment (Symantec Recovery Disk). In the recovery environment, you can run the Recover My Computer Wizard (to restore your computer) or the Recover My Files Wizard (to restore files or folders). After you run the Recover My Computer Wizard, you can restart the computer into its previous, usable state.
Yogesh
I would like to add some more information regarding Symantec Recovery Disk that Yogesh has provided.
Symantec Recovery Environment is a custom WinPE environment for Vista. Using the Symantec Recovery Disk, you can boot into Recovery Environment. If you are using a CD version of Norton Ghost, you can use the same installation disk as Recovery Disk. If you are using a download version, you can download the ISO image of Recovery disk and burn it to create recovery disk.
By default, the recovery disk includes most commonly used device drivers so that you can boot into recovery environment. If there are any device drivers missing, you need to create a Custom recovery disk which will include the missing device drivers. Create Custom Recovery Disk option is available within the Norton Ghost program itself.
When you boot into recovery environment, you can see a graphical interface of Norton Ghost Recovery wizard. In recovery environment, you can restore the full system backups, can recover files, verify and browse the recovery points to see the contents. You can also edit the partition table of the hard drive, start network services to access network drives. It provides an option to start Symantec PCanywhere ThinHost using which you can remotely access the recovery environment from another computer where PCAnywhere is installed.
--Vinod