complexitites of "ghosting" ....

[RJK]

and restoring a XP boot drive:-

....current hardware arrangement:-

SATA1 80gb C:\ ...my XP boot drive
SATA 2 160gb just used for plain storage. F:\
80gb IDE hd is a master drive on IDE1 not used for anything now ...empty D:\
....finally also now have a 160gb IDE hd in an external USB case E:\

Yesterday I imaged drives C:\ and F:\ onto external USB drive E:\ (in 1gb
chunks)

If for example, I needed to restore my C:\ drive from Ghost files on E:\
e.g. boot using Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd, will Ghost be able to see USB
drive, ...under Norton's boot cd OS ?
....or would it be better to Ghost to D:\ then copy Ghost image files to E:\
(to be kept apart form PC)
....I know that the Ghost cd OS can see its' image files on IDE hds but,
dunno if it could see the USB ext. hd, ...or SATA hds' come to that ?

e.g. Suppose that PC got stolen, and I managed to cobble together a system
box with same hardware as the nicked one,
....same question again I suppose, can Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd OS see my ext
USB hard disk, or would it have to be taken out of the case and connected to
an IDE port ?

regards, Richard

 

[Unknown]

This is BIOS dependant. Generally speaking your boot drive is "c" and
internal on IDE bus. If you copy drive C to an external drive you cannot
boot from the external drive without a special support program. The support
program will
copy the external drive back to the C drive.

 

[Lil' Dave]

and restoring a XP boot drive:-

...current hardware arrangement:-

SATA1 80gb C:\ ...my XP boot drive
SATA 2 160gb just used for plain storage. F:\
80gb IDE hd is a master drive on IDE1 not used for anything now ...empty
D:\
...finally also now have a 160gb IDE hd in an external USB case E:\

Yesterday I imaged drives C:\ and F:\ onto external USB drive E:\ (in 1gb
chunks)

If for example, I needed to restore my C:\ drive from Ghost files on E:\
e.g. boot using Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd, will Ghost be able to see USB
drive, ...under Norton's boot cd OS ?
...or would it be better to Ghost to D:\ then copy Ghost image files to
E:\ (to be kept apart form PC)
...I know that the Ghost cd OS can see its' image files on IDE hds but,
dunno if it could see the USB ext. hd, ...or SATA hds' come to that ?

e.g. Suppose that PC got stolen, and I managed to cobble together a system
box with same hardware as the nicked one,
...same question again I suppose, can Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd OS see my
ext USB hard disk, or would it have to be taken out of the case and
connected to an IDE port ?

regards, Richard

Painful, but true. There's 2 basic steps in imaging the first time. One,
the imaging process (along with verification). Two, using the boot media
for restoration from the image file source to the target media for
restoration. You have to do both to verify you can do it on your PC. All
else is scuttle-butt.
Dave

 

[dobey]

and restoring a XP boot drive:-

...current hardware arrangement:-

SATA1 80gb C:\ ...my XP boot drive
SATA 2 160gb just used for plain storage. F:\
80gb IDE hd is a master drive on IDE1 not used for anything now ...empty
D:\
...finally also now have a 160gb IDE hd in an external USB case E:\

Yesterday I imaged drives C:\ and F:\ onto external USB drive E:\ (in 1gb
chunks)

If for example, I needed to restore my C:\ drive from Ghost files on E:\
e.g. boot using Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd, will Ghost be able to see USB
drive, ...under Norton's boot cd OS ?
...or would it be better to Ghost to D:\ then copy Ghost image files to
E:\ (to be kept apart form PC)
...I know that the Ghost cd OS can see its' image files on IDE hds but,
dunno if it could see the USB ext. hd, ...or SATA hds' come to that ?

e.g. Suppose that PC got stolen, and I managed to cobble together a system
box with same hardware as the nicked one,
...same question again I suppose, can Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd OS see my
ext USB hard disk, or would it have to be taken out of the case and
connected to an IDE port ?

regards, Richard

Is it so difficult to boot from the rescue CD and see if you can access your
USB drive?

 

[M.I.5¾]

and restoring a XP boot drive:-

...current hardware arrangement:-

SATA1 80gb C:\ ...my XP boot drive
SATA 2 160gb just used for plain storage. F:\
80gb IDE hd is a master drive on IDE1 not used for anything now ...empty
D:\
...finally also now have a 160gb IDE hd in an external USB case E:\

Yesterday I imaged drives C:\ and F:\ onto external USB drive E:\ (in 1gb
chunks)

If for example, I needed to restore my C:\ drive from Ghost files on E:\
e.g. boot using Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd, will Ghost be able to see USB
drive, ...under Norton's boot cd OS ?
...or would it be better to Ghost to D:\ then copy Ghost image files to
E:\ (to be kept apart form PC)
...I know that the Ghost cd OS can see its' image files on IDE hds but,
dunno if it could see the USB ext. hd, ...or SATA hds' come to that ?

e.g. Suppose that PC got stolen, and I managed to cobble together a system
box with same hardware as the nicked one,

I presume that you are talking with respect to activation. It would depend
on what hardware you were duplicating. If you were able to duplicate the
exact hardware from the original machine (that is the hardware when Windows
was activated), then if you didn't have a network adaptor, the new machine
would run without reactivation, because only the processor serial number
would have changed .

However, if you did have a network adaptor, then reactivation would be
required, because it's different MAC address would count as 3 changes which
along with the processor serial number would trip reactivation.

 

[RJK]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. I wasn't on about the genuine advantage thingy,
and "reactivation," though that is all interesting, ...because I've
replaced motherboard twice, and now added two SATA hd's, and changed
graphics card on new motherboard.

....I was just wondering if Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd OS can see a USB port
with a hd connected to it,
....if it can't, then I'll just keep my Ghost image files on my 80gb IDE hd.

After altering my hardware arrangement and backup arrangement, I usually
check that my backup procedure is restoreable.
Asking in this NG would of course initially save me finding out the hard way
that Ghost can't see a USB hd, until I test it out.

regards, Richard

 

[M.I.5¾]

Hi,

Thanks for your response. I wasn't on about the genuine advantage thingy,
and "reactivation," though that is all interesting, ...because I've
replaced motherboard twice, and now added two SATA hd's, and changed
graphics card on new motherboard.

...I was just wondering if Norton Ghost 9.0 boot cd OS can see a USB port
with a hd connected to it,
...if it can't, then I'll just keep my Ghost image files on my 80gb IDE
hd.

After altering my hardware arrangement and backup arrangement, I usually
check that my backup procedure is restoreable.
Asking in this NG would of course initially save me finding out the hard
way that Ghost can't see a USB hd, until I test it out.

Yes the restore CD can see USB connected drives. In theory it can also see
firewire connected drives.

People can advise you as to whether your backup is *likely* to be
restorable, but ultimately you really should check for yourself. The best
time time to find out that you can't restore it is not just after your hard
disk has failed. Put an old (or a new) disk into your PC and see if you can
recover it from the backup.