Ghost Solution Suite

I used Ghost back in the old days quite a bit .... started by using the 2-disk boot, and thought I'd hit the big time with I got it to a bootable CD.

I've been away from it for a while and just getting back into it.

My organization is licensed for GSS 2.0.2, and I have found a bootable CD for Ghost 11.0.2

Is V11.0.2 of the Ghost EXE the most up-to-date version available for GSS 2.0.2 licensed users?

Does V11.0.2 support Windows OS up through Vista or Wndows 7 or ?

I've become confused between NORTON Ghost and SYMANTEC Ghost and the GHO format vs. the v2i format.

Is there a whitepaper someplace that walks thru the product differentiations?

Thanks,

Jim

The Norton Ghost release is based on the Partition Magic product and is widely regarded as the retail version, and poor cousin, to the corporate Ghost Solution Suite product, which is based on the original Ghost technology.  There is a link in one of the sticky postings at the top of this forum which will take you to the Norton community, as this forum is only for the Ghost Solution Suite product.

The version you have does not support Windows 7, and does not include WinPE, which is more or less essential nowadays when working with modern hardware. (DOS does not understand SATA devices and increasingly new NIC devices are difficult to find DOS driver for).

Only the latest 11.5.1.2266 build fully supports Windows 7, so you would need to upgrade your existing licenses if you needed this functionality. For basic imaging, you could create your own WinPE boot environment  (eg https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe) and use your existing Ghost executables with it.

I thought I would get an e-mail notification when replies came in on this thread, but I guess I set that up wrong.

Anyway: Thank you EdT!

If I understand correctly SYMANTEC Ghost 11.0.2.x (from GSS V2.0.2 for which we are licenced) supports Vista, but not Win7?

I just made a WinPE V3.0 bootable thumbdrive ... from this procedure:

http://4sysops.com/archives/build-a-bootable-windows-pe-3-0-usb-drive-with-rescue-tools-part-1/

and was able to boot the thumb drive and launch Ghost 11.0.2.x

But ... on both a Vista and a Win7 target system the disk-->image and partition-->image options are gray-ed out ... while the restore from image options seem available.

Is this a result of using WinPE V3.0 (instead ov V2.0?) or have I hosed up something else... :-/

Did you include the appropriate SATA drivers for your target machine's disk chipset in your WinPE boot disk?  Usually, the inability to create an image is due to WinPE being unable to read the hard disk, and with modern hard disks, that signals a lack of the correct SATA chipset driver. At the same time, if you plan to do anything over the network, including the right NIC driver for your NIC chipset should also be considered.

If you exist Ghost and get to the WinPE command prompt, can you change to C:\ and examine the local hard disk - list the directory, etc?  That will give you an indication of whether the hard disk is accessible or not.

Also bear in mind that your hard disk will have at least two partitions if it contains Windows 7 - and both are needed for a successful boot. With OEM installations, there may also be maintenance and recovery partitions, so make sure you are selecting the right partitions when imaging.

EdT:

Thanks ...

I built the WinPE thumb drive on the Win7 machine with which I am testing,
and then booted it on that same machine,so I was "assuming" the SATA driver for that particular machine would be available ... (there's that silly "assume" word)

From the win7 command prompt I can do a DISKPART to see the drive letters,
and I CAN switch to the OS-drive which is gets assigned "D" due to the reserved system partition,
the OS files are there (directory listing works & etc)

From within Ghost, if I say I want to push an image out (not capture) the pull-down window for selecting the location of the source image has all the drive letters/partitions listed.

I then tried the thumb drive on a different machine running Vista (which very well COULD have/need other SATA drivers) and got the same result.

This all started   when the Ghost Boot CD I usually use would not boot on the machine my boss wants me to test .... I've used the CD lots of other places and it alwasys has worked, but on this particular machine I get an error:

Boot from CD:
   1.  HD  System Type - (00)

BOOT FAILURE

My week could be going better ....
Thanks in advance for any other pointers!

First of all, if you are running WinPE version 3, then this is the version based on Windows 7, so the drivers you would need to add would be Windows 7 drivers, REGARDLESS of what operating system is being imaged. That's because when WinPE is booted, that is the operating system in control, and any other operating system stored on the target hard disk is really nothing more than a bunch of sectors.

If you want to experiment with a V2 WinPE boot environment as used in Ghost 11.5, you can check out this article: https://www-secure.symantec.com/connect/articles/readyadventures-winpe  which also has a link to a V3 build process, although I believe you already have this covered.  

Are you aware that you can load candidate drivers from the WinPE command line using DRVLOAD?  This is a quick way of testing drivers without building new WinPE images all the time. Also, remember that the WinPE boot images used for Ghost are the 32 bit versions, as you can still image 64 bit operating systems from a 32 bit WinPE boot environment, for the same reason - they are nothing more than a bunch of sectors to be backed up. Bear in mind that the Ghost program needs to run in a 32 bit environment- there is a 64 bit ghost client, but it is intended only for hot imaging. So if you have been using a 64 bit version of WInPE, which I haven't asked about until now, you need to use a 32 bit.

EdT:

Thank you very much for you time and able assitance!
I should have known this wouldn't be as easy as I had hoped ....

I'll study up on this and take a more "measured" approach! 

I am using 32-bit Win7

Thanks again!

If you need further assistance, open a new thread and provide a blow by blow account of what you have done so far, and on what hardware, as this would be the starting point for us to determine how best to help you further.