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Symantec Ghost 8 and Norton Ghost 2003 (Part 3)
Topics on this page (continued from Part 2): [5] Running Norton Ghost 2003 in DOS to backup and restore a Windows partition
[6] Running Norton Ghost in DOS to clone a hard disc to a new hard disc [7] Running Norton Ghost in DOS to back up and restore peer-to-peer networked computer drives
[8] Norton Ghost and Ghost 8 (ghost.exe): DOS Options
5. Running Symantec and Norton Ghost in DOS to backup and restore a Windows partition5.1. BackupInstall Norton or Symantec Ghost and make bootable floppies or CD as detailed in Part 1. Set your computer BIOS to boot from floppy or CD before the hard disc in the BIOS. The GUI in DOS and the steps are similar for Symantec Ghost and Norton Ghost so both are discussed together with screenshots from both. If the mouse or the laptop keypad doesn't work in DOS, use the keyboard arrows, tab and shortcut keys (indicated by underlined letters in the selections) to navigate and ENTER to make a choice. You will first see this message when booting up with Norton Ghost boot disc (fig. 1). This message is similar whether you use floppy or CD to boot.
Fig. 1. Ghost booting PC DOS.
If you boot with Symantec Ghost 8 floppy or CD there is an extra option to choose from: Ghost boot disk (floppy) or Ghost bootable CD. Choose the option that corresponds to your scenario (fig. 2). You will be prompted for the second boot floppy.
Fig. 2. Symantec Ghost Startup Menu boot option
When all the drivers and ghost.exe have been loaded, the Ghost 8 DOS GUI main menu appears. Figure 3 shows the Ghost 8 DOS GUI menu which is similar to Norton Ghost 2003's menu except for the extra GhostCast option (which you won't need). To make a backup of a partition to a Ghost image, use the mouse or keyboard arrows to select Local > Partition > To Image. If you wish to backup a partition to a partition, choose Partition > To Partition, you need a dedicated partition space of the same size or greater. It can be used to clone an old hard disc to a new one. It is somewhat similar to copying a partition using Partition Magic.
Fig. 3. Ghost 8 GUI, main menu.
The difference between backing up to an image and a partition is that an image is a file (or set of spanned files) and takes up less space than a partition (less than half the space with the Fast compression setting; even more with the High setting: see below) but a partition is like a normal Windows partition which is accessible in Windows Explorer. A Ghost image can be accessed and modified using Ghost Explorer. Next, select the local source drive - meaning the hard disc, not any specific partition (fig. 4). Click on the appropriate drive to highlight it, then OK.
Fig. 4. Select local source drive.
Then select the source partition from the drive you have selected; click to highlight it and then OK (fig. 5). Note that it recognises both NTFS and FAT32. It supports Linux partitions too.
Fig. 5. Select source partition
Next, select the location for the image (use the mouse or keyboard to select under the Look in drop-down list if there is more than one drive) and type a name for the ghost image file (fig. 6). Then click Save. The image file description is optional. Adding a date and descriptive name to the ghost file is usually sufficient to identify it later even for more than one set of images. If you have a CD or DVD writer (and properly detected in DOS), its drive letter and name will appear on the list of drives and you can write directly to CDR/RW or DVDR/RW. Ghost will automatically split and span the images and prompts you to insert the discs as it proceeds.
Fig. 6. Select file location and file name.
The next window prompts you for the type of compression. The message "not enough space" would normally not appear if the destination drive has enough space but it will always prompt you for compression settings (fig. 7).
Fig. 7. Select compression.
Another window asks for confirmation or cancellation (fig. 8). Check the Source Partition and Destination file entries carefully before clicking Yes. This is the last chance to back out. If you backup to a hard disc you can leave it running and have a break. The time it takes depends on: partition size, percentage filled, HD speed and IDE/SCSI/RAID I/O speeds. If you backup to CDs or DVDs you probably will need to change discs, depending on the size of the image to be spanned.
Fig. 8. Ghost 8: Confirmation dialogue.
It is normal for Ghost to split and span the images on the hard disc to 2GB (2,097,142 KB in Windows Explorer, because of file size limit under FAT). Ghost will automatically name the files, starting with *GHO for the first image, followed by *001.GHS and so on. It would be simpler and more tidy to make a dedicated folder or subfolder for each set of back up ghost files so that files from different sets of backups won't conflict or confuse with each other. If you use the same ghost file name for another backup, the newer files may well overwrite the older ones. You should have at least two sets of backups made at different times so you can name one folder Ghost 1 and the other Ghost 2, for instance and use them alternatively. Once the cloning operation has finished, you can:
5.2. RestoreThe procedure is the reverse of the backup and the steps are rather similar. In the main menu, choose: Local > Partition > From Image (fig. 9). Follow the wizard for the source drive, source image, destination drive and partition and compression settings. Make sure you check the source file and destination partition very carefully as it will be overwritten. If it is a bootable partition (usually the first primary partition in C) there will be an extra prompt for you to confirm.
Fig. 9. Ghost 8 in DOS, Main menu, restore partition.
6. Running Symantec and Norton Ghost in DOS to clone a hard disc to a new hard discYou can also set up this using Norton Ghost in Windows by going to the Ghost Advanced window and choose clone and follow the wizard. Cloning using Ghost boot discs in DOS is only necessary for the active Windows partition. For a non-Windows boot or system partition (for example, a data partition), you can just copy the whole partition across in Windows. But if you are migrating to a new HD, it would be convenient to do everything in one go in DOS. Although Ghost can clone your old HD to a new unformatted HD it would be useful to have Partition Magic boot floppy on hand as well if you need to resize partitions after cloning. Ghost can also resize partitions while cloning but if you wish to change the order of the partitions when migrating onto the new HD, you should use PM as it will correct the MBR and partition table. In DOS, the principle is similar to backing up a single partition, but in this case choose: Local > Disk > To Disk, or in smaller steps, one at a time sequentially for more than one partition: Partition > To Partition. Your new hard disc should be the same size or greater than the old and there is an option to keep the old partition size, or automatically resize to fill the whole new HD or you can custom set each of the new partition size for a multiple partitioned HD clone. I have done this successfully when migrating from two 40 GB HDs to two 120 GB HDs, meanwhile resizing and moving the order of the partitions and adding new ones later in Windows Explorer (this needed much careful planning). I will not cover all the steps in detail because everyone's setup is different. However, the following tips may help you. Basically you need to connect the new HD as slave, keeping the old as master. Boot into Ghost in DOS and do it from there, one partition at a time or the whole HD in one go. To migrate two HDs to two new HDs, repeat the cloning for the second HD. Always check the BIOS IDE settings, cables and HD jumpers and plan it carefully beforehand. You can use the HD manufacturer's dedicated disc cloning tool if available (e.g. from Maxtor and Seagate) but I've not needed them at all when using Ghost. If you use a 160GB or larger capacity HD it requires BIOS support and Windows XP SP1 (integrated installation) or above (or Windows 2000 SP3 at least, to enable 48-bit LBA support), or the HD manufacturer's large HD support overlay tool. Read the Microsoft KB 303013 very carefully. There are three very important points to watch out if you have multiple partitions on different HDs to clone and wish to re-juggle the order. 1. Before you clone the Windows partitions, check the page file settings carefully. If it is on another partition or HD, reset it back on the same Windows partition first. Otherwise you may not be able to boot and it hangs at the logon screen afterwards. 2. The boot partition (where Windows resides) drive letter can change when you move partitions around so be warned and this can lead to unexpected problems. This is particularly important for Windows installations other than in C. If you cannot boot you may need to edit the registry from another Windows installation to change the drive letters (which is for advanced users and is risky and does not guaranteed to solve the problem). 3. Do not move the first primary partition (with its boot sector and less critically, the boot files) to another partition; otherwise the whole will be unbootable. The first primary partition is usually C and Windows likes the first active primary partition to have drive letter C so leave it there at all costs.
7. Running Symantec and Norton Ghost in DOS to back up and restore peer to peer networked computer drives7.1 Making a Ghost boot floppy for Peer-to-Peer network supportThe Ghost help file has detailed instructions. You can also use other network back up methods (direct LTP cable and USB) but these will not be elaborated further here; consult the manual. Make a Ghost Peer-to Peer Network boot floppy in the Ghost Boot Wizard (fig. 10). The steps are similar for Symantec and Norton Ghost.
Fig. 10. Ghost Boot Wizard: Peer-to-Peer Network Boot Disk
In the Network Interface Card window, add or highlight the DOS NDIS2 or Packet drivers for the NIC adaptor for each computer (if you use TCP/IP method) when making the ghost boot disc for that computer (fig. 11). You have to make one set of boot disc(s) for each computer with different NIC. Find out the type of NIC adaptor in Device Manager. If the driver is not on the list, search the internet to download and add to the list (click the Add button and follow the prompt to the path on the hard disc). Highlight the correct item and click Next to continue. Test the drivers by booting with the floppy: if the drivers were installed correctly Ghost in DOS will detect the LAN adapter; if not "netbinding" error messages will appear on screen.
Fig. 11. Ghost Boot Wizard: adding NIC driver
7.2. To backup and restore two computers via TCP/IP in Peer-to-Peer mode7.2.1. BackupThe method is similar using Symantec Ghost and Norton Ghost both in DOS.
7.2.2. RestoreWhen you restore the ghost image later, keep the same "master" and "slave" relationship as before, i.e. restore the image from the "slave" to the "master" computer. The steps are similar to those already described for connecting the computers and restore a ghost image to a local computer, except that the source image is to be found on the "slave" computer and the destination drive on the "master".
8. Norton Ghost 2003 and Symantec Ghost 8 (ghost.exe): DOS OptionsIn the Options menu in DOS there are some advanced settings. Normally the default settings are adequate. Have a look round in each tab to see what is there. Under the Span/CRC tab, there is a Spanning option for spanning the images files across multiple volumes (the old "-span" switch). Under Misc tab, there is an option Reboot to Reboot automatically on completion of cloning a drive or partition (-rb) or Exit to DOS. Under the Image/Tape tab are found options for Image Disk (which includes the boot sector, any boot-time utilities, extended partition tables and unpartitioned space). Under the Security tab, you can Encrypt all created images with a password (the old "-pwd" switch) and configure settings to lock the image based on the BIOS parameters (the default is None).
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Copyright © 2004 by Kilian. All my articles including graphics are provided "as is" without warranties of any kind. I hereby disclaim all warranties with regard to the information provided. In no event shall I be liable for any damage of any kind whatsoever resulting from the information. The articles are provided in good faith and after some degree of verification but they may contain technical or typographical errors. Links to other web resources may be changed at any time and are beyond the control of the author. Articles may be added, removed, edited or improved at any time. No support is provided by the author. This is not an official support page for any products mentioned. All the products mentioned are trademarks of their companies. Created 23 Aug 2004; last updated 28 Aug 2004 |
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