Norton Ghost or something similar

Hans Manhave · June 29, 2010, 05:01:00 PM

Does this technique work?

Get a hold of Norton Ghost and a new hard drive. Slave the new drive to the current one and load up Ghost with a Windows XP Startup disk. Then do a "Sector by sector copy" within Ghost. When it is done, remove the old drive and now make the new drive the master drive. When your done, turn on the system and your good as new. All your files will be untouched by ghost plus you have a complete backup just in case! No need to reinstall XP!

Not sure how I "load up Ghost with a Windows XP Startup disk", but I could possibly get the computer rebooted long enough to install Ghost.

Are there better solutions that will keep my installed programs? Chkdsk hasn't turned out any problems when finished.

Hans Manhave · June 29, 2010, 05:32:58 PM

How about Acronis' Migrate Easy. Anyone who used it?

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 29, 2010, 05:58:48 PM

Clonezilla?

Hans Manhave · June 30, 2010, 07:20:28 AM

Clonezilla looked good too, but would have required a lot more reading, I think. Did Acronis Migrate which did not work. The drive result was not usable.

Finally (after midnight) remembered Spinrite and so I obtained the latest version, 6, and ran that on the drive. It found some bad locations. It would not run on the host machine because it would not load FreeDOS all the way. So I added the drive to a system that would run Spinrite (Spinrite runs from an image burned to USB key, CD etc.). After a four hour exercise, the drive did boot this morning. Will see what happens when I put it back at the office (had taken the machine home for convenience). Must come through the day somehow. Maybe will try cloning again tonight. Must get more sleep though, was still catching up from the last weekend.

JohnGage · June 30, 2010, 08:39:07 AM

I'll add another plug for Clonezilla. After years of not being able to get Ghost to work CZ has been very easy to use.

Hans Manhave · June 30, 2010, 09:22:02 AM

I will look at Clonezilla some more. I just needed a quick solution so I would have this machine on this morning. Of course, it took a long time anyway and my initial solution didn't work...

Anybody know if there is a limit to the Event log in Windows? Should it be saved/cleaned/demolished and restarted? I'm wondering if 512K is a limit.

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 30, 2010, 09:29:49 AM

The Event logs have configurable limits, by size or by time, after which you either get an error message to clear them, or if configured to do so, they overwrite themselves.

Jeff Zylstra · June 30, 2010, 12:03:02 PM

I've had good results with Acronis True Image, Clonezilla and DD. If memory serves me, I used all of them by booting from a CD created via ISO image files. Of the 3, I too would pick Clonezilla. Partly because I've had issues recently with my Acronis disk imaging back up program (now resolved), and also because it's hard to beat "free" software that works..

Kevin Crow · June 30, 2010, 03:39:54 PM

We're currently using Ghost but we've been looking at Fog (http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/).
I'd appreciate comments from those who've tried it.

Gene Foraker · June 30, 2010, 04:18:42 PM

Quote from: Kevin Crow on June 30, 2010, 03:39:54 PM
We're currently using Ghost but we've been looking at Fog (http://sourceforge.net/projects/freeghost/).
I'd appreciate comments from those who've tried it.

It says it only goes up to XP and Vista, no Win 7.

Bloody Jack Kidd · June 30, 2010, 04:23:57 PM

and requires PXE boot - seems cumbersome to introduce into a large environment. I like the concept.

Some images I carry on a thumb drive - boot a slax cd and dd the iso to the drive, done.

For more complicated imaging needs, or partition work, it's Clonezilla and GParted, although I think I have also used Disk Director.

JohnGage · June 30, 2010, 04:25:14 PM

Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 30, 2010, 12:03:02 PM
I've had good results with Acronis True Image, Clonezilla and DD. If memory serves me, I used all of them by booting from a CD created via ISO image files. Of the 3, I too would pick Clonezilla. Partly because I've had issues recently with my Acronis disk imaging back up program (now resolved), and also because it's hard to beat "free" software that works..

When I've used CloneZilla I use a bootable CD and then conenct an external HDD that stores the images. Makes for quick backup and restore.

insurebaltimore · July 07, 2010, 04:04:22 PM

Quote from: JohnGage on June 30, 2010, 04:25:14 PM
Quote from: Jeff Zylstra on June 30, 2010, 12:03:02 PM
I've had good results with Acronis True Image, Clonezilla and DD. If memory serves me, I used all of them by booting from a CD created via ISO image files. Of the 3, I too would pick Clonezilla. Partly because I've had issues recently with my Acronis disk imaging back up program (now resolved), and also because it's hard to beat "free" software that works..

When I've used CloneZilla I use a bootable CD and then conenct an external HDD that stores the images. Makes for quick backup and restore.

Same here, though I've had some issues cloning RAID's this way.