Machine Ghost Image inquiry

Kromletch · Feb 21, 2017

I have found when trying to ghost my machine that the HDD I am ghosting too needs to have the same sector size. EX. the ghosting software would not ghost a 512 to a 4k sector size drive.

My question is after I ghost successfully 512->512 can I move that .GHO file to the 4k sectore HDD and still have a working image?

I would have tested this already but I am waiting on another drive to arrive so I can actually test the image.

USAFRet · Feb 21, 2017

What application are you using to do this?
What is the overall goal? To have a true bootable second drive, or just create an image of that drive?

There are probably newer, better tools to do this with.

BFG-9000 · Feb 21, 2017

Likely yes but you would probably have to move the image back to a 512b disk before restoration. I can tell you an ugly BCDEDIT hack is required for Ghost 2003 to work with making Vista or Win7 clones bootable but the BCD store issues are simply too much in Win8-10. Surprisingly the Samsung Data Migration Software (rebranded Clonix) has same issue!

I have no experience with newer Ghost as in 2004 they switched to 9.0 which was rebranded PowerQuest DriveImage

Minitool Partition Wizard is my favorite cloning tool for Win8-10 but it can't create image files.

Clonezilla can only clone to or restore to a larger disk, and any image file must include the whole disk.

WDC has a rebrand of Acronis True Image, as does Seagate/Maxtor who have renamed theirs DiscWizard--I'm not sure if these free versions also do images like the pay one, or if they only do cloning

Kromletch · Feb 21, 2017

I am using Gandalfs windows 10 pe bootable and the Ghosting software is Symantec Ghost 12.0.0.6277

I would like just the image, this way I can have several ghost image backups on one drive.

Windows 7 and Windows 10 are the OS's that I will be ghosting.

USAFRet · Feb 21, 2017

Kromletch :

Macrium Reflect will do drive or partition images easily.
Or Acronis True Image.

gdmaclew · Feb 21, 2017

Kromletch :

"Ghosting" used to be the standard. When I was in tech support we had "ghost images" of every PC variant (we had several). Whenever someone's HDD became corrupted we just downloaded that image to the PC and it was like new.

Don't get hung up on the sector sizes.

mjslakeridge · Feb 21, 2017

+1 on Acronis True Image. I use it to create disk images of Windows XP, Windows 7 Pro, and Windows 8.1 Pro. I use the paid version. You can restore an entire disk image, a specific directory, or a single (or multiple) files. I have used the restore function several times when I got malware that wasn't easily removed, with perfect results. You can do incremental backups daily, weekly, monthly, etc. and consolidate the incrementals after x have been created. Also has a Validate Archive function that can be set to run after each backup.

USAFRet · Feb 21, 2017

I use Macrium for that same function literally every night. Both my and the wife's PC gets a full image of the C drive at 2 or 3 AM.
Full, incremental, or differential.

The paid version also gives the functionality of specific files or folders.

A good percentage of threads in here could be warded off by a simple backup routine.
Format the wrong drive? No problem.
Massive virus infection? Recover from last nights image.
Dropped external drive? Again, no problem.

BFG-9000 · Feb 22, 2017

I don't know much about Ghost 12 but I know there is a support forum for Ghost 9-15. It's not too active but you can search for answers there.

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Machine Ghost Image inquiry

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