How to create bootable Ghost image?

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Hi,

We're looking to purchase imaging software and I thought I'd give Norton Ghost a try.
I've downloaded Trial version to try to image newly build laptop (mainly due to unbelievably high number of updates I had to download and install after installing from HP media).

But I have to say I have no idea how to do it. I tried to deploy Norton Ghost Agent remotely with no success (Vista) as I don't want to install Norton Ghost on the PC I want to image.

How do I do it? How do I create bootable image so I can just throw CD/DVD in and redeploy it on number of machines?

Also would you recommend anything other than Ghost for this purpose?
What do you use?

 

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Never used ghost myself, we use Acronis true Image at work.

Backup

Create a Acronis boot disk
Boot to disk
Image hdd to fileserver

Restore

Boot to bootdisk
Image hdd from image on fileserver

You can also have it on a usb pen and boot from it, and backup or restore from that.

Imaging can be done numerous ways, but that way suits our needs best.

 

Which version of ghost are you using?

 

With Ghost you 'should' be able to create the boot media from the console, you always used to be able to at least. One thing to be aware of tho, these days the Ghost image can take up more space than a single dvd and may have to be spanned, not normally an issue but could be.

I would also see about using a network based disk imaging solution as well (something Ghost will also do btw).

Acronis is good, I tend just to use the boot disk and USB media rather than a dvd but all's good.

Another program I have used in the past (and something for the linux afflicted) is PING, it's an ok product, I had some initial issues with it and it wasn't as forgiving as Ghost can be when it comes to hardware types.

Out of interest, what exactly is it you're hoping to accomplish?

 

Thanks for the replies.

I've downloaded Norton Ghost 15 trial but I haven't decided on what we're going to use yet.

@SimonD:
I want to be able to build a PC, install Office, Adobe Reader, Java, Flash, all updates, few other bits and pieces, make an image which then I can deploy on other machines without the need of installing all above again.
Also when something goes wrong (virus, messed up registry, etc.) I'd like to be able to quickly redeploy the image instead of trying to fix the issue (if takes longer than redeploying an image)

 

Then why bother spending money when MS offers everything you need for free?

Utilise MDT to create your images with your apps and deploy it either via WDS or via USB\DVD media.

Have a look at MDT2010 and WDS, they offer exactly what you want with no cost involved.

 

It probably didn't work as you trying to restore to dissimilar hardware, which i don't think ghost has, you would need symantec backup exec, or acronis with universal restore. Acronis is not too expensive.

 

There are three componants to this:

1) An Imaging solution - we use ghost
2) A boot disk
3) The driver issue

Now either ghost or Acronis will work, Backup exec doesnt work for imaging as far as I am aware is it dumps the backup onto the machine, thus you end up with machines with the same identifiers.

The boot disk needs to load os into memory and then run ghost as a standalone exe with the necessary switches. There are a few linux bootdisks kicking around that will do this for you, or atleast point you in the right direction.

Lastly the driver issue. In all the ones mentioned above drivers will be an issue, where I work we get round this by using Universal Imagine Utilities this is basically a big driver store they takes out the need to create hardware specific images making your life a lot easier.

now the problem you will run into is that by the time you install, patch windows and then fire office flash etc on to it you are not going to be able to do this on a dvd (I reimaged my machine in december and my windows dir is already circa 8gb) so it will have to be memory stick, or as mentioned above use the image from a network share, and have the exe hosted there as well.

Hope this helps.

 

Thanks for that Simon. I am just looking at it now.
Any tips or advice?

I am going through that help file but I find it quite unstructured.

 

Essentially you need to create your base image, using MDT you would create a bootable device that would allow you to capture your image, once you have your WIM file uploaded to the MDT\WDS server you would assign a Task Sequence to it, from the task sequence you would install whatever software you want.

The last thing you really want to do is install all your software on a Gold image, what happens if there are changes? You're better off using task sequences to install software.

You can pretty much fully automate a build sequence as well (I had an MDT Win 7 build that just required pressing the mouse button once).

Have a look at MDT as a starting point, it's a very powerful tool and well worth investing time and effort in.

 

Thanks Simon.

I agree it seem like it's a very powerful and useful tool. Especially with task sequences allowing you to use on OS image and few different configurations of applications and tools.

Great. Repped.
Expect PM's coming soon though (questions, questions, questions)

 

Not a problem bud.

 

We use Ghost to dump syspreped images onto our workstations - we have multiple types, but the same hardware in each type - works pretty well.

For a personal project at work, I used Acronis True Image, made the OS complete with updates and software, created an image and then simply deploy via the CD boot disc. If anything needs to be hooked up in a domain (not much admittedly) I simply use the newsid tool from Sysinternals (or at least when it was there!)