Help using Clone with Norton 2003

[Trebax]

Hi, please will you advise me...

I intend to purchase Norton Gost 2003 today.

Before I do though can I just check a couple of things with you experts...

1) I have 2 physiscal hard drives - using the Norton Clone function I wish to Clone my master drive to the Slave drive. When I have done this will it mean that I can litterally boot my computer from the slave drive. In otherwords will it be completely identical to my current master drive?

2) My master drive has 2 partitions - therefore in order to create an identical copy (clone) do I also need to partition my Slave drive and clone both partitions?

Sorry about all the questions its just that the Norton web site wasn't very helpful and I'm quite new to all this.

Thanks for any help!

 

[wolluf]

1. Yes it should boot from cloned partition (have seen posts where people have problems booting, but usually resolved by writing a new boot sector to the cloned disk - ie, fixboot in 2k/XP, sys in 9x/ME, repair boot sector in NT).

2. Yes, you will need to clone both partitions to make slave identical to the master.

 

[Trebax]

Ok thats great - thanks for your help.

I'm just wondering though, having 2 identical drives in one computer... will it have boot up problems not knowing which disk to boot from? and/or will I be able to access the cloned drive in windows XP explorer?

 

[wolluf]

Machine will try to boot as per the bios - so presumably you have a boot sequence like: Floppy, Hard drive 1 (or C). So, it will continue booting your master drive unless you change this (eg, set bios boot sequence to: floppy, hard drive 2 (or D). It will then boot from cloned drive).

You could set up a dual boot (but can't see the benefit of this as identical systems) using a third party boot manager (eg,

http://www.boot-us.com)

or if your o/s is NT/2k/XP just editing the boot.ini on the master drive to include an entry for cloned drive (eg, for 2k:-

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

becomes

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (disk 1)" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional (disk 2)" /fastdetect

And yes, you will be able to access the cloned drive's files from the master.

 

[Trebax]

Excellent - thanks again Wolluf.

I'm still not sure whether I should purchase Norton Ghost though. The reason I want to buy it is so as I can clone my hard drive and use the cloned version as a backup if my master fails.

But I'm thinking that I may be better off using the Windows back up function and save a few bucks. Using this tool I think I I can create an archived folder of my entire system and save it on the spare drive. Then I presume if the master disk fails I can boot using the Windows CD rom and then re-load my system from the archived file on my spare drive.

Does that sound right to you?

Confused??!?!

 

[icon58]

Haven't had much luck with windows BU but Norton's 2003 Ghost works pretty good. What you should do id clone the drive and then put the spare up somewheres till you need it. Then just keep your data backup if anything happens
Icon58

 

[wolluf]

I'd agree with icon58

 

[drdebit]

If you do a search on "ghost" you will find a number of threads where posters discuss ghost and why they use it.
You do spend money, but it does help you out.
If you want to put the money spending in perspective,
take a look at the thread posted by sm9 about primary master fails a few lines below this one.
If you're willing to do the search and take the risks associated with ebay, you can get a copy of ghost 2001 or 2002 (or systemworks professional if you'd rather) on ebay and save a little bit that way. Be sure to check compatibility of version you look at with your op. system.

 

[dydavid]

Yes, XP works with 2003, but not very well with 2002 (or earlier). Ghost is very fast (up to 400 to 500 MB / min).

You do have to set your jumpers properly for master / slave, then set slave as master if you need to boot from that drive. (See your documentation from drive Mfr or search drive model from mfr's web site).

I would recommend that you make a backup image of the orig. drive to second drive also. This image file is smaller, and can be compressed during backup.

There are tutorials - (via Google - ghost tutorials / ghost 2003 tutorials, etc.)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&q=ghost+tutorials&btnG=Google+Search

These are demos that simulate various types of Ghost 2002, 2003 demos including interactive demos.

Ask a buddy proficient in Ghost for added support. Keep us posted on your progress.

 

[drdebit]

sorry-got focused on saving money and overlooked xp info in followon post.