Imaging hard drive

[Guest]

Hello-

It's looking like i'm going to have to do a clean reinstall of my windows
XP, for more reasons then you probably care to know right now!! But to make
a long story short....there are a couple of really old apps on my computer
that I really would like to have back. Unfortunately....a couple of them,
the disk became corrupt and I threw them away.....or something.....I don't
really remember. Bottom line....I don't have the install disk anymore but I
don't want to lose the program. Obviously when I format the hard drive for
the new install, i'm going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING. I've heard of
some utilities such as Norton ghost or something like that? If I understand
correctly...It takes a mirror image of the drive and lets you pick and
choose to put some of the stuff back in working order when you get done
reinstalling your OS? I could be talking out of my butt here too!!?? If I
am on the right track...ist there any freeware out ther that will do this?
Being on a tigh budget, I can't just run out and buy a program when I come
accross something I need!! I'm sure there are some of you that understand
where I'm coming from!!

Just so you know....I have done a repair twice off of the XP disc itself,
and it hasn't resolved some of my issues. Besides that ....I think i'm about
to reach my half life, and it would be nice to start from a clean slate
again!!!!

Thanks
Roger

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Roger,

Programs like Ghost cannot help you here, you need the original installation
media. While you could recover the program folder, you will not be able to
recover the numerous supporting registry entries (often hundreds or even
thousands of them) and files that are placed in and registered with the
system folders.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Associate Expert - WindowsXP Expert Zone

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Richard Urban]

While it is true that some older programs will work just by copying the
program folder to the new system and then running the program executable,
most programs have to be re-installed.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Ken Blake]

In

It's looking like i'm going to have to do a clean reinstall of
my
windows XP, for more reasons then you probably care to know
right
now!!
....

Bottom
line....I don't have the install disk anymore but I don't want
to
lose the program. Obviously when I format the hard drive for
the new
install, i'm going to have to reinstall EVERYTHING. I've heard
of
some utilities such as Norton ghost or something like that?
If I
understand correctly...It takes a mirror image of the drive
and lets
you pick and choose to put some of the stuff back in working
order
when you get done reinstalling your OS?

No, you're out of luck. Neither Norton Ghost nor an other imaging
utility can help you. If you reformat and reinstall the opeating
system, you have to reinstall all your applications.

Installed applications can't just be moved from one system to
another. That's because applications have many references and
entries pointing to where there are located, in the registry and
lsewhere, as well as supporting files in Windows folders. Take
away those references and files (which you automatically do if
you reformat and reinstall Windows) and the application won't
run.

There's an occasional exception for a very small self-contained
application, but that happens rarely enough that you can ignore
it.

Sorry, but if you don't have the installation media for
applications you want to keep, your only choice is to buy them
again.

 

[Plato]

While it is true that some older programs will work just by copying the
program folder to the new system and then running the program executable,
most programs have to be re-installed.

Many brand new modern utilities still work the old fashioned way. In
fact, many of the "install" procedures merely copy the files to a new
folder and create a desktop icon. In effect, they really aren't
"installing" the way most programs that add 10 to 1000 registry entries
install.

 

[Guest]

In


No, you're out of luck. Neither Norton Ghost nor an other imaging
utility can help you. If you reformat and reinstall the opeating
system, you have to reinstall all your applications.

Installed applications can't just be moved from one system to
another. That's because applications have many references and
entries pointing to where there are located, in the registry and
lsewhere, as well as supporting files in Windows folders. Take
away those references and files (which you automatically do if
you reformat and reinstall Windows) and the application won't
run.

There's an occasional exception for a very small self-contained
application, but that happens rarely enough that you can ignore
it.

Sorry, but if you don't have the installation media for
applications you want to keep, your only choice is to buy them
again.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup


That's kind of what I assumed, but I was just hoping that maybe somebody knew something that I didn't.

Thank You
Roger

 

[Richard Urban]

Agreed! But you never know until you copy the folder to another computer and
try it out. Many times you are greeted with success.

--
Regards,

Richard Urban

aka Crusty (-: Old B@stard

If you knew as much as you think you know,
You would realize that you don't know what you thought you knew!

 

[Plato]

Agreed! But you never know until you copy the folder to another computer and
try it out. Many times you are greeted with success.

Or, if you use your unzipping program and view the files, and the app
you want runs right out of the zippack just by clicking on it, then it
needs no formal install

 

[Guest]

Contrary to what has been posted in this group, programs such as Norton Ghost
will work. I have extensive knowledge of this particular program from
working with it the past 5 years as an IT professional. And if it is used
correctly, it does just what it says, makes an exact copy of your HDD onto
different types of removable media depending on what version of ghost you
have. I'm used this program to configure several HUNDRED computers in the
same fashion by taking 1 -5 computers loading them with all the apps and
configuring the security paramaters specific to my network and then take the
remaining computers and "push" the image onto those computers. It also works
if the HDD is of a different size with the newer versions of the program.
Right now the current version is Norton Ghost 9.0. I don't know of any
freeware programs that can do this however, but the product can be purchased
from the following website and downloaded for use immediately via the
following website for $69.95

http://www.symantecstore.com/dr/sat...&DSP=&CUR=840&PGRP=0&CACHE_ID=487820000157990

This product is also great if you have lots of apps but little time to
re-install them all especially in the case of a compture upgrade. I just
hope this reaches you prior to wiping your computer. You may also want to
try a repair install if you haven't already. You need a bootable WinXP disc,
boot your system to the disc and follow the prompts as if you're going to
install new. Windows will then search for previous versions of WinXP. If
found, it will prompt you to either overwrite this version, install to a
different folder, or to repair it. Choose the repair option. This type of
repair is different than the intermittent ones suggested prior to reaching
this step. If it does not find a Windows installation (which it should so
long as you can at least still boot to the OS and log on), Don't choose a new
installation because this will overwrite your data. The drawback is that
even though this is a REPAIR install, it takes just as long as a full
install. Another option you can try is to run the following command from
either a DOS prompt or through the command line repair option sfc /scannow.
I can't make any guarantees that all or any of these options will work,
however I have used them all in different instances and am extremely
satisfied with the results. As a matter of fact, the computer I'm on now has
been repaired several times eventually using all of the suggestions provided.
Though there were different reasons each time why it need to be repaired
(operator error). Let me know if it works @ darius.johnson(remove
this)@us.army.mil.

 

[Ken Blake]

In

Contrary to what has been posted in this group, programs such
as
Norton Ghost will work.

Sorry, that's completely false.

I have extensive knowledge of this
particular program from working with it the past 5 years as an
IT
professional.

Terrific. But you either didn't read his question, or you didn't
understand it.

And if it is used correctly, it does just what it
says, makes an exact copy of your HDD onto different types of
removable media depending on what version of ghost you have.

Yes, it does. I've used it extensively myself, and done exactly
that with it. But it won't do what he wants to do with it. He
wants to reformat and reinstall Windows cleanly, then use Norton
Ghost to put back programs that were previously installed. It
will *not* do that.

 

[Anna]

Darius...
I think you may have come late to this thread and for that reason haven't
understood what the OP wanted to do. For one reason or another, he doesn't
want to clone the contents of his old disk to a new one. Obviously, if
that's what he wanted to do, Ghost or any other disk imaging program would
suffice. But no, what he wants to do is select certain programs from his
"old" system after performing a clean install of XP on his HD. Said he tried
Repair installs twice and his problems haven't been resolved. He was
wondering whether a disk imaging program such as Ghost could somehow have
this capability. Apparently he no longer has the installation media for
those programs he wishes to retain.

Most of the responses he's gotten have (correctly) informed him that Ghost
is not designed to do what he wants and that it's unlikely he'll be able to
transfer his programs to his newly-formatted disk without the installation
media. Sometimes one gets lucky and copying this or that program to the new
machine works, but as we know it's a crapshoot at best and the odds are
stacked against him. But no harm in trying, I guess.
Anna

 

[Guest]

Ken and Anna,

That's for clearing that up. I didn't catch that he was planning on doing a
clean install and only wanted to keep certain programs.

 

[CWatters]

Contrary to what has been posted in this group, programs such as Norton Ghost
will work.

No.

How does ghost know which bits of the registry need to be restored for the
wanted programs to work?