How to use Ghost 9 for notebook HDD upgrade

[xfile]

Hi,

Although I owned the copy for years, this is actually the first time for
doing the task and I am a bit of confused.

Appreciate if anyone could advise for how to do this more properly.

I am planning to use Ghost 9.0 for upgrading my notebook's HDD. I
understand that there are two methods that could be used: (1) Creating a
backup image and restoring it to the new HDD, or (2) Using "Copy Drive"
function to move the entire contents to the new drive.

After reading help and online instructions, I am confused because of the
following questions:

(1) Shall I format the new HDD first? Should I install the new drive with a
USB box as a secondary drive and format it first? After that, use Ghost to
copy or restore image to the new drive, and then remove the old drive and
put the new drive as the primary and boot up again?

(2) Use Ghost installed at another system: The notebook is not installed
with the Ghost and it is installed in my desktop system. My wish is not to
install it in the notebook for this task, if possible.

So could I also use something like in (1) for having the new formatted HDD
connected to the desktop as an external HDD, and use the Ghost 9.0 to
restore image to the new drive. After that, put the new drive into the
notebook and boot up the system?

(3) Any other approaches? Appreciate any other recommendations.

Thanks for your kind help in advance.

 

[Richard Urban]

Use Ghost 9 to create an "image" on an external USB hard drive. Then swap
the drives on your notebook. Boot up from the Ghost 9 CD and restore the
image to the new drive. The program will ask you if you want to use "all" of
the available hard drive space for the restore, or if you want to leave any
extra space as "unallocated". The choice is yours if you have just installed
a larger hard drive. You may want to leave the unallocated space for the
creation of a new partition just for personal data.

When the image restore has been completed you will have a drive that is
formatted exactly as the old drive was. If you had NTFS, the new drive will
also be NTFS.

Reboot the computer and go from there.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Thanks for your kind and detailed advise.

After reading your suggestions, it came to my mind and can I do the
following:

(1) create an image and place it in the desktop's HDD (it has plenty of
space),

(2) attach the new HDD with an external USB box to the desktop,

(3) launch Ghost 9 from within the desktop and restore the image to the
attached new HDD.

However, I am not sure if I have to partition the new HDD first so XP Pro
(the desktop) will recognize the new HDD? This question also applies to if I
am using the approach you advised.

Could you kindly explain what is the difference of using "all" space and
"unallocated" for extra space?

I wish just to have one partition and to restore everything into the
partition and use the remaining space for storing additional data.

For example, the total size of the current HDD used is 35G, and I am going
to upgrade to a 100G HDD. So after restoring the image, I wish to have
around 65G space remaining so I could put additional garbage into it.

Thanks for your kind help.

 

[Richard Urban]

Hi,

Thanks for your kind and detailed advise.

After reading your suggestions, it came to my mind and can I do the
following:

(1) create an image and place it in the desktop's HDD (it has plenty of
space),

**********
This can only be done if you have a second hard drive in your computer. You
didn't say that you have. You can not create an image of the drive that the
operating system is located upon "unless" you have the original drive
partitioned to begin with. Then you could image the windows partition
(usually drive C and place the image on drive D:

You could then use that image and restore the image to the new hard drive.
You would have to put the OLD drive in an external USB enclosure. Put the
NEW drive in the notebook. Then boot up from the Ghost CD and restore the
image to the new hard drive.
**********

(2) attach the new HDD with an external USB box to the desktop,

**********
See above!
**********

(3) launch Ghost 9 from within the desktop and restore the image to the
attached new HDD.

**********
Wrong. You would boot up the laptop from the Ghost CD to carry out the
manlipuations.
**********

However, I am not sure if I have to partition the new HDD first so XP Pro
(the desktop) will recognize the new HDD? This question also applies to if
I am using the approach you advised.

**********
You don't have to partition anything. Restoring the Ghost image to the new
drive creates exactly what you had. If you had a 40 gig partition as NTFS on
the old drive, that is what you will have on the new drive - unless YOU
decide to use the whole drive (if it is larger that the old one).
**********

Could you kindly explain what is the difference of using "all" space and
"unallocated" for extra space?

**********
If your old drive was 40 gig, and the new drive is 100 gig, you can elect to
have 40 gig assigned on the new drive for the operating system - exactly the
same as the old drive. The remainder of the space is "unallocated". You can
create another partition in the unallocated space after you have the
computer up and running again.
**********

I wish just to have one partition and to restore everything into the
partition and use the remaining space for storing additional data.

**********
See directly above.
**********

For example, the total size of the current HDD used is 35G, and I am going
to upgrade to a 100G HDD. So after restoring the image, I wish to have
around 65G space remaining so I could put additional garbage into it.

Thanks for your kind help.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Appreciate your detailed explanations and I now have a clear understanding.

Just to make sure I understand it correctly,

(1) I do have a second HDD on the desktop and sorry for I did not mention it
and you were correct that I use Ghost from the desktop system to create an
image store at the D: (second) drive of the desktop.

(2) I have to use Ghost to boot from the notebook to perform the restore
process. In this case, I'd be better to follow your original suggestion and
put the image (close to 30G) to the external USB and use Ghost to boot up
the system with the new HDD installed.

The only thing concerns me is, in this case, I have to clean up the old HDD
first so it would have enough space to store the image.

I might be too paranoid, but based on my past unpleasant experiences, I
always wanted to make sure new files (systems) are correct before I wiped
out the old files (or systems). But in this case, I'd have to clean out the
old drive (for space) and rely solely on the image and pray for Ghost would
do the right job. This makes me a bit of nervous.

So my thought about using desktop to do the restore process and then just
put the newly restored HDD to the notebook was hoping this could somehow
eliminate me from wiping out the old HDD first.

(3) I guess for my case, I'd choose "all space" during the restore process
for which will create one partition and place everything into that
partition, and after that would have around 60G partitioned space remained.
The old drive is indeed a 40G and new drive is 100G.

So I guess unallocated means un-partitioned so user can choose to partition
at a later time.

Thanks again for your kind advise and hope I understand you correctly.

 

[Richard Urban]

When you create the image make sure that you check the box for "Verify"
image. This will let you know that the image was created successfully and
checks out as competant.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User

Quote from George Ankner:
If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[ANONYMOUS]

I learned from this site many many years ago:

http://ghost.radified.com/ghost_1b.htm

This site is all about everything you wanted to know about Norton Ghost
but were afraid to ask!!

hth

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Thanks and the site actually contain decent information including
discussions and links about if Ghost 9 is indeed a "true" Ghost product.

In summary, after reading those information and forcing myself to stop as it
could last forever for the reading, my old memory of "Ghost is everything
except it is designed for me" just came back to me.

I guess what I will do (using Ghost 9 whether or not it is a true Ghost
product) will be one of the two approaches:

(1) Attached the new (partitioned and formatted) HDD to the desktop as an
external HDD and perform the restore process from within the desktop and
using the image file stored at the second HDD to see if it works. If it
does, I will then put the new HDD to the notebook and boot up the system and
see if everything is ok. If it does not,

(2) I'd have to borrow another NB HDD and attached to the notebook while the
new HDD is also installed. I then use Ghost 9 to boot up and perform
restore from there. I have tried to use Ghost 9 CD to boot up and it can
see the external USB drive ok but it cannot see the domain name under My
Network Places even the network service has been turned on during the boot
up.

What I will not do is to erase anything from the old drive before I am 100%
sure that the restore has been performed correctly.

Hope one of the two will work.

Again, thanks for your kind help.

 

[xfile]

Hi,

Thanks for your kind reminder, and I have done that during the process of
creating the image.

After reading additional articles, I have came to the conclusion that I
would not erase anything from the old drive before the restore process is
being confirmed ok.

I guess I'd have to either borrow another notebook HDD stored with the image
file attached to the notebook and use Ghost to boot up and restore from
there, or try to perform the restore process from within the desktop with
the new HDD formatted and partitioned and see if it works.

Thanks again and will report back for the final result.