Ghost Solution Suite

Hi All,

I have a Windows Server 2003 with SP1 and Active Directory, DNS, and WINS services.

I bought the Symantec Ghost Solution Suite ver 1.1 with the stated intention to use it to do a daily image backup of the server and a bunch of other Windows XP computers on my network.

After reading the tutorials and the pdf files, and getting confused more than I was before I started, I went ahead and installed, from the CD, the "Symantec Ghost Corporate Edition" -> "Console and Standard Tools".

I am familiar with the Ghost 10 software that I use on other Windows XP Pro computers. It works great!.

I expected to find some familiar screens in the "Symantec Ghost -> Ghost Console". Not a chance!

I looked around and tried different options BUT NOTHING works to allow me to do an image backup of my server.

Please Help!

All I want/need is to be able to do/schedule a daily image backup of my server and other computer clients onto a second hard drive that I have on my server (dedicated for this task).

The Symantec pre-sales technical support was very clear that I can achieve my goal. This is why I spent the money to buy it!

Can someone please put me out of my misery and show me the path I need to follow to achieve my goal?

Thank you so much!

Larentiu

The Symantec Ghost product is primarily focussed on deployment and management of desktop computers. It *can* at a pinch do what you want but is not optimised for this.
The product you require is Symantec LiveState Recovery which comes in both Desktop and Server editions. It is the Corporate equivalent of Ghost 10.

Thank you for your answer. Looks like the sales people "sold" me the wrong item. Since I can not return this software ... can you please tell me how do I use it to accomplish my goal?

GSS has a Backup feature within the Console - which creates a base image + increments. Each machine needs to have the GSS client installed.
Take a look at Chapter 7 in the Implementation Guide.

you can install ghost console and then ghost client for your client machines. (which you want to have a backup)
from ghost console, choose "create image" task.
this will create an image for your client machine. I believe you can schedule the task as well.
hope this will give you some guide lines. for more details, I guess you can read ghost manual. :)

Thank you Ethan, the steps you describe are to be done for a CLIENT computer. What I need is "how to backup the computer on which the console is installed". I am planning to do what you suggest AFTER I am able to backup my server (the computer on which the console is installed).

Dear Balrob,

Thank you for your continuing support.

I did read and tried the steps described in Chapter 7 "Incremental backups" of the implementation guide. When I start a new backup regime task, it asks for the name of the computer. The ONLY option available is to "Browse" for it ... BUT ... I can browse ONLY the "Machine Group" folder which it is EMPTY. I have no computer to select. I am not able to find any way to "populate" that "Machine Group" folder with the name of my server (again ... it is the same computer on which this software is installed).

What can I do to "see" the name of my server in the list?

I can see your confusion if you're used to Ghost 10.

GSS is based around a single console machine controlling the imaging of a number of client machines. You cannot use the console software to take an image of the console machine itself. In order to do that, you will need to use the Boot Disk Wizard to create a bootable device (floppy, CD, USB) from which Ghost can run.

Note that Windows must be shut down for Ghost to take an image of the Windows system disk on the machine. This is different to Ghost 10 which takes an image while Windows is still running.

Thank you Dave, it starts to make sense a bit. If I understand your replay correctly than what I need to do to accomplish my goal is:

1. uninstall the GSS software from this server
2. install the GSS software on an other computer that I don't need an image backup of
3. install the client portion of the GSS on my server
4. create a Backup Regime for my server

Is this going to work? Is the Backup Regime going to work WITHOUT the need to reboot the server?

Could I use also the following alternative:

1. create a Boot Disk for my server
2. schedule (somehow?!? outside of GSS?!?) the reboot process and have the Ghost run and perform an image backup of my first hard drive onto my second hard drive

What is your opinion?

Your first scenario should work, but the server will have to restart to take the image.

You could also use your second scenario, but some extra coding would be needed (creating an executable virtual boot disk, using DeployCenter toolkit might help).

As Rob Stutton mentioned earlier though, GSS is really aimed at image based deployment, and not at backup as such, so may not be ideal for your needs.