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View Full Version : questions on using norton ghost


zalman
February 26th, 2005, 07:22 PM
Hi all, I have five related questions
I have a 250 gig three partitioned hardrive the c : drive is 10 gig and I have everything in the c drive
(1) how long do you think it would take to make an backup image of my c drive
I called a computer repair company and asked to come over and make a copy of my c drive on dvd for me at my home (its 100.00 an hour) and asked him how long it would take and he said 26 hours ? which of course is not do -able
He also stated that if I wanted to backup my hardrive
,(2) I should bring in my computer to the shop and the only way to make a copy of my hardrive was to remove the hardrive from the computer , I am hesitant to do this to my pc
( it’s a brand new $2,500 computer ) ,the reason he gave for doing this is because if he tried to make a backup copy with the software without removing the hardrive it would not copy those xp system files that were in use while making the backup , so it would be a poor copy and would not work as a restore to bring back my computer to the state it was in before a problem occured ,
(3) he also stated that norton ghost 9.0 is bad software and ghost 2003 has a better chance of working because it has to be dos ( floppy based) to have a chance of working so I must use 2003 instead of 9.0
and (4)also told me that ghost will not copy on to dvd only to a cd and thats a maybe , but he said the best chance for a successful copy would be to another partition on my hardrive (5) and then it would only be useful if I reformated the c drive
( erased the whole c drive) , he said you can't overwrite xp os and the c drive contents that was installed for example this month 2005 and then overwritten later in the future with a backup of the os on another partition that was incrementally backed up every month or so for a few years and then try to overwrite the 2005 c drive contents in 2007 with a 2007 backup of the c drive with its 2007 contents , it will only work that way if you do a clean format wipe out the c drive first .Then he says Norton ghost 9.0 is only for backing up personal data , well I have nero express basic software to do that.
So I said if norton ghost 9.0 is so bad , what would you recommend I do , he hemed and hawed and first he said something about a Maxtor one touch , so I said do you mean retrospect express software and he didn’t seem to recognize the name and then he said veritas is good for backup of the whole c drive . but I don’t think that’s not a cloning backup that’s the one that’s just for personal data as far as I know ( I think xp uses that) ?

degsy
February 26th, 2005, 07:51 PM
Your Tech is either trying to rip you off or totally clueless.


You say that you have a 10gb partition.
That is the only one you want to backup?

It would take about 10-20mins to do a Ghost backup of it.

You could save this backup file to one of your other partitions or a DVD Writer.


If you are ghosting the OS Partition then Ghost will boot into DOS to do the transfer (Ghost 2003).


Ghost 9 should work fine and includes 2003 for backwards compatibility.

NEW! “Hot imaging” lets you create backup images without restarting Windows®. *
Works with a wide range of hard drives and removable media, including CDR/RW and DVD+-R/RW drives, USB and FireWire® (IEEE 1394) devices, and Iomega® Zip® and Jaz® drives.
Norton Ghost 2003 is included to back up and restore data to: Windows 9x, Me, NT; Linux®; and DOS systems

zalman
February 27th, 2005, 12:05 AM
Thanks Much degsy , yep thats what I think , he is either trying to rip me off or he knows less then I do and thats saying a lot , because I know just enough to be dangerous
I have a ten gig c drive with everything on it and I will soon move my personally created data to another partition and I will use partition magic to make more room on the c drive , and I still am not sure if its better to have some of my programs on another seperate drive like vcom system suite 5 , chessmaster tenth, spysweeper, spybot , adaware and encarta and just keep word, works, and money, streets and trips , because word shares files with it plus my printer and software and zip drive software on the c drive or if I should have all the programs on the c drive , I heard it was better to do that and I also heard it doesn't make any difference whats you take on that ?

degsy
February 27th, 2005, 03:24 AM
It's all personal preference, but usually if you have the space then the OS and Programs will be stored on the partition.

This is because if you need to reinstall from scratch you need to reinstall programs anyway.


There are other ways such as always installing programs to other drives etc.


Personally I keep system stuff such as OS, Programs etc. on the primary drive and my data on other drives.

James41
May 18th, 2006, 07:48 PM
Hi Degs, Can I ask a similar question here? I have been trying HDClone to clone XP to a separate hard drive to keep for emergency purposes. That system seems go well until I try to boot from the clone. (New master, jumpers changed and Hard disk first boot preference).
The HDClone people are trying to puzzle out why it won't boot. Presumably some system files are not being copied.
Any other explanations please?
Thanks,
James

degsy
May 19th, 2006, 12:52 PM
It's best to start your own threads.