Backup or Ghost

shayser

I've just finished installing a bucket load of software on a windows machine. I need to do the same with two other identical machines. Would it work if did a full copy windows backup of machine one including system state, and restored this backup to machines two and three?

Or should I clone it?

Gryzor

if you have a copy of ghost...take the drive out of the your source machine and stick it in the next one.....then use ghost to transfer an image to the second one...same for the next one.....then change name and SID...using ghstwalk

otherwise thers a couple of freeware cloning utils in the Essential Free Software sticky....only used ghost meself...always works a charm

don't think "nt backup" can be used for this purpose...

shayser

I'm having a problem with ghost, thus the wishful thinking towards ntbackup.

The problem is ghost does not see the c: drive, or any other drive apart from the boot drive (cdrom with win98 and ghost on it). Win98 doesn't see it either. The machines are dells and I think this might be the problem somehow. If I bring up the boot menu there are 8 options. Options 1, 2, and 3 are Normal, Primary Master and Hard-Disk C:

The thing is if I plug in a usb hdd ghost sees that no problem.

Gryzor

what version of ghost is it and are they sata or ide drives??

brand of PC shouldn't be a problem...i use it on dells all the time

shayser

Ok, got ghost to see the source (local ide hdd) and the destination (usb hdd). Chose the location and named the file, but when I hit Save, ghost hangs. Any ideas what could be causing this to happen??

shayser

Gryzor wrote:

what version of ghost is it and what do you mean by ???

brand of PC shouldn't be a problem...i use it on dells all the time

Machine's have no floppy so I wrote the windows 98 boot files + ghost.exe to a cd and booted from that.

V7.5

Capt'n Midnight

NtBackup is a lot slower than other programs for "cloning" ie std install, perhaps unattended and then http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=249694 - win2000 - similar one for XP too

NtBackup this way means no messing with sysprep and no worrying about hardware drivers. you just have to re-activate afterwards.

newsid on www.sysinternals is a freeware app to change sids etc.

there is a project somewhere to develop install scripts for windows so you do an unattended install of the OS and all apps as an alterantive to cloning , can't remember the name off hand.

shayser

Sorry Capt'n, you're saying that the ntrestore would work for what I want to do? (Trying to get these done before morning and I'm tired and I wanna goto bed!! but here I have to stay till they're done....)

If they're Volume Licenced would this mean no reactivation is necessary?

Gryzor

shayser wrote:

Ok, got ghost to see the source (local ide hdd) and the destination (usb hdd). Chose the location and named the file, but when I hit Save, ghost hangs. Any ideas what could be causing this to happen??

if you've got the time before you fall asleep , methinks you need to create a ghost boot floppy with usb support and the create a bootable cd from this....not sure how ghost saw your usb drive with just the ghost.exe on the cd??? i've done this with 7.5 corporate edition

Capt'n Midnight

NtBackup only works from within windows - so you have to install windows first and THEN restore over the top. Something to try when you are fresh not when tired. And the restore is painfully slow, about 1/10 the speed of partimage .

Main reason for mentioning ntbackup is it can be very easy if you already have windows installed, and ntbackup can make a restorable image of a computer with a dodgy HDD, something I've seen ghost and mirroring and partimage and DD all fallover on during either the backup or restore.

shayser

Went with ntbackup, seems to have worked pretty good. Gives me time to suss out why ghost is hanging.

Thanks Gryzor and Capt'n.