Creating an image

[lil nublet]

Creating a disk image. Can this be used instead of having to reinstall? I assume this guide is what I need to follow http://www.msfn.org/articles.php?action=sh...;showarticle=10 ? Do I need to know anything else?

[oioldman]

you can use ghost or similar to make an image of your install, if understand you correctly.

[jftuga]

I like to run CCleaner (www.ccleaner.com) and then reboot one more time before I make an image with Ghost.

-John

[lil nublet]

Ok, I have I will have a look at ghost.

[albator]

You want your image to be clean so :

-Defrag you C: partition

-Clean the registry

-run ccleaner or similar software

Depending on your need you may want not to clone the paging file...

[Andromeda43]

In the mid 90's a company called "Ghostsoft, Inc." wrote a disk cloning program simply called Ghost.

Some years later, Norton bought out Ghostsoft. Then as we all know, Symantec became the owner of everything Norton.

Up thru Ghost 2003, which I still use almost daily, Ghost was pretty much un-fussed-around-with.

If you buy the entire retail package of Ghost, it comes with a GUI and must be installed into some version of Windows. I don't use the GUI interface. I use only Ghost.exe on a boot disk to do the whole job.

It does require a modicum of intelligence and being able to click on a few options to get the desired results.

I've assisted users worldwide in setting up their own Ghost backup routines and I've been told by many how much they like the program.

Ghost 2003, run from a boot floppy or CD, can backup an entire HD partition and save the resulting image file to either a second partition on the same drive, or a separate drive or even burn the image to CD's or DVD's. Automatic spanning of disks is a part of the program.

It can also perform a disk clone from one hard drive to another.

Ghost can read and backup an NTFS drive as easily as a FAT-32 formatted drive.

When booting the system with a boot floppy and burning the image to a DVD (for instance), Ghost will offer to put the information from the floppy on the DVD as the boot information. When the resulting DVD boots a system, it looks just like the system is being booted again from the boot floppy. It just works SO VERY well.

When I decided to upgrade my system from Windows 98/SE to XP-pro....oh those many years ago now, I made the decision to keep my FAT-32 file structure, a structure that I felt more comfortable with.

I've thanked God a thousand times at least that I made that decision.

From my simple little Ghost boot floppy, I can run batch files to remove the Windows Pagefile, delete old restore points and clean out all the junk files from my Hard Drive, before actually running Ghost.

I save about 2 gigabytes of space in my Ghost Image File by doing that cleanup before making the Image File. This simple task cannot be done from DOS on an NTFS drive. DOS cannot see an NTFS partition,,,,,Ghost can.

Ghost 2003 is readily available and can even be had for free, from certain sources.

I got mine off of a Drivers CD that came with a new motherboard I purchaed several years back.

Good Luck,

Andromeda43 B)

[lil nublet]

Actually, you have just reminded me Andromeda43, I have Norton Ghost on my mobo drivers CD, not sure if it's a demo though. I will go see .

EDIT: I assume it's free, nothing about a demo. Just gotta use it in dos, no big deal though.

Edited August 8, 2006 by lil nublet

[albator]

@Andromeda43

Why not use acronis instead ? (you dont need to install itm, I dont)

And you dont need to delete the pagin file, just change it’s location to another partition.

I don’t understand why you use sytem restore ! ( you dont need it if you use image cloning)

My c: image is only 400 mb and it take me 50 sec to restore it.