"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and
phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface'
inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the
drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy,
and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice
the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is
often much worse than those who work with it notice.
Only the 3Ware cards are true mirroring controllers. Others do the mirroring in software. Windows XP does not support mirroring, according to a Microsoft document I read.
BEWARE: The IDE RAID card that costs $30 uses a Silicon Image chip that doesn't work and is no longer supported. Silicon Image told me this directly. Kouwell makes the card.
Quote from Microsoft document: "You can mirror volumes only on computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server."
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for
making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything
using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially
when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and
the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps
also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated
and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system
recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of
everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and
applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
Caution: Ghost 2003 is apparently not at all like Ghost Enterprise:
A few hours ago, I was trying to make a clone of a drive I had carefully
prepared. Ghost 2003 said that the destination drive label was "New Volume", a
hard drive I had just formatted so that it could be identified. But instead,
Ghost used the destination drive as the source drive, and destroyed all my
work.
"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and
phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface'
inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the
drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy,
and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice
the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is
often much worse than those who work with it notice.
From the parent comment: "Ghost occasionally fails in wierd ways, which
sometimes don't get noticed right away (this is really bad)."
My experience is that Ghost is much worse than those who have commented
here say.
A few hours ago, I was trying to make a clone of a drive I had carefully
prepared. Ghost 2003 said that the destination drive label was "New Volume", a
hard drive I had just formatted so that it could be identified. But instead,
Ghost used the destination drive as the source drive, and destroyed all my
work.
"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and
phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface'
inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the
drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy,
and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice
the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is
often much worse than those who work with it notice.
From the parent post: "there is nothing crippled about NTFS on XP or otherwise. Imaging works just how you expect it to. we've used Ghost (multiple version) PQDI (multiple versions, including the 16 bit dos version) and some internal-to-MS only stuff even."
It is an official position of Microsoft that Windows XP has NO WAY to make a fully bootable functional backup of the OS partition. That was not true in Windows 98, so things have gone downhill, in my opinion.
As you mention, third-party tools are required to make a full hard disk backup. That is a crippled OS, in my opinion.
Many people have trouble with each of the third-party tools, and commenters have mentioned. So, it is reasonable to ask which is the best one.
The third-party tools are NOT SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT. There is NO Microsoft supported way of making a functional OS backup on a single workstation. That's more than crippled in my opinion; that is abusive. I support Microsoft's right to its intellectual property, but crippling is not good policy. That kind of copy protection punishes all the honest customers.
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for
making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything
using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially
when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and
the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps
also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated
and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system
recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of
everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and
applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
For completeness, I'm posting this here, also. The original is comment
#7463612
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for
making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything
using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially
when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and
the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps
also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated
and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system
recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of
everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and
applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
There seems to be confusion about Ghost. There seems to be agreement that the regular version of Ghost has problems. Some people report reliable success with the Enterprise version.
Still, I haven't had good luck with any Symantec products. I haven't tried Ghost Enterprise version.
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for
making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything
using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially
when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and
the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps
also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated
and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system
recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of
everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and
applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
More about RIS, from a Microsoft technical support representative, whom I asked today. For numerous reasons, RIS is not a backup method that is universally useful, to say the least:
RIS is a service of Windows 2000 Server. To install it, you may refer to
the following articles:
298750 HOW TO: Set Up and Configure Remote Installation Services in Windows
2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=298750
301180 HOW TO: Add Components and Programs to Your Computer in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=301180
You can use Remote Installation Services (RIS) for Windows 2000 to install
a local copy of the operating system to other computers from remote
locations. You can start up your computer, contact a Dynamic Host
Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server for an Internet Protocol (IP) address,
and then contact a boot server to install the operating system.
RIS requires several other services. These services can be installed on
individual servers, or all of these services can be installed on a single
server. The type of installation depends upon your network design:
- DNS server: RIS relies on DNS for locating the directory service and
client computer accounts. You can use any Windows 2000 Active Directory
service-compliant DNS server, or you can use the DNS server that is
provided with Windows 2000 Server.
- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server: RIS requires an
active DHCP server on the network. The remote boot-enabled clients
receive an IP address from the DHCP server before they contact RIS.
- Active Directory: RIS relies on Windows 2000 Active Directory for
locating existing clients as well as existing RIS servers. RIS must be
installed on a Windows 2000-based server that has access to Active
Directory, for example, a domain controller or a server that is a
member of a domain with access to Active Directory.
For more information on deploy Windows XP from Windows 2000 RIS server,
please refer to the following resources:
304314 How to Deploy Windows XP Images from Windows 2000 RIS Servers
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=304314
313069 Update for the Riprep Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=313069
308508 Unable to Create Windows 2000 Server Image on RIS Server
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308508
Slashdot Mirror
It's even better if you have a mustache and tell listeners that they are the master race.
Excellent. I agree. Good writing.
Ghost Enterprise and Retail are very different, apparently.
Here's a review of Ghost 2003 in PC World: Skip Norton Ghost 2003. The review says:
"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface' inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy, and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is often much worse than those who work with it notice.
It doesn't work. Mirroring only is for server versions.
And, according to Microsoft, it doesn't work: #7476862
Only the 3Ware cards are true mirroring controllers. Others do the mirroring in software. Windows XP does not support mirroring, according to a Microsoft document I read.
BEWARE: The IDE RAID card that costs $30 uses a Silicon Image chip that doesn't work and is no longer supported. Silicon Image told me this directly. Kouwell makes the card.
Quote from Microsoft document: "You can mirror volumes only on computers running Windows 2000 Server, Windows 2000 Advanced Server, or Windows 2000 Datacenter Server."
Don't miss this about the retail version (Ghost 2003): #7482299. Ghost has apparently become less reliable with new versions.
Exactly. There are many files that cannot be copied while Windows is running, or in Recovery Console.
Posting this again:
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
Two or more SIDs can cause a file to be unreachable, even by an administrator.
Don't miss this about the retail version (Ghost 2003): #7482299
Caution: Ghost 2003 is apparently not at all like Ghost Enterprise:
A few hours ago, I was trying to make a clone of a drive I had carefully prepared. Ghost 2003 said that the destination drive label was "New Volume", a hard drive I had just formatted so that it could be identified. But instead, Ghost used the destination drive as the source drive, and destroyed all my work.
Here's a review of Ghost 2003 in PC World: Skip Norton Ghost 2003. The review says:
"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface' inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy, and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is often much worse than those who work with it notice.
About Ghost 2003, see this comment: #7480830
From the parent comment: "Ghost occasionally fails in wierd ways, which sometimes don't get noticed right away (this is really bad)."
My experience is that Ghost is much worse than those who have commented here say.
A few hours ago, I was trying to make a clone of a drive I had carefully prepared. Ghost 2003 said that the destination drive label was "New Volume", a hard drive I had just formatted so that it could be identified. But instead, Ghost used the destination drive as the source drive, and destroyed all my work.
Here's a review of Ghost 2003 in PC World: Skip Norton Ghost 2003. The review says:
"The program is saddled with a confusing manual, lousy Web support, and phone support that costs $30 per incident."
Here's another quote: "I found its new 'intuitive Windows interface' inconsistent. And Ghost 2003 crashed one test PC and refused to clone the drive on another..."
The article summarizes, saying that Ghost 2003 is "... hard to use, buggy, and poorly documented."
People learn to work around the faults of software, and they don't notice the faults after that. So they may not give accurate assessments. Software is often much worse than those who work with it notice.
It's highly likely that OO is scriptable.
From the parent post: "there is nothing crippled about NTFS on XP or otherwise. Imaging works just how you expect it to. we've used Ghost (multiple version) PQDI (multiple versions, including the 16 bit dos version) and some internal-to-MS only stuff even."
It is an official position of Microsoft that Windows XP has NO WAY to make a fully bootable functional backup of the OS partition. That was not true in Windows 98, so things have gone downhill, in my opinion.
As you mention, third-party tools are required to make a full hard disk backup. That is a crippled OS, in my opinion.
Many people have trouble with each of the third-party tools, and commenters have mentioned. So, it is reasonable to ask which is the best one.
The third-party tools are NOT SUPPORTED BY MICROSOFT. There is NO Microsoft supported way of making a functional OS backup on a single workstation. That's more than crippled in my opinion; that is abusive. I support Microsoft's right to its intellectual property, but crippling is not good policy. That kind of copy protection punishes all the honest customers.
Caution:
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
For completeness, I'm posting this here, also. The original is comment #7463612
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
Could you supply a link to the files you use, such as your sysprep.inf file?
Are you using the Enterprise version of Ghost?
What modifications are you doing to the Bart's boot disk? Could you supply an image of the one you use?
What is the best documentation of Sysprep?
Thanks.
There seems to be confusion about Ghost. There seems to be agreement that the regular version of Ghost has problems. Some people report reliable success with the Enterprise version.
Still, I haven't had good luck with any Symantec products. I haven't tried Ghost Enterprise version.
I stand by what I said about Ghost. I'm not the only one having problems with it, or with Symantec's copy protection.
What version of Ghost and what switches do you use?
Here is an official response from Microsoft. NTBackup does not work for making backups of the operating system:
Theoretically, it is possible for backup to backup and restore everything using NTBackup. However, in practice, this is an unreliable method, especially when there are different hardware configurations between the old computer and the new computer.
The following article has the steps to do in Windows 2000. Most the steps also apply to Windows XP. As you can see the steps are somewhat complicated and you will need to consider a lot of things before doing the full system recovery to a different computer:
249694 How to Move a Windows 2000 Installation to Different Hardware
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=249694
The recommended method is to backup important data files (instead of everything in the computer). Reinstall clean operating systems and applications, then restore your important data files to the new system.
Hover Xue
MCSE 2000, MCDBA
Microsoft Partner Support
More about RIS, from a Microsoft technical support representative, whom I asked today. For numerous reasons, RIS is not a backup method that is universally useful, to say the least:
RIS is a service of Windows 2000 Server. To install it, you may refer to the following articles:
298750 HOW TO: Set Up and Configure Remote Installation Services in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=298750
301180 HOW TO: Add Components and Programs to Your Computer in Windows 2000
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=301180
You can use Remote Installation Services (RIS) for Windows 2000 to install a local copy of the operating system to other computers from remote locations. You can start up your computer, contact a Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server for an Internet Protocol (IP) address, and then contact a boot server to install the operating system.
RIS requires several other services. These services can be installed on individual servers, or all of these services can be installed on a single server. The type of installation depends upon your network design:
- DNS server: RIS relies on DNS for locating the directory service and client computer accounts. You can use any Windows 2000 Active Directory service-compliant DNS server, or you can use the DNS server that is provided with Windows 2000 Server.
- Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol (DHCP) server: RIS requires an active DHCP server on the network. The remote boot-enabled clients receive an IP address from the DHCP server before they contact RIS.
- Active Directory: RIS relies on Windows 2000 Active Directory for locating existing clients as well as existing RIS servers. RIS must be installed on a Windows 2000-based server that has access to Active Directory, for example, a domain controller or a server that is a member of a domain with access to Active Directory.
For more information on deploy Windows XP from Windows 2000 RIS server, please refer to the following resources:
304314 How to Deploy Windows XP Images from Windows 2000 RIS Servers
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=304314
313069 Update for the Riprep Tool
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=313069
308508 Unable to Create Windows 2000 Server Image on RIS Server
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308508
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/treeview/default
Sincerely,
Jack Wang, MCSE 2000, MCSA, MCDBA, MCSD
Microsoft Partner Support