Ghost

  • Thread starter Thread starter Glenn
  • Start date Start date
Read his site though, especially what he says about boot partitions and
MBRs. Believe me, unless you're a whizz kid you don't want to risk
damage to MBR and boot record errors.
Click to expand...

Exactly what do you mean? Where does he say what? Nobody wants to
damage their MBR if they can avoid it, but I can not see anything on
<http://www.partition-saving.com/> that justifies your warning.
At least nothing to suggest said Partition Saving program is any worse
in this respect than other similar programs.
For me, there comes a point when I
say, Ok something is free, but i'd rather spend the money for peace of
mind. Writing this kind of software is VERY difficult. The thing about
Ghost is that it has had mega-buck investment and is well proven.
Click to expand...

Have you browsed Symantec's knowledge-database for Ghost? I'm sure you
will find several worst case scenario advices there, MBR errors
included. Such KB articles often talk about things that *can* happen,
or have happened - to some users (worst cases), but that does not
justify a general warning (of the kind you have just issued here)
against using Ghost, does it?
I'm not knocking this guy or his software: it's great there is a
freeware alternative. All credit to him. Just beware, that's all.
Click to expand...

IMHO Ghost is both overpriced and overrated. If you do not trust this
(or other) freeware for critical operations like partition saving and
restoring, very good but less expensive (compared to Ghost) commercial
alternatives do exist. See for example about drive imaging and
software alternatives in the 2003-07-03 issue of the Langa list
newsletter, here:
<http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-07-03.htm>.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
 
Bjorn said:
Exactly what do you mean? Where does he say what? Nobody wants to
damage their MBR if they can avoid it, but I can not see anything on
<http://www.partition-saving.com/> that justifies your warning.
At least nothing to suggest said Partition Saving program is any worse
in this respect than other similar programs.


Have you browsed Symantec's knowledge-database for Ghost? I'm sure you
will find several worst case scenario advices there, MBR errors
included. Such KB articles often talk about things that *can* happen,
or have happened - to some users (worst cases), but that does not
justify a general warning (of the kind you have just issued here)
against using Ghost, does it?


IMHO Ghost is both overpriced and overrated. If you do not trust this
(or other) freeware for critical operations like partition saving and
restoring, very good but less expensive (compared to Ghost) commercial
alternatives do exist. See for example about drive imaging and
software alternatives in the 2003-07-03 issue of the Langa list
newsletter, here:
<http://www.langa.com/newsletters/2003/2003-07-03.htm>.

All the best,
Bjorn Simonsen
Click to expand...

There have been some good points made on all sides. Hopefully readers
will find it helpful. As a point of correctness I nowhere said, alleged
or remotely hinted that /Ghost/ would induce MBR errors. I have every
confidence in it, and a local firm has used it multi-hundreds of times
without problems. I can recommend it ==unhesitatingly== and have /no/
commercial interest in it. :-)

As for the freeware alternative, "Partition saving", I repeat that I'm
not knocking it. However, knowing something about the complexities of
this type of software I think a caution is in order.

Also see under "changes" on the person's website - search under "MBR"
and "master boot record". From what is said, it /appears/ that MBR
corruption might have been an issue under some circumstances (e.g. using
older versions)

In any event, it's a good idea in general to back up your MBR, whether
using this software, or Ghost or not. For backing up your MBR please see
related thread "Freeware MBR Utility from Powerquest".

Hope this clarifies things. If I didn't have Ghost I'd definitely try
this freeware out, but probably on a spare PC a few times first. Long
may freeware alternatives exist!

Scrubbs/
 
As for the freeware alternative, "Partition saving", I repeat that I'm
not knocking it. However, knowing something about the complexities of
this type of software I think a caution is in order.

Scrubbs/
Click to expand...

I'm sure it is complex, I just don't see how.

Now a defragmenter has to be really complex. Moving bits around to get them
to fit in to available holes here and there. Big chunks and single chunks.

All a ghost has to do is pick up long chunks as they come and copy them onto
another destination one after the other until it reaches the end of the disk
or partition. What's so complicated about that? It doesn't even have to
know what it's moving or how long it is, just bit by bit until it reaches
the end. They're all zeros and ones, go right down the disk until there are
no more to read.
 
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