Norton Ghost

Paul T · 08-02-2005, 09:47 AM

Anyone here use it? Just got v9.0 and am having issues with XP. I know there are some known SP2 related problems, but I thought I addressed them prior to install. I'm getting a "cannot connect to agent, service not running" error.

I feel lost anymore, I used to have a solid understanding of older dos/windows a million years ago, but since the registry came along, I have not kept up and am lost today.

HardDrive · 08-02-2005, 10:21 AM

What is it that you are trying to do? Image the XP box and store the image on a server? Need more details.

The firewall on XP could be causing a problem, but again, it depends on what you are attempting to do.

Paul T · 08-02-2005, 10:40 AM

Yes, I just want to create an image and keep it on another drive. I think doing that is not a problem, but I can't get Ghost to run, I get this error as soon as I try and launch the program. I'm going to uninstall and try to install it all again tonight.

stevepaa · 08-02-2005, 10:42 AM

Man I though this was about an old motorcycle!

osidak · 08-02-2005, 10:59 AM

Every version of ghost I have used is used from a dos boot.

HardDrive · 08-02-2005, 11:16 AM

Ghost is typically used with a boot disk. You boot the computer from the disk, run the ghost executable and create an image. This image can be place on either a network server, or a second harddrive in the same computer. As far as I know, you cannot image a disk partition with a running OS on it. The contents of the partition would change during the imaging process, making the image file worthless.

Is there some sort of utility for creating a bootdisk?

930addict · 930addict's Garage

Quote:

Originally posted by HardDrive
...you cannot image a disk partition with a running OS on it. The contents of the partition would change during the imaging process, making the image file worthless.

Well not necessarily. Check out True Image (Acronis Software). A very cool tool that allows you to create images while the OS is running. It's great for servers and such. Not built for system duplication - more for bare metal restore.

Quote:

Originally posted by HardDrive
Is there some sort of utility for creating a bootdisk?

You can create a boot disk for ghost from the Ghost server.

Paul T · 12:01 PM

From what I have learned, ghost v9.0 runs from within windows and must be "installed", all prior versions ran from DOS. From what I am learning, there are lots of issues with 9.0 (especially with SP2 - what else is new), the older DOS versions seem to be better, but this is what I am stuck with.

Quote:

Originally posted by HardDrive
As far as I know, you cannot image a disk partition with a running OS on it. The contents of the partition would change during the imaging process, making the image file worthless.

This is what I thought too, but version 9.0 supports "hot" imaging...actually that's all it does. Seems risky to me, but then again, I don't really know what I'm doing

HardDrive · 08-02-2005, 12:47 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by 930addict
Well not necessarily. Check out True Image (Acronis Software). A very cool tool that allows you to create images while the OS is running. It's great for servers and such. Not built for system duplication - more for bare metal restore.

I looked at it. Cool product, but thats more for taking snap shots of a running server.

I have not done a client side roll out in quite a while, so I should probably not continue blathering on exposing my ignorance......but that has never stopped me before.

Isn't it possible to install Ghost so that it creates a seperate boot partition that allows you to create an image locally, skipping the boot disk altogether? Perhaps thats whats going on.....

I dunno. I have turned into such a prima donna, I don't deploy to often...

Paul T · 08-02-2005, 01:26 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by HardDrive
Isn't it possible to install Ghost so that it creates a seperate boot partition that allows you to create an image locally, skipping the boot disk altogether?

It may be possible, I need to look further...I just realized I have to work from home tomorrow, so I may put this off till Thurs, when I will inevitably destroy my PC

scottmandue · 08-02-2005, 01:54 PM

We use ghost 9.0 here and I have had very few problems BUT
1. I am running it on a Win2000 OS
2. I backup to a separate drive i.e. I hook up drive to be imaged as a slave, image it to the C: drive. Then if that drive crashes at some later date, I grab a new drive around the same size, re-image it, and away we go.

Seems I tried to run ghost on a Win98 and got the same errors you are getting. There is some weird work around but I don't remember it because I don't have to use it.

Saintly · 08-02-2005, 02:15 PM

I use ghost at work and at home
at work i image to a ghost cast server (that i run on one of my PCs when i need it) or to a drive mapping.
both places i allways do it from a boot disk (home and sometimes work) or a boot cd (work). the boot cd has all the drivers for all of the network cards in my office, cd drivers incase i want to load from an image from a cd and ghost. works every time and i have win 95, 98, 2000 and XPsp2. i have tinkered with the ghost agent but i don't need to do it enough to justify the overhead of allways running it.

Paul T · 08-04-2005, 04:13 AM

Well, I guess I should have tried this first: I uninstalled and reinstalled again and everything works fine. Thanks for the replys..