Norton Ghost

  • Thread starter Thread starter jinxy
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J

jinxy

Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
 
jinxy said:
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
Click to expand...
Well.. I have cloned xp from a small drive to a
40GB disk with ghost 2003.
Had to do it twice, because you are not allowed
to look at the cloned drive under XP, it reassignes
the drive letter if you do.
So, clone, and switch drives after you finish.
No problem, and no reactivation required.
 
jinxy said:
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd.
Click to expand...

Before doing disk gymnastics, make a removable media copy of any
important files from your hard drive.
 
Sjouke Burry said:
Well.. I have cloned xp from a small drive to a
40GB disk with ghost 2003.
Had to do it twice, because you are not allowed
to look at the cloned drive under XP, it reassignes
the drive letter if you do.
So, clone, and switch drives after you finish.
No problem, and no reactivation required.
Click to expand...


The admonition is that the clone must not see its
"parent" OS until it has been run once in isolation
from its "parent" OS. Thereafter, the clone can see
its "parent" at anytime with no ill effects. As for the
"parent" seeing its clone, that can be allowed at any
time - even immediately after the cloning operation.
If you don't observe this caution, the clone can put
pointers in its file table that point not at the cloned
file, but at the original file in the "parent's" partition.
It seems to do this randomly and sparsely, so it's
many times not evident for a long time - frequently
not until you remove or reformat the original HD
then and find that some of your "files" are missing
from the clone. This behavior appears to be common
among the WinNT/2K/XP family of OSes. The easiest
method to isolate the clone from its "parent" is to merely
disconnect the HD that the "parent" OS is on. For both
PATA and SATA HDs, no fiddling with the jumpers or
controller ports is necessary since the clone's HD will
automatically move to the head of the BIOS's Hard Drive
Boot Order when the original HD is removed, and the
clone will boot just as if it were on the original HD.

As for partition names (i.e. "C:", "D:", etc.), the
clone calls its own partition by the same name as the
"parent" OS, and *while the clone is running*, it refers
to the partition of its "parent" by some other temporary
name. This is not a problem as long as the OSes have
no shortcuts to other partitions (which have temporarily
been reassigned names).

As for cloning utilities, if you want to clone *all*
the partitions on one HD to another HD, most makers
of HDs have available in the Support section of their
websites free downloadable utilities that will do the
job - but only for HDs of their own manufacture. But
if you want to clone just one partition from among
several on one HD and perhaps put it with one or more
existing partitions on another HD, only Ghost and Casper
among the Big 3 cloning utilities will do that for you.

*TimDaniels*
 
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
Click to expand...

Norton Save + Restore is the "easier to use" type version.
 
jinxy said:
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
Click to expand...
I used Acronis Clone Disk and it worked perfectly. In my case, I
attached the new drive as the slave. After Acronis Clone Disk did its
thing, I made the master the slave, and the slave disk the master.
Booted the machine and WinXP booted as normal.
 
jinxy said:
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
Click to expand...

Jinxy, if you simply want to clone an existing HD install onto a new HD,
then check out XXClone - http://www.xxclone.com/

Read the online manual first (http://www.xxclone.com/ixcmax00.htm),
particularly the section on making the target volume self-bootable. FWIW
I've used xxclone to clone a number of drives, and it's never failed me.

Jeff
 
Jinxy, if you simply want to clone an existing HD install onto a new HD,
then check out XXClone -http://www.xxclone.com/

Read the online manual first (http://www.xxclone.com/ixcmax00.htm),
particularly the section on making the target volume self-bootable. FWIW
I've used xxclone to clone a number of drives, and it's never failed me.
Click to expand...

Umm I took a look at the manual. It looks very straight forward. But I
don't see any section specifically on making the target volume self-
bootable.
 
32andtwentyseven said:
Umm I took a look at the manual. It looks very straight forward. But I
don't see any section specifically on making the target volume self-
bootable.
Click to expand...


Unless XXClone has changed from when I tried it 2 or 3 years ago,
the initial cloning takes *forever* - like 4 hours for 40GB. I wrote to
the author complaining about the length of time, and he replied that
the utility was tuned to minimize subsequent incremental backups, not
the initial cloning. Well, to transfer a system from one HD to another
HD, the initial cloning is all one is interested in! I've since then bought
CasperXP (now known simply as "Casper"), and I've been satisfied
with it. (And subsequent incremental backups to the initial clone with
CasperXP is *also* much faster than the initial cloning - which takes
about 10 minutes for 40GB.)

*TimDaniels*
 
Timothy Daniels said:
Unless XXClone has changed from when I tried it 2 or 3 years ago,
the initial cloning takes *forever* - like 4 hours for 40GB. I wrote to
the author complaining about the length of time, and he replied that
the utility was tuned to minimize subsequent incremental backups, not
the initial cloning. Well, to transfer a system from one HD to another
HD, the initial cloning is all one is interested in! I've since then
bought
CasperXP (now known simply as "Casper"), and I've been satisfied
with it. (And subsequent incremental backups to the initial clone with
CasperXP is *also* much faster than the initial cloning - which takes
about 10 minutes for 40GB.)

*TimDaniels*
Click to expand...

TimDaniels, I haven't had the experience of long clone times. I recently
cloned about 40GB of system & data onto a Seagate 250GB drive and it took
about 25 minutes.

Jeff
 
Jeff H said:
TimDaniels, I haven't had the experience of long clone times. I recently
cloned about 40GB of system & data onto a Seagate 250GB drive and
it took about 25 minutes.

Jeff
Click to expand...


That's good to hear. The authors may have "re-tuned" XXClone.
I'll give it a try again if my CasperXP gets lost or poops out for
some reason. Do you know if XXClone can clone just one partition
at a time so that it can take one partition off a HD that contains
several partitions and put it on another HD that may already have
a few partitions? Can XXClone work with Vista?

*TimDaniels*
 
jinxy said:
Hey all, I would like to replace my 40g hdd with a larger hdd. I will
use a hdd enclosure with a usb connection. To make things easy I was
thinking about using N.G. Any opinions on this software? Surely it
cant be as simple as copying the entire drive, o.s. and all , can it?
If you have used this program , let me know how it went or how it
did'nt go. thanks in advance.
-J
Click to expand...

I continue to use NG2003 (DOS) all the time to do exactly that. (Complete
backups to USB enclosed HDD's.)

You can backup individual partitions or entire drives. During restore, you
can change partition sizes if you want.

It is as straight-foward as can be. It can also work across other mediums
as well, such as a network.

Unless you want to be able to "look into" the backup images and pull
individual files out, just use the DOS program and don't bother with the
Windows program.

Don't bother with any of the NG versions past 2003 either. Like everything
else Symantec touches, they turned NG into bloated garbage after 2003. Post
2003, NG no longer had a DOS version.

If you have a need for incremental backups, take a look at Acronis TruImage.
Never used it, but it is reported to be very good. I wouldn't consider NG
at all.

There are also a bunch of free OSS programs these days to do the same thing
that are worth looking at...
 
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