Norton Ghost 9 - How does it work?

[postings]

I'm just curious on how Norton Ghost 9 can do a clone of a Windows
operating system partition that it is currently running off.

Previous version of Ghost would insist on booting into DOS.

Norton Ghost 9 (which is actually Drive Image rebadged and nothing with
previous Ghost programs) simply copies the partition it booted off as
though it isn't even running. I guess it takes a snapshot somehow (and
I thought that would be impossible with all those files being accessed
at once).

So what on earth is going on under the hood here? I'd just like to know
exactly (roughly?) what is going on so I can have some confidence in
using this technology.

Cheers!

Alex

 

[Colonel Blip]

Hello, (e-mail address removed)!
You wrote on 4 May 2005 06:15:33 -0700:

Can't answer the technical question, but I've been using it for 6 months
regularly and it certainly works. I've backed up active system many times.
Restore does require a CD boot and there is no floppy option as in the past
versions.

Thanks,

Colonel Blip.
E-mail: (e-mail address removed)

p> I'm just curious on how Norton Ghost 9 can do a clone of a Windows
p> operating system partition that it is currently running off.

p> Previous version of Ghost would insist on booting into DOS.

p> Norton Ghost 9 (which is actually Drive Image rebadged and nothing with
p> previous Ghost programs) simply copies the partition it booted off as
p> though it isn't even running. I guess it takes a snapshot somehow (and
p> I thought that would be impossible with all those files being accessed
p> at once).

p> So what on earth is going on under the hood here? I'd just like to know
p> exactly (roughly?) what is going on so I can have some confidence in
p> using this technology.

p> Cheers!

p> Alex

 

[Rod Speed]

I'm just curious

You do know what that did to the cat dont you ?

on how Norton Ghost 9 can do a clone of a Windows
operating system partition that it is currently running off.

Previous version of Ghost would insist on booting into DOS.

Norton Ghost 9 (which is actually Drive Image rebadged

Its actually V2i rebadged.

and nothing with previous Ghost programs)

Thats not quite right either, it will restore and browse image
files created with earlier versions of Ghost. And DI too.

simply copies the partition it booted off as though it isn't even running.
Correct.

I guess it takes a snapshot somehow
Correct.

(and I thought that would be impossible with
all those files being accessed at once).

Its not as hard as it superficially looks, you just have to keep
track of what files get changed since the snapshot happened.

So what on earth is going on under the hood here?

Basically the OS now allows files that superficially have
exclusive OS access to be copied, and allows a backup
app to keep track of what gets changed too. Ghost 9 also
allows incremental images, and thats how it does that,
keeping track of what got changed since the last full image.

I'd just like to know exactly (roughly?) what is going on
so I can have some confidence in using this technology.

That last is harder, Ghost 9 is still quite buggy.

 

[Lil' Dave]

I'm just curious on how Norton Ghost 9 can do a clone of a Windows
operating system partition that it is currently running off.

Previous version of Ghost would insist on booting into DOS.

Norton Ghost 9 (which is actually Drive Image rebadged and nothing with
previous Ghost programs) simply copies the partition it booted off as
though it isn't even running. I guess it takes a snapshot somehow (and
I thought that would be impossible with all those files being accessed
at once).

So what on earth is going on under the hood here? I'd just like to know
exactly (roughly?) what is going on so I can have some confidence in
using this technology.

Cheers!

Alex

The reason, its understood, that Symantec bought Powerquest was for rights
to their imaging software technology. How it works would be divulging this
technology. Whether you know how this works should not have bearing on your
confidence of it working. Yet, apparently it does. So, I suggest you don't
use it.

 

[Eric Gisin]

The reason, its understood, that Symantec bought Powerquest was for rights
to their imaging software technology. How it works would be divulging this
technology. Whether you know how this works should not have bearing on your
confidence of it working. Yet, apparently it does. So, I suggest you don't
use it.

How it works is well understood. They simply create a log file with changed
sectors.

 

[postings]

Thanks for your replies folks. Enlightening and helpful

Disagree with this comment though!:

How it works would be divulging this technology.
Whether you know how this works should not have bearing on your confidence of it working.
Yet, apparently it does. So, I suggest you don't use it.

Hmm... I seem to remember they said that about the Titanic .
As with all software (take Windows for example), it helps to have
inside knowledge of what's going on in case things will or have gone
wrong. Hell MS have built an entire industry on it. Software (and
hardware!) on PC's are rarely "perfect", there are just too many
factors involved (I'm sure there are the odd exceptions, although none
come to mind!). My question was "how does it work, not "has anybody
reverse engineered the source code"!

Cheers folks!

Alex