A
Airman Thunderbird
Nero comes with, (at least mine does) a boot image it defaults to when
you select a boot CD. Should be in the Nero folder.
you select a boot CD. Should be in the Nero folder.
J
Jack Gillis
Airman Thunderbird said:
Thank you. I don't find anything that remotely looks like a boot image
in the Nero folder or its parent, Ahead. Do you have a name for the
image?
Thanks again.
A
Art
(Snipped a good deal of Peter's post)...
No, it's not a thought. It's what I said I do: " I use the DVD
because I keep backup-backup images off-site. I keep on-site images
on a separate HDD" . Just to repeat. My primary backup system is
on-site HDD's: data only backups on a separate internal HDD, full
system backups on an external HDD. I also use Ghost disk images on
DVD as my secondary backup system, stored off-site for security. The
point of my comment was to explain why I didn't use the external HDD
for off-site storage. Why send off the USB external drive for off
site security when I would have to bring it back to update it, and
couldn't use it while it was gone? Sheesh!
I don't think you read my original post very well - you certainly
don't seem to have understood it.
--
Regards,
Peter Wilkins
Peter:
I'm not sure if you're to referring to me when you state that "I don't think
you read my original post very well - you certainly don't seem to have
understood it." Your post included snips of previous postings from more than
one poster and it was not clear who was who. It would be helpful that if you
do intersperse posts or snips of posts in your posting you do so in a way
that makes it clear who said what. Please understand I say this not as some
snide piece of criticism but only to help clarify the issue for me and
others who are interested in the issue. Unfortunately we come across this
all too frequently in newsgroup postings, i.e., a poster including a
bewildering mélange of snips from previous posts in his current posting so
that the issue at hand is virtually undecipherable to the readers.
Anyway...just to make my position clear on this subject...
We use Ghost 2003 exclusively for a single purpose -- to clone one hard
drive to another hard drive, the object being a failsafe (or near failsafe)
backup system. Most of the computers we build are equipped with two
removable hard drives in their mobile racks. We find the flexibility and
effectiveness of this arrangement an ideal configuration. This system allows
the user to make, if desired, multiple clones of his day-to-day working hard
drive for added security. So by using removable drives, the resulting
portability of the cloned hard drives can easily be transported off the
premises should the user need that additional safekeeping capability. Thus,
in our situation we have no need nor desire to store backup (cloned) data on
media such as DVDs. Should your needs differ, so be it. I have no quarrel
with that.
Art
No, it's not a thought. It's what I said I do: " I use the DVD
because I keep backup-backup images off-site. I keep on-site images
on a separate HDD" . Just to repeat. My primary backup system is
on-site HDD's: data only backups on a separate internal HDD, full
system backups on an external HDD. I also use Ghost disk images on
DVD as my secondary backup system, stored off-site for security. The
point of my comment was to explain why I didn't use the external HDD
for off-site storage. Why send off the USB external drive for off
site security when I would have to bring it back to update it, and
couldn't use it while it was gone? Sheesh!
I don't think you read my original post very well - you certainly
don't seem to have understood it.
--
Regards,
Peter Wilkins
Peter:
I'm not sure if you're to referring to me when you state that "I don't think
you read my original post very well - you certainly don't seem to have
understood it." Your post included snips of previous postings from more than
one poster and it was not clear who was who. It would be helpful that if you
do intersperse posts or snips of posts in your posting you do so in a way
that makes it clear who said what. Please understand I say this not as some
snide piece of criticism but only to help clarify the issue for me and
others who are interested in the issue. Unfortunately we come across this
all too frequently in newsgroup postings, i.e., a poster including a
bewildering mélange of snips from previous posts in his current posting so
that the issue at hand is virtually undecipherable to the readers.
Anyway...just to make my position clear on this subject...
We use Ghost 2003 exclusively for a single purpose -- to clone one hard
drive to another hard drive, the object being a failsafe (or near failsafe)
backup system. Most of the computers we build are equipped with two
removable hard drives in their mobile racks. We find the flexibility and
effectiveness of this arrangement an ideal configuration. This system allows
the user to make, if desired, multiple clones of his day-to-day working hard
drive for added security. So by using removable drives, the resulting
portability of the cloned hard drives can easily be transported off the
premises should the user need that additional safekeeping capability. Thus,
in our situation we have no need nor desire to store backup (cloned) data on
media such as DVDs. Should your needs differ, so be it. I have no quarrel
with that.
Art
P
Peter Wilkins
On Mon, 13 Dec 2004 07:50:52 +1100, Peter Wilkins
snip
I see elsewhere in the thread that some people have difficulty
creating a bootable DVD/CD, and have resorted to Nero and EasyCD.
That's OK, but I do it from within Ghost when creating the backup
image, using the command line options: -bootcd -ghostoncd
When I insert the first DVD image disk of a backup in my computer DVD
drive and turn on the computer, it boots and then runs the DOS version
of Ghost.
My memory isn't too good regarding floppies - I didn't have one for a
long time and can't remember if one was needed to create the initial
bootable DVD, but I don't need one now, even though I have one.
snip
I see elsewhere in the thread that some people have difficulty
creating a bootable DVD/CD, and have resorted to Nero and EasyCD.
That's OK, but I do it from within Ghost when creating the backup
image, using the command line options: -bootcd -ghostoncd
When I insert the first DVD image disk of a backup in my computer DVD
drive and turn on the computer, it boots and then runs the DOS version
of Ghost.
My memory isn't too good regarding floppies - I didn't have one for a
long time and can't remember if one was needed to create the initial
bootable DVD, but I don't need one now, even though I have one.
P
Peter Wilkins
No, not you! My post was replying to comments on an earlier post of
mine by Mike. The link seemed clear to me because I have replies in a
thread indented, but I understand how confusing long threads can get.
Sorry.
I have no quarrel with your approach either. This all started off
because I just replied to your original post to let others know that
Ghost handled backups to DVD OK as well as backups to external drives
- not as any implied criticism of your method!
I do use DVD's for off-site backup as I only have one external HDD
that I use for on-site backups and for other purposes, such as
installation source files. Your enterprise is much bigger than my
single user system, so it's horses for courses - your approach works
for you, mine for me. I can afford the extra time it takes to do DVD
backups - I don't think you could - in business, time is money.
Anyway, it was interesting reading the thread - it's amazing how some
just seem to spawn, while others die.
A
Art
Art wrote...
I have no quarrel with your approach either. This all started off
because I just replied to your original post to let others know that
Ghost handled backups to DVD OK as well as backups to external drives
- not as any implied criticism of your method!
I do use DVD's for off-site backup as I only have one external HDD
that I use for on-site backups and for other purposes, such as
installation source files. Your enterprise is much bigger than my
single user system, so it's horses for courses - your approach works
for you, mine for me. I can afford the extra time it takes to do DVD
backups - I don't think you could - in business, time is money.
Anyway, it was interesting reading the thread - it's amazing how some
just seem to spawn, while others die.
Regards,
Peter Wilkins
Peter:
I know this thread has been going on interminably but allow me to make one
more comment...
The hardware configuration I speak of, to wit: two removable hard drives in
their mobile racks is an arrangement that's suitable (and indeed highly
desirable from my perspective) for many, if not most personal computer
users. The added cost of equipping one's desktop computer (it's not a viable
system for laptops/notebooks) with this configuration is relatively trifling
given the plummeting costs of today's hard drives. The mobile racks
themselves can be purchased for as little at $15. So we're not talking about
a considerable outlay of money for this kind of system. Please understand
that this system is ideally suited for single-user computer users as well as
larger enterprises. Indeed, I have helped many users equip their personal
computers with this hardware configuration. And every one of them, without
exception, has had but a single regret -- that their previous computer(s)
didn't have this arrangement. It's that good. The peace of mind and
flexibility you gain from configuring your desktop computer with two
removable hard drives is enormous and I can virtually guarantee that once
you begin working with this system, given the present state of personal
computer technology, you'll never want to return to the "old" way. So give
this some consideration for your present or future computers. You won't
regret it.
Art
I have no quarrel with your approach either. This all started off
because I just replied to your original post to let others know that
Ghost handled backups to DVD OK as well as backups to external drives
- not as any implied criticism of your method!
I do use DVD's for off-site backup as I only have one external HDD
that I use for on-site backups and for other purposes, such as
installation source files. Your enterprise is much bigger than my
single user system, so it's horses for courses - your approach works
for you, mine for me. I can afford the extra time it takes to do DVD
backups - I don't think you could - in business, time is money.
Anyway, it was interesting reading the thread - it's amazing how some
just seem to spawn, while others die.
Regards,
Peter Wilkins
Peter:
I know this thread has been going on interminably but allow me to make one
more comment...
The hardware configuration I speak of, to wit: two removable hard drives in
their mobile racks is an arrangement that's suitable (and indeed highly
desirable from my perspective) for many, if not most personal computer
users. The added cost of equipping one's desktop computer (it's not a viable
system for laptops/notebooks) with this configuration is relatively trifling
given the plummeting costs of today's hard drives. The mobile racks
themselves can be purchased for as little at $15. So we're not talking about
a considerable outlay of money for this kind of system. Please understand
that this system is ideally suited for single-user computer users as well as
larger enterprises. Indeed, I have helped many users equip their personal
computers with this hardware configuration. And every one of them, without
exception, has had but a single regret -- that their previous computer(s)
didn't have this arrangement. It's that good. The peace of mind and
flexibility you gain from configuring your desktop computer with two
removable hard drives is enormous and I can virtually guarantee that once
you begin working with this system, given the present state of personal
computer technology, you'll never want to return to the "old" way. So give
this some consideration for your present or future computers. You won't
regret it.
Art
P
Peter Wilkins
Hi Art,
Yes, it all sounds very good, and practical, but as of 3 months ago,
our little company got rid of our last desktop and our little WiFi
network comprises just 3 laptops, which each only have room for one
HDD plus DVD burner - hence the firewire/USB2 external HDD's rather
than removable HDD's. Reason is that we spend 6 months in Oz and the
rest of the year in Italy and UK, and it's a bit hard lugging desktops
around the world. Hell, it's a bit hard lugging my Toshiba Satellite
P20 with 17" screen around anywhere!
It's also a bit hard getting commonality as I'm the only Windoze user-
the real workers work in Unix/Linux so use their own backup systems -
not Ghost. They backup over the Internet to an on-line server for
relatively small cost, but they don't rely on it, they also use USB2
external HDD's and DVD as do I.
Have fun
Peter
J
John Butler
Hi Mike,
Strangely I do not see my Saturday post!
..netframework became a problem once SP2 was installed. It uses a different
version to that on which Powerquest developed Drive Image 7 on which Ghost 9
is based. Then in October there was an SP2 patch to .netframework. After
that I never got Ghost 9 to work.
I am using Acronis True Image version 8 and according to the help file it is
fully compatible with Linux.
John
Strangely I do not see my Saturday post!
..netframework became a problem once SP2 was installed. It uses a different
version to that on which Powerquest developed Drive Image 7 on which Ghost 9
is based. Then in October there was an SP2 patch to .netframework. After
that I never got Ghost 9 to work.
I am using Acronis True Image version 8 and according to the help file it is
fully compatible with Linux.
John
M
Mike
It is a bit confusing, but your posts are very helpful. I appreciate you
taking the time to explain and repeat yourself. Your experience and approach
are making a lot of sense. One more dumb question ... If a blue screen occurs,
you have a full system back up on the external drive. Would you then boot up
with a ghost cd, and rebuild your primary HD with the image captured on the
external drive? Then reboot from the recovered image on the primary HD and
restore the data from your backups on internal HD2? This using Ghost 2003 for
everything.
Gotta order me a Dell external drive.
Thanks again.
P
Peter Wilkins
No problem!
Yes, that's just about it! Actually if I get a system failure, I can
boot from a number of different sources before applying the image: a
Ghost recovery floppy with Ghost on it, a bootable Ghost Image DVD/CD,
the Ghost installation CD itself, or even an external HDD. I also
have the Ghost images stored in different locations - on DVD, separate
internal or external HDD, or on a network drive, at various different
dates. The image I use to restore will usually be the latest one,
obviously, but there can be times and reasons you might want to
restore to a particular date instead.
1. From DVD (or CD) I just put the first DVD of a Ghost bootable DVD
image set into the drive, turn on the computer and during bootup tell
it to boot from the DVD. That boots the computer into DOS Ghost, so I
can run the restore from the image files on the DVD. That replaces
everything on the boot drive (C
:- system O/S, settings and data,with the detail from the image. I can then reboot the computer and it
is restored exactly to what it was when I took the backup image. But
that only restores data up to the date that I took the image. So then
I run a separate restore using another data backup program to update
the data from the time of the Ghost image backup to the current date.
Of course, I will lose any data that was created since the last data
backup - hence my motto, backup, backup, backup! The data backup can
be a complete backup of everything in MyDocs, or you can do a complete
backup then daily incremental backups - quicker to make, but then you
have to restore each incremental backup in order, so slower to
restore. You may also need to make special arrangements to backup
some system and program settings that don't go into MyDocs - eg
Outlook contacts lists and emails.
2. Or if I don't have a bootable DVD based image handy, I can boot
into DOS Ghost from a Ghost boot floppy (you can create one from
within Ghost) using my plug-in USB floppy drive, or using my DVD drive
and the Ghost CD, then search for image files on my second HDD (was
internal, now external USB2/firewire) or anywhere else they are stored
that can be accessed by Ghost (even over a network), then run the
restore, then update from the separate data backup as explained for
the DVD restore above. I understand that it is also possible to make
the external HDD bootable, but I haven't tried that yet.
Note if you can boot into Windows on your computer, you can restore
individual files or folders from the Ghost Image using Ghost Explorer
from within Windows. However, don't try to do that from a DVD or CD
image backup directly - it needs many disk swaps and will take
forever. Copy all the .gho and .ghs image files into the one folder
on a HDD first. (I once had to restore a few files from a Ghost CD
image set of 14 CD's - after some hundred or so disk swaps and several
hours the penny dropped, and I copied the whole image set onto the HDD
and restored the files from there in a few minutes.)
Note also that other people use different backup techniques
appropriate to their needs - Art for example uses the disk clone
technique rather than imaging. Each technique has it's own
advantages, you need to suck it and see which meets your needs most
closely. Cloning is quicker, but takes more space: you need a backup
source with the same or more capacity than the drive being cloned.
Imaging can use various stages of compression - the higher the slower
- eg I backup 22G from an 80G C: into a 12G image file which needs
only 3 DVD's. The compression you can get depends on the type and mix
of data you have - txt and bmp and doc files compress a lot more than
already compressed jpg files.
Even when creating an image directly to HDD, I always split it into
DVD sized chunks, so that I can burn a copy to DVD later if I need to.
I think you can resize chunks from within Ghost Explorer but it's
easier and quicker to do it at the start using command line commands.
That's all pretty jumbled but I hope not too confusing!
And remember that all my comments relate to Ghost 2003 - I haven't
used Ghost 9 so don't know all it's capabilities.
And I can't guarantee that my techniques will always work - I haven't
tried restore enough to be sure. I have made hundreds and hundreds of
Ghost image backups, on HDD, CD and DVD, and only once have I had a
problem, and that was due to a faulty CD, but in 20 years of personal
computing I have only had to do a full system restore three times.
They were all successful, but I did lose a couple of days data each
time as I had failed to take a daily backup. I did learn - that's now
automated.
You can get external USB2/firewire drives incl backup software from
Maxtor and Iomega which are competitive with Dell. I recommend the
Maxtor OneTouch Series II. And don't skimp on the size - it's amazing
how quickly drives fill up! I would recommend at least a 120G, but if
you can afford the extra, a 250G or more.
de nada
M
Mike
I have ordered Ghost 9 - evidently Symantec is going that direction. They told
me that even though it would have Ghost 2003, that they are no longer
supporting 2003 products. Since I am starting from scratch, maybe it will go
cleanly.
Yea, been there ... that is why I have so paranoid with my questions.
Previously, I did as Art, used HD cartridges and did a clone. Even set up
double floppies to clone my laptop and Linux box to a removable HD on the main
machine. Yes, I hear the question - the main machine went belly up, I had
replaced the motherboard too many times over the last umpteen years and decided
to buy a ready-made. Dell had what I liked, but it came with a mini-tower so
no room for those removable HD cartridges. Got two 160GB with the idea of
doing exactly what you describe.
I went with the Dell since it would be with my current system warranty and I
would only need to deal with the one vendor - got a pretty good deal on a
160GB.
You ever notice that it is when you are crunched for time and have gotten
behind on backup recovery that the computer gremlin wakes up and bits you in
the rear?
Happy holidays.
A
Airman Thunderbird
Mine is here:
C:\Program Files\ahead\Nero\DosBootimage.IMA
C:\Program Files\ahead\Nero\DosBootimage.IMA
J
Jack Gillis
Airman Thunderbird said:
Nope. A Search on my complete system drive did not find a file of that
name. I'm running Ghost 2003 so perhaps it is not in that version.
Thanks anyway. I can live with getting one from a floppy on my desktop.