Norton Ghost question

[bopdude]

Hi all, probably a quick short answer to this but i would be interested to know if anyone's done it, if it can be done.

OK, I have a ghost image of my hdd from my fresh install, XP Pro, after all the recent ( at the time ) updates, all my software etc etc. Is it possible to load another version of windows, make a ghost image, and switch between the 2 versions ( or more if I wanted to ) using ghost to load the chosen image.

I'm assuming that it is, but will ghost V9 run on the hdd and reload a different version from another drive ??

Thanks for any input, the reason behind this is purely experimental, I want to try other 'flavours' but be able to come back if I don't like it.

Ghost will recover to the os disk in dos. Ghost 8 used pc dos and you have a gui and an explorer tree that allows you to browse all dos compatable drives for images.
Ghost 10 uses its own live cd to recover outside of windows, Ghost 9 I never used but the answer will be the same yes you can

Edit you will need to ensure any drive you intend to use for images is visable pre windows most machines are able to see sata drives for example nowadays where as previously sata needed a driver pre windows and you would have needed to install this driver for ghost to work ghost 8 wasnt able to do this but ghost 10 allows you to so again ghost 9 I dont know

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Ghost will recover to the os disk in dos. Ghost 8 used pc dos and you have a gui and an explorer tree that allows you to browse all dos compatable drives for images.
Ghost 10 uses its own live cd to recover outside of windows, Ghost 9 I never used but the answer will be the same yes you can

Hi ya mate, that sounds promising, I'll create some additional space and play a bit

Thanks knew it would be a short answer, from the right person of course

[Paul K]

Why not do what I do and have your boot HD in a caddy and then you can swap drives at will when you want to try a new OS? I have XP on my main drive and a second drive caddy which I have a 40Gb test drive in that I play with Ubuntu, vista, linux etc.

When ive dual booted normally with drives installed to play ie linux or vista ,(other windows based installs are simply removable from the boot ini) The base of is always XP. Both linux and vista have there own boot programs which can be cleared by the fixmbr command in operating system recovery(normal might screw you up if yoru not careful warnings) The safest way is with the caddy but good alu ones are expensive

Of course just having a recent ghost image of primary hdd as long as this is system will also wipe all other boot sector configurations

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by Paul

Why not do what I do and have your boot HD in a caddy and then you can swap drives at will when you want to try a new OS? I have XP on my main drive and a second drive caddy which I have a 40Gb test drive in that I play with Ubuntu, vista, linux etc.

OK, education time

Isn't that what I'm doing in effect, but instead of having my OS in a caddy, I'll have it as a ghost image, sure it means having to load it each time but Ghost's quick enough, and with my fumblings, its probably safer to not go into the guts to often ????

Pretty much it is will you be just playing with other operating systems or do you want to keep them?

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

Pretty much it is will you be just playing with other operating systems or do you want to keep them?

I have no idea really mate, untill I install, play and play a bit more, I had thought of trying Linux, vista etc etc, early days for those, the one I'm wanting to install just now is XPBLACKUSA, meant to have a few goodies in it.

you gonna dual boot while you do it ? so xp still exists?

Dont spose you got an nfo for that do ya

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by zinglebarb

you gonna dual boot while you do it ? so xp still exists?

Dont spose you got an nfo for that do ya

Wasn't planning that far mate, could I suppose

And on its way

EDIT: sent via pm not a true NFO but you'll see

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

How do you create a ghost image nowadays? I want to create an image i can stick on a DVD and then restore it for the DVD should i need to. Long time since i've used Ghost but 6 or 7 years ago you could do this. With Ghost 10 it appears you cant or am i missing something

[bopdude]

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

How do you create a ghost image nowadays? I want to create an image i can stick on a DVD and then restore it for the DVD should i need to. Long time since i've used Ghost but 6 or 7 years ago you could do this. With Ghost 10 it appears you cant or am i missing something

I'm using ghost 9 IIRC, IIRC when you cranck it up and go through the steps it asks you where you want to back up to, the file / dvd option is available there.

HTH

Originally Posted by Wicked_and_Crazy

How do you create a ghost image nowadays? I want to create an image i can stick on a DVD and then restore it for the DVD should i need to. Long time since i've used Ghost but 6 or 7 years ago you could do this. With Ghost 10 it appears you cant or am i missing something

have you downloaded the iso file - tbh, imo Ghost 3 was the ''last known good'

[Wicked_and_Crazy]

Originally Posted by homealone

have you downloaded the iso file

yes

[bopdude]

having said that, I have my back ups on a separate HDD, when I feell like a format / re-install, I just crank up Ghost and point to the file. If you where to back up to a second HDD and your primary went down you would need to run the Ghost recovery disk IIRC