Ghost Solution Suite

I'm not clear on what this suite is for?  Is it for Vista systems only?  I wanted something to use to clone (ghost/image/etc.) hard drives for different instruments.  I need to create clones across numerous Windows OS's (primarily Windows '98, Windows 2000 and Windows XP).  They are both PATA and SATA to backup specific test instruments that are prone to viruses.

Advice would be appreciated!

I believe this is not the best place to ask about Ghost suite. This forum is for Backup Exec discussions.

Ghost solution is a system management solution for Windows Vista and any 64-bit OS's.

You may get some more useful information in other forums in connect. Not quite sure. You can try.

Regards..

Kiran, I guess I'm confused because I found this thread under Endpoint Managment, Ghost Solution Suite. So unless someone moved it already, it is in the right location.

Doug,

GSS is not just for Vista, it can be used for multiple operating systems. Ghosting or cloning different OS's works very well if used on the same type of hardware. It does however now come with Deploy Anywhere which is suppose to eliminate the hardware restriction so that you can take an image from one machine and deploy it to a completely different machine. Although I have not had much luck with it when it first came out and haven't tried it since.

If you are looking for a free solution, check out WinPE, which is part of the windows automated installation kit. You can get started using this article: Adventures with WinPE Symantec Connect

Imagex, which is part of the WAIK, will create image files of hard disks running windows operating systems, and WinPE has native support for PATA and basic SATA chipsets, and additional drivers can be added both statically and dynamically.

The latest release of GSS also uses WinPE but automates much of the "hand cranking" associated with a WinPE boot solution, allowing you to add drivers and churn out an updated boot medium with little effort.

To boot WinPE, your systems either need a CDROM or DVD, if using optical media, or need to be able to boot from a USB device. GSS also supports PXE booting from the Ghost server.

You can download an eval of GSS if you want to have a play with it - Symantec will automatically email you a trial license to the email address provided as part of the eval download.