Cloning/Ghosting Software Recommendations 5

[onegurl]

Need cloning/ghosting software recommendations....hear that Norton's Ghost is the way to go, but wanted more advice.

May have to wipe and rebuild 23 machines by an imposed deadline (too many WIN98SE issues- shutdown, network drop-off, OS, other program conflicts, etc.)

GOOD NEWS - 23 machines are 2 Dell models (17 -Dimension L733s & 5 XPS 1Gs). New machines (purchased October 2000). Specs are identical for systems of the same model.

1Gs have CDRWs - which makes the cloning process easier.

But the 733s do not. So the cloning/ghosting must be done through the network. Heard that Ghost can be unreliable working through a networked drive?

My thanks to all for your help!

Onegurl

 

[butchrecon]

Using Ghost over the network can be unreliable due to packet loss associated with networking. Ghost is (last I herd anyway, someone tell me if I am wrong) best used via disk to disk cloning. With the full version and IDE devices you can clone 3 drives at a time with version 5. I am unsure if Ghost will support more than that with some of the newer systems supporting 8 IDE drives. There are other programs out there that will get the same results. But as far as I am concerned Ghost by Symantec (Norton) is the best.

Hope this helps

 

[Obmij]

I use Ghost, just pop the good HD into the machine that I'm trying to fix and run it. Did 7 machines last Friday along with usual tech support running (only took about 20 minutes a machine for 2gig drives).

 

[Voyager1]

A couple of tidbits on Ghost...

First, they are correct about Ghost over a network. However, using the full "Enterprise" version of Ghost, with IP Multicasting you get better reliability and throughput.

I run a training center, and have to reconfigure 60 machines every week. We have created base images for each and every class, and for each hardware platform, and ghosted them to a network drive

We then made CDs with the image that are bootable, used DOS CD Drivers to provide access to the CD Image and Ghost down to the hard drives through autoexec.bat.

Takes about 10 minutes per PC, and I have at least 4 copies of each so I can load 20 machines in about 50 minutes. Life is good...;-) - Bill

"You can get anything you want out of life, if you'll just help enough other people get what they want" - Zig Ziglar

 

[keypounder]

over a network, drive image pro does very well
it is widely used to clone HDD's
henry

 

[BASDTECH]

I contracted for a large DOT.COM for a few months and was put in charge of building all their new computers a nd rebuilding dead computers. I used a program called ImageCast. It was very simple to use. Just hook all the computers to be cloned to a network, boot them with a special boot disk, and hit "distribute image" an the host computer. The same process is used to "gather" an image from a computer the network.

 

[keypounder]

Hello BASDTECH, who's the maker?
could you use it to clone your 1 HDD to # 2 HDD
(same machine)

thanks

henry

 

[basweek]

Ghost also makes one heck of a backup program if you have an additonal hard drive installed or a CDRW(Ghost 2001). Just make an image of your primary drive at what ever time interval you like.

 

[LadyH]

I work on a college campus and we use Ghost, Enterprise edition. We have not had any problems at all with multicasting over the network using the IP multicasting mentioned above. Ghost can also be used to clone one hard drive to another with no problems. In cases where there is only one or two systems it is a fast and easy way to go. When setting up multiple systems the multicasting has been great, get em all going, walk away until its done. We have a campus full of Dell systems and have had no problems using this product (in at least 3 years).

pcheather@yahoo.com

 

[SATech]

I'm having a problem that i suspect is with the multicasting function in Ghost 6.51. I manage our servers but not our network hardware (e.g. switches, routers). When I attempt to upload an image from my workstation on subnet (xxx.xxx.176.xxx) to my Ghost server which resides in another building and on another subnet (xxx.xxx.135.20), I get an error about 10 secs after I'm prompted for my session name. Thus, I get by the NIC drivers, DHCP, select Multicasting, type session name, and the next prompt I get is an error stating "Unable to connect to TCP/IP server, make sure it is set to accept you request...". Well, it is set to accept my request.

Has anyone experienced this before? If the problem is with the switch and router configuration, what is the best way to phrase the question to my network support folks? Is multicasting a default setting with Cisco switches/routers or is it a user option? Any suggestions would be greately appreciated.

Thanks, ________
S. Joseph Vergara
SVergara@Texas.net

 

[ngck2]

are the workstation and ghost server on the same subnet??

had this error before due to client and server on different subnet...

or check that there is no access list restrictions between client and server

 

[theripper]

I use both.

GHOST
I have an older version of Ghost. I use this with all my older PCs in our building. My network isn't as large as others listed above, but each time I've dropped an image down it has worked succesfully. After dropping an image down, I spend 'bout 10 minutes changing the computer name, etc.... so there's no collisions, conflicts with others on the network. GHOST has been around a long time. They are considered one of the best cloning kits in the industry.

Drive Image PRO (DeployCenter)
This is pretty nice. I use version 4x, and just read they have released version 5 (now called DeployCenter) - sounds really nice. Especially the part about running in windows! You may want to check it out

http://www.powerquest.com

- their new version supports NTFS, CDRWs, and quite a bit more items too. Again, this is unconfirmed. . . just from what I've read.

 

[Guest_imported]

We use Altiris for our ghosting and imaging purposes. It has many nice features. You can do a hardware inventory, remote controll into the machines, change IP address, subnets, dns settings, and computer names, all from one console.

 

[ramani]

HI
There is one software called... XXCOPY. This is freeware and can be downloaded from the link...

http://www.datman.com/xxcopy/

The cloning is so easy using XXCOPY. You have to boot in Winodws OS and change to XXCOPY directory.

Issue the command..
COPY mySourceDir\ myDestinationDir\ /CLONE
example..
COPY C:\ E:\ /CLONE

remember to be in your XXCOPY directory and booted in WinOS Gui.. no problem if you have exited to DOS PROMPT.


ramani :-9
(Subramanian.G),FoxAcc, ramani_g@yahoo.com

 

[hotfusion]

At the risk of displaying my ignorance yet again, does anyone know if it's possible to make a copy of C: on another partition in order to burn it to disc (I know you can't do it directly, as some files will be in use.) from a DOS prompt and without using any third-party software? Probably more difficult, is it possible to re-instate the image thus saved back onto C: after formatting - again presumably from DOS in order to avoid reinstalling OS, drivers and core apps etc? My suggestions are what I would try myself. If incorrect, I welcome corrections to my rather limited knowledge. Andy.

 

[ramani]

Hi Hotfusion,

I have talked about xxcopy which is a freeware and is a small utility. This can be used as I explained above to copy and clone into a sub directory...
XXCOPY c:\ d:\cBackUp /clone
hope this helps you ramani :-9
(Subramanian.G),FoxAcc, ramani_g@yahoo.com

 

[mjkr]

Im trying to ghost a winxp pro disk & get the following error - 1801: bad blocks encountered on read 0x1, drive1, 64 sectors staring from absolute sector 1919950958 CAN ANYONE TELL ME WHY I CAN'T GHOST THIS NTFS DRIVE? IM USING 2003. WHAT DOES THIS ERROR MESSAGE MEAN?? Pls reply to
mark.kenner@mms.gov THX!!!!