Norton Ghost 2003 Questions \ VOGONS

Norton Ghost 2003 Questions

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First post, by Syntho

Posted on 2024-07-19, 15:14

Syntho Offline

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I've never backed up old IDE drives using Ghost 2003, only Macrium Reflect and other stuff from long ago. If I'm restoring to a different drive that has a different size, and/or if it's a new drive without an actual install of an OS on it previously (no 'boot' info), I can see some problems arising so that's why I ask these questions:

- The software obviously wasn't at the point that it could copy only the used portion of a disk/partition, so that leaves us with an image the exact size of the disk or partition we made an image of. When restoring an entire disk, does it recreate the same sized partition(s) as the original drive? I guess that means somehow we'd have to resize the partitions afterward. Right?

- How well does the compression work? I wonder if the empty data on the drive is compressed to basically nothing, kind of like I mentioned above, or if the empty drive space will still have the same compression rate as actual used data.

- In the Options menu in DOS, I see Image All, image Boot, Image Disk, on top of Default. There's a little bit in the manual about all of this but I'm really going to have to meditate on this to understand it.

Reply 1 of 6, by Syntho

Posted on 2024-07-20, 06:17

Syntho Offline

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Ok. HALP. I just answered one of my own questions which is what the compression is like. A fresh install of W95 was something over 100mb or so, and it compressed down to only 34mb on the highest setting. That's great. It also makes me realize that it can copy just the system files and not have to copy every single sector, unless you want it to. Haven't gotten that far yet.

However I have a problem. I backed up the image to an extra HD, and seeing that it's so small, I could just use my zip drive, but my zip drive isn't showing up in Ghost 2003. I see both my floppies (3.5 and 5.25), both HDs, my CDROM, but not my zip drive. The zip drive is detected in the BIOS and works fine in W95. It just won't show up here for some reason.

Maybe I need to make a new boot disk with MSDOS instead of using the default PCDOS?

Reply 2 of 6, by Syntho

Posted on 2024-07-20, 08:24

Syntho Offline

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Version 8 detects it. 2003 doesn't. It's an internal drive. Maybe the 2003 version can only detect external ones?

Reply 3 of 6, by Stretch

Posted on 2024-07-20, 11:37

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You might want to ask at Radified Community Forums It is a Norton Ghost forum that still has activity

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Reply 4 of 6, by kixs

Posted on 2024-07-20, 11:45

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Is the ZIP drive accessible under DOS before you run Ghost?

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Reply 5 of 6, by goofyahhuncle

Posted on 2024-07-20, 11:54

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a ZIP drive typically wouldn't be accessible under DOS before running Ghost.
DOS itself doesn't have built-in support for ZIP drives.

Reply 6 of 6, by Syntho

Posted on 2024-07-20, 12:31

Syntho Offline

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Right. I was thinking that I could maybe create my own DOS boot disk with the Iomega drivers on it and have them load, then try using Ghost.exe manually, but version 8 is working fine so I'll just use that. Ghost 2003 and 7.5 both didn't detect my zip drives.

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