We still use old-school ghost from a floppy.. 1

[1nterpol]

We have 5 pc's that i make a ghost image of every month in case the hard disk fails, they are pc's for labelling etc.

I have to open the pc, connect the spare hard disk, insert the floppy disk and copy from disk to disk.

2 of these pc's are not on the network so i presume i will have to continue using this method.

For the pc's that are on the network, is there a more convienent method?

For the general pc's on our network i have an image stored and when i need to image it i can put in the floppy disk with ghost and the nic driver to access the image and that works fine, but i still presume there is a new method that doesnt involve a floppy disk.

What other methods do you use?

 

[wahnula]

For the pc's that are on the network, is there a more convienent method?

Assuming the PCs run Win2K/XP, you can run ASR (Start, Run, NTBackup, Automated System Recovery Wizard) from NTBackup and store it in a network folder or partition. You will be prompted to create a floppy that enables a "bare metal" restore. If the hard drive fails, you boot to the ASR floppy, point the PC to the ASR backup file, and have a cup of coffee.

Of course you are backing up files daily, I hope. I would hate to be faced with the loss of 29 days' worth of files.

Tony

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I use Netboot Disk to create a floppy boot disk to a network share. Then burn it to a CD rom as a bootable disk using Nero. In my network share I have ghost.exe and a folder for my images. Takes about an hour to image a 100 gig drive.

You just boot to the CDRom, CD to the share and type ghost at the prompt and away you go.

You can do a similar thing with a USB key. I've went as far as having a small base image to put on the key as well. I have an 8gb USB key that I made bootable with ghost on it and I have a base ghost image of XP Pro and Office '03 for new installs, about 5gb. The USB key takes me less than 5 minutes to dump an image to a machine.

Just a couple of options for ya.

Cheers
Rob

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[1nterpol]

So, i install a new copy of XP with office and whatever else i need, make a ghost image and store it on a usb storage device.

Do i store a copy of Ghost on the usb drive as well?

Do i use my bootable cd that has ghost on it and point it to the usb drive?

Thanks for sharing your info i think this could be really useful to me if i get it going.

 

[ArizonaGeek]

I just created another 8gb bootable key. Here is EXACTLY how I did it:

1) Format your USB Key with FAT32 (your Ghost.exe wont run on NTFS)

2) Format a floppy disk in Windows XP with the "Create MS-DOS startup disk" switch

3) Download usb_format (do a Google search for it.) Once you got it, run it, select Create a DOS Bootable disk (using "DOS system files located at" your floppy drive)

4) Once your key has been formated, go back to the floppy drive and copy the entire floppy disk to your USB key. Do not copy the hidden files.

5) Copy ghost.exe from your old school floppy to the USB key.

Now you can boot to the USB key, it will come up as a C: drive when you boot but your hard drive will be accessible once you start Ghost.


The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[ArizonaGeek]

To create a network bootable CD Rom this is exactly how to do it:

1) Download Netboot Disk from the link above.

2) Create a bootable floppy drive again but formating a floppy disk in Windows XP with the "Create MS-DOS startup disk" switch

3) Your floppy disk should be A: but if not you'll have to edit the MakeDisk.bat file under the Network Boot disk folder and look for the line: if 0%1==0 set drv=A: and change the A to whatever your floppy is.

4) Open a CMD prompt, CD to where you have Network Boot Disk then run MakeDisk.bat

5) When it is done, boot to the floppy to set it up

6) You will get to a point in the floppy where you enter your network information, enter your network login, password and the NetBios name for your network or enter in the workgroup then in the login script area type: net use g: \\pcsharename\sharefolder you will need a copy of ghost.exe in this directory.

This will set your network drive as a G drive.

7) Press escape to continue the boot

8) When it gets to your prompt type G: and hit enter, this will take you to your network share and you can start ghost your normal way, just type ghost.exe.

Now to your get floppy to a CD Rom:

1) Insert your floppy disk you just used to your PC where you have a CD burner. Use the above floppy as it has saved your network information.

2) You'll have to use your own burning software and figure out how make a bootable CD. Basically select make a bootable disk and select the floppy in the drive. It will use only the files it needs to make it bootable, but you will need to copy all of the files to the CD as well. So add all the files from the floppy except the hidden files.

3) Burn the disk and now you have a network bootable CD Rom.

Cheers

The answer is always "PEBKAC!

 

[1nterpol]

Thanks ArizonaGeek,

Great detail,i'm a happy camper

 

[DrLar]

Ghost 8.0 and above have the network bootable capability, either using NDIS or built in NIC boot, it creates the image to be bootable from the network.

The downside is you have to have the ghost enterprise version, a DHCP server and of course Bootable NICs.

The process to create a network bootable image takes a bit of labor but once is created is a breeze.

I use this method since I have a tons of PCs that need reimage that don't have CD-ROMs or Floppy disks.