Opinions on Ghost 9

[mubs]

How good is this thing? My reading of the product page at Symantec is that the new features over Ghost 2003 are:

* NEW! Hot imaging - lets you create backup images without restarting Windows®.
* NEW! Incremental backup updates save time and disk space.
* NEW! Scheduled backups automatically keep your backup image up to date.

None of these are important to me. Otherwise it seems to be the same as Ghost 2003. And I'd be using it off of floppies, not from inside Windows, mostly.

A major downside is that it requires/installs .Not Framework.

Though I have Ghost 2003, I've never used it, having been a DriveImage person so far (DI 2002 aka DI 6 was the best, though it doesn't support DVDs and FW/USB drives; DI 7 is crap).

Your thoughts appreciated. TIA.

 

[ddrueding]

Not having to use boot disks was a great improvement to the average user, not having to reboot at all sounds even better to me.

My only concern is how they've managed to do this? I'm hoping they haven't gotten all crazy in the OS, like adding an abstraction layer or anything...

 

[Bozo]

Norton now owns Powerquest.
I believe that Ghost is now Powerquest V2i. It works basically the same way. You must install it to make backups but can boot from CD to do a reinstall. Floppies are dead. You cannot make an image from the boot CD. Also, trying to get the CD to do a restore over the network is a royal pain in the A$$.

I'll stick with Drive Image 5.5. Boot from floppy directly to network server, then make image or re-install. Takes half the time of Ghost/V2i.

Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[LunarMist]

Drive Image and True Image have allowed the creation of images from Windows for years. They do lock some files so it is not always possible to continue working as usual. However, restoration requires booting to CD. IIRC Symantec purchased PowerQuest, so they may be using part of the the same software.

 

[LunarMist]

Bozo,

Beat me to it. I agree about V2i! I still use DI6 (aka DI 2002) because restoration is so much fatser and the bloated DI7 installation is not needed. Also, it takes forever to boot from the DI7 CD. DI6 and the floppy versions of Ghost run really well from USB flash drives, too.

 

[sechs]

It's crap.

Zero backwards compatability. You can't make images outside of Windows.

 

[mubs]

Thanks, guys, I won't waste my moolah on Ghost.

I'm interested only in imaging from bootable floppies / CD.

Anybody know anything about Acronis True Image 7.0 or 8.0? Their product info is pretty poor on their web site.

 

[Bozo]

What was the last Drive Image version that let you make images from floppies?


Bozo :mrgrn:

 

[Mercutio]

Acronis works wonderfully and does a better job with RAID volumes and SATA drives than ANYTHING else. It can work while windows is running. It's a solid product.

That said, I still do everything with Ghost, mostly due to inertia.

 

[mubs]

Bozo, Drive Image 2002 (aka Ver. 6) can create boot floppies from which you can make or restore an image. Booting from floppies, it will support on-board IDE CD readers/burners, but will not support I/O on DVDs, Firewire or USB devices. I've tried using Ghost 2003 FW/USB drivers (one at a time), but apparently when these drivers are loaded there's not enough conventional RAM left for DI and it won't even load. Ignoring these shortcomings, it's a good product. When you buy Drive Image 7 (discontinued in favor of Ghost 9), the box also has a copy of DI 2002 to enable you to create boot floppies which DI 7 cannot do.

Thanks, Merc. I'm still not clear what level of support Acronis has for making/restoring images from boot floppies. Maybe I'll shoot them an email.

 

[LunarMist]

DI6 (2002) creates two floppies and True Image 6 creates four boot floppies. I don't kow about the newer Acronis products. Unfortunately the DI7 image file format is not compatible with previous versions of DI.

 

[mubs]

Many days ago, I filled out an online form at Acronis to send an inquiry to them about the features I was interested in. No reply so far. So much for the raving customer comments about their support. They don't even care to respond to pre-sale questions. I downloaded the user manual and went through it; looks like it doesn't have the features I'm looking for. Maybe that's why they didn't respond.

 

[Corvair]

Acronis works wonderfully and does a better job with RAID volumes and SATA drives than ANYTHING else...

http://www.veritas.com/Products/www?c=option&refId=261&productId=31

http://www.veritas.com/Products/van?c=product&refId=140