Imaging desktops using Ghost 2003 onto External Hard drive ?

[vrcatherine]

Imaging desktops using Ghost 2003 onto External Hard drive ?


I am completely new to this hardware/software stuff correct me if i'm wrong.

Currently we have 20 desktops running windows 2000 pro/XP pro systems. And I am in the process of taking an image of all the drives in all the computers so that i can recover/restore them in an crash event.


I had gotten the Norton Ghost 2003 software, Maxtor 300GB external Hard drive.

I had hooked this External Hard drive to one of the server.

1) Now using this Ghost software can I take an image of
all the systems and put it in the external hard drive ?


2) In the event of a crash of an desktop can get back the
image from external hard drive and restore the desktop?
If yes how ?



--Thanks
Cathy

 

[johng75]

partition the 300gb drive into multi sections, one for each drive being imaged

It's really not as easy......
as I make it look!

 

[Jump1ng]

I answered your post in the windows 2000 server forum...

One thing to add to that post is

If you need to restore your machine from a totall crash just boot from your ghost disks and then point to the server and your image file and it will restore over the network. That way you dont have to partition the drive into section for each imagine.

 

[johng75]

but lets not forget external HD, easier to take the drive from machine to machine, less headache
my $0.02
good luck either way

It's really not as easy......
as I make it look!

 

[vrcatherine]

Thanks for the replies.

Check these steps and correct me:

Lets say i had partitioned the 300GB external hard drive which is hooked to one of our servers. If I partition the drive into 30 x 10GB and give each partition some names. ( usernames)

Now I go to each and every workstation and map there system to there respective drive partition(external drive which is on network).


Install Norton ghost 2003 on each and every system ( never used before) when it asks to point where the image has to be save , then point to the mapped external drive(on network).

Does the Ghost 2003 create some kind of boot disk(floppy) during this phase ?


In the event of crash of the desktop, then how will I boot the system first ?


--Thanks
Cathy

 

[johng75]

if i remember correctly ghost has a "utility" disk that is used in dos to copy an image from one drive to another in the event of a system crash and new drive being used.

It's really not as easy......
as I make it look!

 

[Jump1ng]

If you want to use ghost 2003 on more than one machine you will need to buy one copy for every machine that you ghost or you will break the license agreement.

To get it to work without partitioning your 300GB drive into stupid amount of partitions...

Connect your 300GB drive to your server, partion the drive the way you want it (I wouldn't recommend one huge partions so maybe 3x100GB would be ok). Share one of your partions that you have created on the drive or a folder that you create on the drive.

Create a network boot disk with ghost where you select the right network card.

When you boot from these disks it should let you save to the shared folder on the server.

If you read the manuall it will give you more detailed instructions.

But as I mentioned in the other thread under win2k servers, if you use Ghost Corp instead you can make ghosting the machines so much easier as it will install a client part on your workstations that will let you take a ghost copy whenever you want/need to do it without leaving your chair.

If you have to restore the machine from say a complete hard drive failure you would still need to use bootdisks.