JS said:
I recently tried both Norton Ghost and Drive Image. After several tries
Ghost would not work. Drive Image worked first try without a hitch. Others
here have echoed my results in the very recent past. Drive Image was also
much easier to use as it did not require re-booting to DOS and Ghost does
require re-booting to DOS. The required DOS re-boot in Ghost was the
source
of many problems. The system was an XP system. I recommend using the
'clone' feature of whatever software you select. Copy the entire source
drive the destination drive, not just the parts with data. XP is gonna be
finicky if you do not make an exact copy of the entire source drive. XP
has
registration/activation data hidden that must be transferred during the
cloning process. That hidden data will not be transferred if you do a
simple drive copy operation.
Good Luck
Just so others may understand what is going on here, the OP planned to clone
his current HD to a new 80 GB Maxtor HD. I (and I believe others) informed
him that he could use the disk cloning utility that's included with the
retail, boxed version of Maxtor drives. If he purchased an OEM version of
the Maxtor drive, he could obtain the disk cloning utility from Maxtor's
site. I informed him that while that utility would do the job, it's very
slow to carry out the cloning operation in comparison to disk imaging
programs such as Ghost. But since this will be a one-time affair, he could
consider using Maxtor's utility.
I further stated that in my opinion Symantec's Norton Ghost program (2003
version) would probably be best to perform the cloning operation. Since the
OP indicated he has this program, I recommended that he use it.
To use the Ghost cloning program from a floppy disk (as I do), you simply
create the Ghost bootable floppy from the Ghost program.. With your source
and destination disks connected, you simply boot with the Ghost floppy and a
half a dozen or so keyclicks later the cloning process begins. It's simple,
relatively quick, and most important of all, effective. You can just as
easily create a Ghost bootable CD and undertake your cloning operation
through that
means.
I have often remarked that I wish every software program I use was as
simple, straightforward, and effective as Symantec's Norton Ghost program.
Let me state at the outset that I use Ghost for one and only one purpose -
to clone the contents of one hard drive to another. By making a bit-for-bit
copy (not technically precise perhaps, but correct for all practical
purposes) of one's
working hard drive, you have, what seems to me, the ultimate backup system.
I have used various versions of Ghost over the years, up through the present
2003 version. During that time I estimate I've cloned various hard drives
more than a thousand times. And done so with nary a hiccup. Whatever
problems I've encountered with this program were due to user error
(frequently mine!) or defective drives or corrupted system files on the
source disk. If you clone garbage, garbage is what you'll get. As far as I'm
concerned, Ghost's ease of use together with its reasonable speed make it a
joy to use.
Art