Usage Of Norton Ghost & SysPrep

[suryankumar]

Hi

I have been trying to do a Proof of concept for disk cloning.
Could anyone suggest me any good site explaining the basics
of disk cloning.

Actually i have set up the master machine with basic software
and another machine completely formatted with no OS.

If i run sysprep on the master machine it shuts down and
when i restart it again asks for user name and password etc...

In documentation it reads that you should run sysprep and first
and execute norton ghost next..

I have a lot of questions like

When to build the boot floopy
when to create image file
how to set clone the image on a machine which does not have
any software

Your guidence and help is highly appreciated

Thanks & Regards
Suryan Kumar

[rpertusio]

Essentially, to clone a computer to another...

(1) Install Norton Ghost on the machine you wish to clone from

(2) Build the boot floppy from within Norton Ghost

(3) run SysPrep, which then shuts computer down

(4) Boot the computer to the floppy you made

(5) From the boot floppy, Norton Ghost runs, and you tell it to clone the drive. You'll need to specify a location to store the 'clone' files. Newer versions let you burn the images to CDs, or transfer across a local network for temporary storage.

(6) You now take the boot floppy, pop it in the destination computer and boot from it

(7) The Norton Ghost prog will run again, and you will now tell Ghost where you saved the images.

(8) It will then COMPLETELY OVERWRITE any data currently on the drive/partition you specify with the image.



After typing all that.. I found a
website that might help.

- rp

[MisterEd]

What is thr proper command-line for SYSPREP for drive cloning. I just can't get it to work properly.

Thanks

Originally posted by rpertusio
Essentially, to clone a computer to another...

(1) Install Norton Ghost on the machine you wish to clone from

(2) Build the boot floppy from within Norton Ghost

(3) run SysPrep, which then shuts computer down

(4) Boot the computer to the floppy you made

(5) From the boot floppy, Norton Ghost runs, and you tell it to clone the drive. You'll need to specify a location to store the 'clone' files. Newer versions let you burn the images to CDs, or transfer across a local network for temporary storage.

(6) You now take the boot floppy, pop it in the destination computer and boot from it

(7) The Norton Ghost prog will run again, and you will now tell Ghost where you saved the images.

(8) It will then COMPLETELY OVERWRITE any data currently on the drive/partition you specify with the image.



After typing all that.. I found a
website that might help.

- rp

[rpertusio]

You probably don't even need a command line...

Rather, see this page by Microsoft:
How to Prepare Images for Disk Duplication with Sysprep

[Siliconjunkie]

Step 1 is optional. No need to install Ghost.

[John Prophet]

If any of you are pros at this, drop me a pm please or something...cuz I am really getting violent feeling over this. I am sysprepping the machine just fine..then when I go to ghost it..all of a suddent the ghost floppy Ive been using forever now..wont span cd's..???? wtf??????

Ive used this same floppy and same cd burner many many times...have saved many hard drive images to cd...it always gives messahes like "process will take approximately 2 cd's, do you want to continue?"......but on the sysprepped drive it never asks that..it just asks if you want to continue....as if the 1.7g will fit on that one measley cd. So you pick.."yes" and it fails after a few minutes.

Can you tell its irritating to me??

Has anyone actually DONT this??? No theory..im talking physically DONE THIS SUCCESFULLY??

I am using ghost 7.5 corporate....should that be an issue??

I mean, all I freaking want to do is find an easy way to do xp builds without having to sit and build each one and add all the patches, apps, demos, etc etc afterward. I want to have one motherboard in lots of builds so sysprep should be perfect.....but freaking ghost is killing me. Is this too much to ask here or what?? Am I asking the imfreekingpossible????? This HAS to be very simple..its not freeking ris or any of that gay crap..its the simplest deployment thing known to man, lol.

[LPB123]

I install Ghost2003.
I create an answer file with setupmgr.exe in the sysprep folder.
I run sysprep, click mini-setup, and click "quit" as the shutdown option.
Then I run Ghost2003 (inside windows) and tell it to make a backup and where to put it (usually a cd-r, but external usb HD works,too--and fast! 90 sec backups!).
Ghost restarts the machine.
Ghost makes my images in dos.

Couldn't be easier.

BTW, to run Ghost off a floppy, just type ghost after boot.

[LPB123]

Ghost automatically spans cds, update your ghost version

[John Prophet]

you using ghost enterprise or just regular old ghost?

By the way I got it to span..just by, u guessed it, checking the "span" box, lol.

I just was overlooking that cuz I NEVER checked it before and have done hundreds of cd backups in which it would auto-span...but they were fat32 so maybe that makes a difference.

Live and learn