Backup Vista via Hard Drive Image

[Sam]

What's my best option?

I was looking to use Ghost to image my C-Drive partition but it Symantic
site says XP/2000 only for Ghost 10. Anyone tried ghost with Vista? Why
shouldn't it work if it's I just want to boot from floppy and backup the
entire partition?

I also ran across Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore but alas I have
Home Premimum and it's not included.

 

[Richard Urban]

TrueImage HOME 10.0.4942 is the way to go. It is 100% compatible with Vista.

The NTFS file system has changed between XP and Vista. The older utilities
can not handle this without errors, either immediate of delayed by a few
days.

TrueImage allows you to "create" an image from the boot CD - Ghost only
allows you to recover from a failed system with their boot CD.

TrueImage wins.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Craig]

Hi there,

I don't think you can boot from a floppy and use Ghost 10. I use Ghost 7.5
from a network enabled boot floppy. So, far, the backup part is fine. Upon
restore, I get a Black Screen of Error and that winload.exe is not present
or corrupted and I need to repair the OS. I boot with the Vista Business
DVD and select Repair... it then installs some drivers and restarts fine. I
agree with Richard that is due to the change in structure of Vista's NTFS.
As I'm only restoring for testing purposes for now, it's not a biggie. By
the time we go live, there will no doubt be better options for this.

Cheers
Craig

 

[Sam]

TrueImage HOME 10.0.4942 is the way to go. It is 100% compatible with
Vista.

The NTFS file system has changed between XP and Vista. The older utilities
can not handle this without errors, either immediate of delayed by a few
days.

TrueImage allows you to "create" an image from the boot CD - Ghost only
allows you to recover from a failed system with their boot CD.

TrueImage wins.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

Thanks for that. Just so I undersand what your're saying, to create the
partition image with True Image you boot off the CD then pick the partion to
backup to and the loction to place the image right? Then to restore, boot
of the CD pick the backup image file and the destination partition?

 

[Richard Urban]

You can also create the image from within Vista if you so desire. The
capability is also on the boot CD.

In Ghost you MUST create the image from within Windows.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[John Barnes]

As Richard has advised you, Ghost will restore only from the CD. Images
MUST be made from the installed product and it will not install on Vista.

 

[supizh2]

What's my best option?

I was looking to use Ghost to image my C-Drive partition but it Symantic
site says XP/2000 only for Ghost 10. Anyone tried ghost with Vista? Why
shouldn't it work if it's I just want to boot from floppy and backup the
entire partition?

I also ran across Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore but alas I have
Home Premimum and it's not included.

You may try Paragon Drive Backup 8.5.
http://www.drive-backup.com/home/personal/

I used it with Vista and XP (dual boot) for 3 months already and it
looks like fine. Tried to restore the whole HDD and partitions
separately, everything is booting OK and all data are secured. Once I
restored from their recovery CD in case of my system boot crash and
find it very useful. Anyway, you can try it and make your own opinion.

 

[Dave R.]

What's my best option?

I was looking to use Ghost to image my C-Drive partition but it
Symantic site says XP/2000 only for Ghost 10. Anyone tried ghost with
Vista? Why shouldn't it work if it's I just want to boot from floppy
and backup the entire partition?

I also ran across Windows Complete PC Backup and Restore but alas I
have Home Premimum and it's not included.

The only way I've gotten Ghost 10 or earlier to produce an image of
Vista that boots when restored is to boot to DOS (using a CD or USB key)
and use ghost.exe in raw mode (-ir if I recall correctly). Takes
forever and you end up with a larger image than is necessary, but it
works.

On the other hand, Ghost 11 works great with Vista.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Dave R.]

You can also create the image from within Vista if you so desire. The
capability is also on the boot CD.

In Ghost you MUST create the image from within Windows.

Not so. I create images using Ghost from a DOS boot all the time.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Dave R.]

As Richard has advised you, Ghost will restore only from the CD.
Images MUST be made from the installed product and it will not install
on Vista.

If I understand what you are saying, this isn't correct. Ghost can
create perfectly usable Vista images from outside of Vista. Boot to the
Ghost CD and use ghost.exe. For versions before Ghost 11, you have to
use raw mode to produce a usable image. Ghost 11 doesn't require this
workaround.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Dave R.]

Hi there,

I don't think you can boot from a floppy and use Ghost 10. I use
Ghost 7.5 from a network enabled boot floppy. So, far, the backup
part is fine. Upon restore, I get a Black Screen of Error and that
winload.exe is not present or corrupted and I need to repair the OS.
I boot with the Vista Business DVD and select Repair... it then
installs some drivers and restarts fine. I agree with Richard that is
due to the change in structure of Vista's NTFS. As I'm only restoring
for testing purposes for now, it's not a biggie. By the time we go
live, there will no doubt be better options for this.

We boot from floppy and use Ghost 11, so I imagine Ghost 10 works from
floppy boot as well.

I don't know about Ghost 7.5, but Ghost 8 works fine if you force it to
use raw mode (-ir from the command line if I recall correctly).

Regards,

Dave

 

[Richard Urban]

Ancient versions. Not so for the last two "Windows" versions.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Dave R.]

Ancient versions. Not so for the last two "Windows" versions.

Not sure I understand you here. I'm using Ghost 11, which is the latest
version available as far as I know, and the ghost.exe provided with that
version works fine from a DOS boot. The ghost32.exe that comes with it
is windows-specific though.

Regards,

Dave

 

[Dave R.]

If I understand what you are saying, this isn't correct. Ghost can
create perfectly usable Vista images from outside of Vista. Boot to
the Ghost CD and use ghost.exe. For versions before Ghost 11, you
have to use raw mode to produce a usable image. Ghost 11 doesn't
require this workaround.

Sorry, I mis-spoke. Ghost 11 doesn't come on a bootable CD. Not sure
when that change happened...

Regards,

Dave

 

[Richard Urban]

So you are saying that you can insert the CD, boot to the recovery
environment and "create???" an image from there.

If so, it is something I was unaware of. I ceased using Ghost with version
10.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Dave R.]

So you are saying that you can insert the CD, boot to the recovery
environment and "create???" an image from there.

If so, it is something I was unaware of. I ceased using Ghost with
version 10.

Sorry, no (although until a few minutes ago I thought you could). The
version I have does not have a bootable CD at all, but the ghost.exe it
comes with does work when booted to DOS.

I think I know where the confusion is coming from, and I fear I've
introduced it. I've been talking about Symantec Ghost, not Norton
Ghost. I've no idea what the capabilities of the latest Norton Ghost
are, nor what version they are currently up to. In fact, I was unaware
there were any differences at all until just now. One of my coworkers
says that Norton Ghost 11 is roughly the same in capabilities as
Symantec Ghost 8. Sheesh, you'd think that they'd have done something
different to prevent this sort of thing, like, I dunno, maybe calling
the Symantec product something else entirely?

My apologies for the confusion.

Dave

 

[Richard Urban]

<grin>

I didn't want to say you were wrong. But at least I got you to double check
your info.

--


Regards,

Richard Urban MVP
Microsoft Windows Shell/User

 

[Bucko]

Personally, from within a DOS enviroment I use Ghost 2003 which will create
a .gho image on either DVD, CD or other partition on the computer, this is
super quick. When I need Network or USB support I have a Barts PE disk setup
with Ghost 8 Corporate which will back up any partition to Network, USB, CD,
DVD or even another partition. this also creates a .gho file this way is
only as fast as your hardware on the remote side. The latest releases are
Ghost 11, soon to be replaced, and Norton Save and Restore 2.0 which is
Vista compatible. Both of which are used from within Windows and create .v2i
images, you can create them on Network, USB, CD, DVD or another partition.
If you have to emergency restore there is a Restore disk included with the
software which will allow you to boot your system into a PE enviroment and
from there you can restore you system to the last known image created..

Hope that helps and clears up some of the confusion..

Bucko

 

[Dave R.]

<grin>

I didn't want to say you were wrong. But at least I got you to double
check your info.

That was a most tactful way of saying I was wrong without actually doing
so. And thanks - I know I get tunnel vision at times and forget to step
back and take another look.

Regards,

Dave