Ghost Solution Suite

I'm groping around in the dark, struggling to find the relevant answers on Symantec's online resources. 

I operate from a PC (XP Pro).  Recently the hard drive failed beyond repair.  Almost all data was recovered from backups.  However, to bettter prepare for a rucurrence of that disaster I've just purchased Ghost v15 (am afraid I couldn't find it in the product list - Ghost Solution Suite is the closest I can find).  Can you tell me if this product can be used to restore all data including OS & programs to a new hard drive in the event of any future failure of my hard drive? In other words, if I copy my entire drive (OS, all programs & data) can that be transferred to a new hard drive or would I need to install an OS on the new HD first? 

Many thanks,

Sisyphus

First of all, if you look in the sticky postings at the top of this forum, you will find a link to the NORTON community where the retail Ghost product is supported.

It should be possible to restore your working environment to a blank hard disk, but due to the vagaries of hardware and system design, it would be prudent to make a backup and then restore to another drive to check that it does work in its standard configuration.

Personally, I use Paragon Hard Disk Manager 12 Suite - very low cost yet it is bang up to date with SSD support, and I used it successfully to migrate my 128Gb system SSD to a 256Gb blank SSD.