CS:
Please refer to my inline comments...
CS said:
The Ghost 2003 dos executable file is over 1mb in size. I've never
used it in conjunction with PCdos but from your statement above, I
have to assume the PCdos boot files are smaller than the comparable
boot files (io.sys and msdos.sys) created by MSdos or the Win98
version of dos in order to fit on a 1.44 mb floppy. Is that true?
As I previously stated, using the PC-DOS formatting option (the default
option) to create the Ghost bootable floppy disk will create that floppy on
a single standard 1.44 MB floppy disk.
Also - and this is just from my observation and experience with using
Ghost 2003 from dos in order to create and restore images from my
external USB 2.0 device: At times the program seemed to be able to
create the image (slowly) but would not verify it. At other times, it
was inconsistent in being able to "see" the drive. The drive is a
Maxtor IDE 7200rpm mounted in a USB 2.0 external case with interface
and power supply.
Let me state at the outset that we use a disk imaging program such as Ghost
for one purpose - to maintain a near-failsafe backup system of our
day-to-day working drive(s). We use the Ghost 2003 program to *directly*
clone the contents of one HD (internal or external) to another HD (internal
or external). I just want to make it clear that we do *not* create images on
CD/DVD or other removable media. We simply make direct disk-to-disk clones.
Our experience with cloning to & from USB 2.0 external HDs has been quite
positive. We have rarely run into problems that could be attributable to the
Ghost 2003 program. What problems we have run into with EHDs were invariably
due to a defective drive or defective USB enclosure or defective USB port.
This assumes you're using the latest version of Ghost 2003, i.e, build
2003.793, since there *were* problems with very early versions of Ghost 2003
re cloning to USB 2.0 EHDs. So in case you're using an earlier version,
access the LiveUpdate feature to install the latest build.
However, when using True Image 8.0, not only is the image created and
verified, it's done much faster. I also do not like Ghost placing a
"stamp" or "mark" on my drives which it insists on doing.
As far as Ghost's requirement to "mark the drive" before the cloning process
begins, we simply avoid that "requirement" (after booting up with the Ghost
bootable floppy or Ghost bootable CD) by tabbing over to to the "Continue
without marking drives" button on the initial screen that displays the
"License agreement warning" and pressing the Enter key. It's another reason
we prefer to use the Ghost bootable floppy (or bootable CD) to perform the
clone.
With respect to the Acronis program, we've only recently began working with
that program and I have to say I'm quite impressed with it in one particular
area. And that is its speed of cloning. It is, as you point out,
considerably faster than Ghost and that's a real plus, no doubt about it.
There are, however, a couple of negatives to the program (at least for us
based upon the way we prefer to work with a disk imaging program for
disk-to-disk cloning purposes). For one thing, you cannot create a single
bootable floppy disk to perform the clone as you can with Ghost (although
you can create a bootable CD and that's the way we've been using the
program). Secondly, you cannot (insofar as I know) *directly* clone
individual partitions on a multi-partitioned disk to another disk, as you
easily can with the Ghost program. So, if for example, your source disk had
two partitions and you wanted to directly clone just one of those partitions
to your destination disk, you cannot do so (again, AFAIK) with the ATI
program. But for straight disk-to-disk cloning it's an impressive program.
Anna
