Need to Ghost 12 hard drives 2

[Frank4d]

I currently have a NTFS formatted IDE drive with XP sp1a and 17GB of files that I want to Ghost six times. I don't want to install Norton Ghost 9.0 on any hard drives. I just want to connect a blank drive as a slave, run Ghost from the CD, copy the master to the slave, move the jumpers on the copy back to master, and have the new drive be an exact copy. All six computers are exactly the same hardware configuration. Will Norton Ghost 9.0 do that for me?

 

[Frank4d]

Sorry for the thread title. I have two different hard drives. I want to Ghost each of them six times.

 

[braddds]

Here is some info I've recieved via a newsletter, the Fred Langa Newsletter that is!:

"It is compatible only with Windows XP because it relies on Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 being correctly installed.... The G9 installation disk will install Net if it is not already present on the users PC.

However a new version of .NETF is installed by Windows XP Service pack 2. which is subsequently upgraded to the Framework installed by Windows Update with Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 Service Pack 1. The need for a correct installation of Microsoft NET Framework causes endless problems in G9 with slow display, failure to find target disks and unexpected application closure in many cases.

So though compared with Ghost 2003, Ghost 9 is has the advantage of working within Windows it has not yet proved to be a reliable product. Indeed for disaster recovery you are more likely to get help from father Christmas than Ghost 9.

I advise Norton fans to stick with Ghost 2003 for reliable backups or better change to Acronis's True Image 8 which also can work within WindowsXP but is not dependent on Microsoft .NET Framework 1.1 , is proved reliable in practice and, unlike Ghost, replies promptly to help service requests"

This was from a reader who reviewed the Ghost 9 product. I personally use the Acronis True Image 7 product and have found it to be excellent! I was a ghost user for many years but moved to Acronis when I upgraded to XP. Fred also recommends "BootItNG" though I've never tried it myself.

Perhaps you could find more info concerning Ghost 9's problems via google.

Cheers

 

[Frank4d]

Thanks for your post. It looks loke Norton Ghost 9.0 will not do what I want (which is to simply copy one drive to another without "installing" itself on either the source or destination drives, using up space and perhaps creating annoying shortcuts on my desktop and adding annoying links to my startup menu). To me, that is not copying one drive to another... it is copying one drive plus a bunch of extra crap that I don't need to another drive. If I wanted that, I can use the free utility from Seagate (all my drives are Seagate).

I guess I will look into Ghost 2003 or Acronis True Image.

 

[Freestone]

What you are describing is disk cloning, which is also included with Acronis True Image. However, if all you want is cloning, then save some money and use the Seagate utility.

If you download True Image, be aware that in order to create True Image's boot CD, True Image will have to be installed at least once on a PC that has a CD burner. If no CD burner is available, then you could create diskettes, but I've never gone there. This install does not have to be on the drive you want to clone, just on a PC that has CD burning capabilities. The boxed product contains this bootable CD.

http://www.latchlogic.com

offers a downloadable version of True Image 8 at an instant $10.00 US savings over Acronis' site. The site is legit.

By the way, I'm cheap, so I use a CD-RW for the boot CD. Acronis does release updates from time to time and I just recreate the boot CD on the CD-RW.

 

[Frank4d]

Thanks Freestone. All I want to do is clone two drives, six times each... so I think I will use the free Seagate utility. I don't know what happened to the good old days when a drive cloning utility would just do what it is supposed to do without installing 10MB of crapware on my hard drives.