Just got hold of Norton Ghost (14 I think).

I have three PC's that I want to take an image of each and store each image on a single USB HD.

What is the best way to do this.

I want to be able to restore an individual image when ever I need to (obviously lol).

The way I understand it, I need to partition the USB HD at least three ways and store an image in each partition?

Is that right?

Any guidance would be appreciated.

 

Not quite. The image Ghost creates for each drive is just a set of files, so you can save them wherever you want. In Ghost you have options to ghost a whole drive or individual partitions. So you could save the files created to folders for each of your drives on the USB backup HD. You could just dump all the files for all 3 drives in once place to if you wanted. No need to create seperate partitions on the backup HD.

When restoring I find it best to create a bootable Ghost CD to work from, then when Ghost is loaded from that you simply point it at the 1st file for your image on the backup USB HD. Oh and make sure your version of Ghost can actually find your USB HD ok. Should be fine though.

 

Ahh... OK I must be following the wrong bit then, as when I went to image a drive it said that the destination will be completely over written.

Will double check I am doing what I should be doing.

Thanks for your help.

 

Sounds like u were trying a restore then i.e FROM image.

 

I was trying to make a complete backup of a drive (drive copy I think).

 

Oh right sorry, yea that will effectively overwrite the whole destination (backup) drive hence the warning, even if the destination is empty. I usually image partitions only.

 

Do I need to make a bootable GHOST CD for each image I have, or can I create one I can use for all restores of images?

 

assuming that your version of ghost came on CD - the cd is bootable. if you want to restore your drive, u boot from the ghost cd, then browse to the place u have stored your ghost images, choose one and let ghost do the rest..

 

As above the Ghost boot CD is just to run Ghost outside of Windows. Once loaded you point it to where your images are stored for restoring.

Even if your version isn't on CD you can easily make a bootable Ghost CD.

 

Thanks for the guidance.

Trust me... I am not normally this thick (or perhaps I am lol), but I couldn't be arsed to read the manual.

bioforger,
Will have a look at creating a bootable Ghost CD.