ghost software

[abhijit]

Is there any freeware to create ghosts?

No funny jokes please. I am talking about norton, symantec kind of stuff.

[kfcSmitty]

Whats a ghost? If i know that, I'm sure I can find ya a proggie

[Andy]

do you mean an .iso file? isn't that what norton ghost creates?

[abhijit]

Well I am talking about an iso file. One that will be a copy of your installations. It will restore the hard-disk in minutes. Have you ever seen Norton Ghost in working? Its a great tool. I am looking for a freeware version for the same. I am sure something like this exists.

[Andy]

I have Norton ghost 9 but actually it creates a .vti file..(I just checked that) I could've sworn it made .iso files...anyhoo, There IS a freeware version of an ISO creator called Cheetah but I do not think it does HardDrive backups...I'll look into that for ya.

[Andy]

Here are some good links I found via Google http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&r...reator&spell=1

[Andy]

And, I was slightly mistaken about Cheetah...http://www.cheetahburner.com/
It isn't free anymore and it's actually a cd burning program that can create ISO or use them...pretty neat package actually...I used to use an older version.

[abhijit]

A ghost would actually be a bootable CD containing the OS Setup + all the other applications on it. Some folks in hardware like to call it Unattended Windows Installation.

have you come across this term?

[Andy]

I've heard that term many times but not in reference to specificaly a ghost install...Windows has an unattended installation too. that involves an 'answer file' and is used primarily for IT admins to fire off a ton of installs at once so he can go eat lunch for a few hours.

[Ideas Man]

No, ghosting is the process of creating a sector by sector copy of a HDD. This ensures they are identical. Ghost has never made ISO images, they are for CDs, it uses it's own format because of the manner in which the data is stored.

This type of program I don't think you'll find for free. It is one of these network administrative tools that costs a fortune and very few people make them.

[RobDog888]

No, ghosting is the process of creating a sector by sector copy of a HDD. This ensures they are identical. Ghost has never made ISO images, they are for CDs, it uses it's own format because of the manner in which the data is stored.

This type of program I don't think you'll find for free. It is one of these network administrative tools that costs a fortune and very few people make them.

IM is right. When you ghost a drive its because you want to either restore a hd from an backup copy or you want to replicate
the hd image to other hds in a production environment. I started out at a company that made AST computers where we ghosted
several hds at once with the same image, making 1,000+ systems a day.

[Ideas Man]

However, if you're going to do that these days, you MUST run sysprep, otherwise you will have duplicate SIDs on all the computers, which can lead to security breaches.

[RobDog888]

It was imaged before the registration and any user accounts were created.

It was a pain when there was an issue or the reg screen never came up. Glad I dont work there anymore. You wouldnt believe the
workers they had on the assembly line making minimum wage (about $6 an hour) not even knowing what they were doing. Just being
told "put this into that and screw it together"

[Ideas Man]

It doesn't matter about user accounts these days, as soon as Windows gets to the GUI part of the setup, it creates the computer's SID, which all user accounts are created from, so you MUST reset them.

[RobDog888]

Mind you these were 98 systems

[Ideas Man]

Yeah, that's why I said "these days", lol.

[RobDog888]

Ah, "these days" missed that part. Getting tired. Did allot today.

[abhijit]

So effectively, there is no freeware to tackle this kind of situation. Maybe Linux might have a ghost software that is available for free.

[RobDog888]

I knd of doubt it but what about creating system restore points if your using Windows XP?

[abhijit]

Naah, I am using Win 2 K Professional. Though moving to XP would be a good idea probably. I need to get some decent memory chips.

[RobDog888]

If you have a spare HD you can set it up to backup your c drive to the secondary hd using the Windows Backup utility.

[abhijit]

The spare HD is only 4 GB. My primary HD is 40 GB.

[RobDog888]

Need a bigger hd.

You may still be able to do it but only for the system dirs?

[dglienna]

Go for the data, and the sysprep so you can get back to where you were.

[Ideas Man]

Go for the data, and the sysprep so you can get back to where you were.

You only need sysprep if you are going to use the image on multiple computers. If it's a backup of one computer and you will only restore it on one computer, then it's fine to not use sysprep.