Norton Ghost is a waste of money. Don't buy it!

[Jüš† ä gü¥]

Scenario: Customer A (me) wants to backup computer OS and software with software B (Norton Ghost, which cost me around $70 or $80). Software B gets around to creating the last backup CD, then errors out. Software B then checks the backed up disks and finds them to be in error. Customer A then tries to use the CD's burned with software B to see if, by chance, they work. They don't!

Customer A is frustrated but decides to use his OS restore disks to restore his operating system and give it another try. Customer A tries to make a backup of his OS again. This time, no errors in the backup process, but on the verification process, errors all over the place! Software B provides customer A with some information on which registers had what values and yadda yadda at time of error (both times). Customer A decides to visit Company C's website (Symantec, the company that made Software B), and looks in the support section. Company C doesn't wish to provide good support for free, however. Company C charges outrageous fees for phone support (which customer A thinks is probably highly incompetent support, though hasn't tried it himself). Customer A has to search all over Company C's website in order to find ANY sorts of feedback via email options. The choices for feedback are only if you have questions about purchasing/ordering/etc, and then a nontechnical questions option---NOTHING about problems with their products! Customer A looks at Company C's options for enterprise versions of the product (not the version he has)...these have an option for technical problems.

Customer A feels very ripped off that Company C produced such a shoddy product as Software B that is incapable of even doing that which was the only reason Customer A bought Software B. (What else on earth is Norton Ghost good for anyway if it isn't good for backing up software?)

Customer A was going to be nice to Company C about this and email asking about things, but customer A found out that Company C will not support emailing them about bugs about their own shoddy software unless one is a customer of their Enterprise (aka, EXTREMELY overpriced) products!

Customer A is an extremely pissed off customer and is no longer going to do business with Company C---EVER! And, in fact, is going to let others know of his experiences so they can make informed decisions before purchasing shoddy software from a company that, IMO, is no better than a swindler. (A swindler sells you something that doesn't do what it is meant to. Their software doesn't do what it is meant to. I see no difference! Plus, it is outrageously high-priced!)

[vass0922]

For one thing, why are you using generalities when you say exactly what each one is? (minus the backup software)

YOU (customer a) are not satisifed with company C's (symantec) norton ghost (software b)
Confusing

While I agree if you pay for the product you'd better get some support regardless if you're an enterprise or not.
I think you do have a valid point there.

However, Ghost is not just for making backups.
Its a great tool when you want to deploy many workstations or servers we use it extensively at work.

Unfortunately I can't help you with the support problem, as I've never had a problem with it that wasn't caused by something else (hardware typically in my case)

[osprey4]

That's the longest post I've ever read that never mentioned the OS or file system.

There are plenty of alternatives to Ghost, but you shouldn't have spent $70 in any event. A copy of SWP should run you less than $20.

[DVNT1]

You say Norton Ghost is a waste of money because your expectations were not met?

Of course you are entitled to voice your opinion, but I disagree with it. I think Norton Ghost is a good product for the cost, and a very useful tool when used properly.

[jmichna]

The dearth of free tech support is disheartening, agreed.
You may have other issues: one thought comes to mind is are you using quality media for the backup disks? Is the brand and speed rating of the media on your burner's recommended list? Have you tried burning your backups at a slower speed?
(I use an additional hard drive to hold my Ghost backups... a lot faster, no burning errors, and much less hassle)

Finally, as was pointed out to me, why buy Ghost for ~$70 as a stand-alone product, when it comes bundled with Norton SystemWorks 2003, for example, which can be had for around $30 on sale. I just bought SW2003 for my daughter's PC, plus a 40gb HD (for backups) for $55.

[grandchehaw]

I use Norton Ghost almost on a daily basis at work. It has saved me countless hours of mind numbing work.

I can't speak for the direct CD burning portion of Ghost because I have never used that feature. I just feed Ghost a command to break the image into 700 Mb chunks and multicase the image to a dedicated Ghost server and then burn the image to CD(s).

Have you checked Google Groups?

[jynxedu]

I'm with grandchehaw on this one,

We have Ghost images of nearly a dozen laptop and server configs.

Just loaded and image to three Panasonic laptops, took six minutes flat.

No complaints here. It did take awhile to become familiar with the software though. There is a learning curve.

jynxedu