I work for a college department where the budget is somewhat limited.(There are about 300-400 computers in the entire department) I haven't had much luck finding anything on google or sourceforge.

I want to image one of these computers and then duplicate it for 10 computers. It is possible that over time every computer will be imaged in some way. (as new computers arrive)

The $22 per computer amount is a little pricy for the number of computers we have. I'm wondering if any of you have used any alternatives.

Thanks!

You're saying that you'd like to set up one computer and then clone that computer onto 10 others?

I'm not sure of any cheap and easy way of imaging the drives (there are troubles with XP and the HAL and all that...), but you could work on getting a good UA CD/DVD going. That way when a new computer arrives, simply pop in the CD/DVD and you'll have a fully functional computer at your disposal. Have a look here for more info.

Hope this helps!

I have an Unattend setup(which runs over the network), but that doesn't seem to be the most efficient way to do multiple computers that are carbon copies of each other.

You might look at Digital Dolly by innotrix. It is free for personal use, not sure about academic.

http://www.innotrix.com/

You can also use an opensource alternative to Symantec Ghost .

=> PING (Partimage Is Not Ghost)

http://ping.windowsdream.com

Natan

You could use Windows Imaging - http://www.msfn.org/board/GUIDE_Creating_W...st&p=674778

Or there is a fairly comprehensive list of imaging tools listed here - http://www.msfn.org/board/Disk_Imaging_Software_t100299.html

A bootable Ghost Image on DVD will work fine for restoring to multiple computers.

However if the OS in question is XP, all the PC's in this exercise would have to be absolutely Identical. Otherwise, XP will fail to boot when it finds itself on a different set of hardware.

Windows 98 wasn't like that, but XP sure is!

So you'd need a new Ghost Image for each group of identical computers.

A backup of an older PC won't work on a new one with a different mobo, etc.

But, for making a backup on any one PC, a Ghost boot Cd with Ghost 2003 or 8.3 (2005) will do the trick.

NO need to ever install it on the PC being backed up. So registration and licensing per PC is a non-issue.

Good Luck in your quest. Interesting topic!

B)

Hey guys, not to be picky, but did you realise that the original poster had this problem in 2005, did you?

I guess that he either found his way or a fair number of college students had no chance to use the PC's.

jaclaz

i found this.

CyberPunkCafe.com :: List of Free Open Source Alternatives to Norton Ghost

some of these ghost alternatives look pretty interesting

You do realize that this has been dormant for four months right?

How about this list:

http://www.msfn.org/board/Disk-Imaging-Software-t100299.html