Ghost - what's the best version?

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 09:11

Hi guys

I'm trying to make a backup of my boot drive onto an additional HDD which will be unplugged so if I need to reinstall or there is a major crash I can just clone it straight back over.

I've heard about how good Norton Ghost is so I was going to use that for cloning the drive...but then I have read that version 10 is pretty rubbish, as it works in Windows and doesn't copy the system files that are in use properly.

Can you guys recommend me an (older) version of Ghost that work flawlessly every time and (probably) works from DOS?

Thanks

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 09:59

Ah right, that's a clever idea as I do use a RAID 0 (though it won't be used in the backup).

Thanks for the post, I'll check it out!

Just for arguments sake, does anyone else have any recommendations?

I should note, I have tried the bundled Windows version and after restoring the image it came up with the error message "Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe".

So that was a non-starter. Typical Windows :rolleyes:

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 10:49

I'll see what it will do for me this afternoon!

Thanks again for the information.

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 11:05

lol Spuknik II convinced me but it's always good to get other opinions as well.

I certainly won't be needing it over a network, it will be for business use but I only use the one machine.

I'll try it this afternoon and see what happens!

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:45

Well I've had a go using XXClone because it is totally free!

And the results weren't the best...

The drive seemed to copy fine.

I disconnected C:, checked in the BIOS that D: was detected (it was the only HDD connected) and crossed my fingers...

Seconds later I received the fatal message "Disk boot failure. Insert system disk and press enter".

Bah...can anyone enlighten me as to what I did wrong?

C: is a 120Gb, D: is also a 120Gb which was preformatted and had Windows on it from a previous attempt (I didn't think it would matter if it was wiping everything anyway).

Everything copied fine, all the advanced options were checked as was recommended.

D: is set as a slave drive and is on the secondary connector on the primary IDE channel.

Whether that makes a difference or not I don't know but it's rather a fiddle keeping on plugging and unplugging wires so I just removed the power connector from C: (possible newbie mistake...?).

Any suggestions? (apart from try Acronis lol - I will buy it if I have to but I'd prefer a free version if it does the same job).

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 13:53

I can't see that working as the hardware etc would be different in the two machines.

Also a lot of prebuilt machines seem to have make specific software on them, woe betide me when I tried to get some XP drivers off my Toshiba laptop XP disc to use on the main machine :rolleyes:

TheBigCheese · 29 Apr 2006 at 14:38

Mr Blonde said:
Well if you've doing it that way you'd also have to change your bios settings so it looks for a boot drive on IDE2/Sata2, instead of the original IDE1/Sata1.

Oooooooh right....be right back!

*edit*

XXClone worked! All I had to do was not be lazy, and put the cloned drive on the first connector of the primary IDE channel as opposed to the secondary.

I looked for a bios setting to change as you mentioned but couldn't find one...but changing the cable over worked so I'm happy!

Thanks everyone for your help and suggestions, it's much appreciated!