Using Ghost on a laptop

[Kris]

BTW, I wasn't sure where to post this but I saw a lot of people on this sub-forum who use Ghost frequently so I figured this would be the best place but please move it if it is not.

I own a Gateway M500 notebook. I just recently purchased Norton Ghost 2003.

The problem I'm having is, I cannot boot from the install CD. It says device installation failed or something like that (it looked like it was refeering to my cdrom drive but I'm not 100% sure, gotta do more testing later). I installed it on my PC and am creating an image of my entire drive right now, but if I want to restore this later like, if I totally screw up my PC, how can I do it without having to install windows, then ghost and THEN imaging my drive? I have no floppy drive either

I'm storing the images on an external USB 2.0 drive too, btw.

[MentallyNormal]

You want to ghost the laptop correct and can't install the ghost 2003 on the laptop?

You could try
A) Create a ghost bootdisk on a cdrom using your pc. Then check to see if your laptop boots that cd. If not then perhaps you cdrom is just borked. I'd suggest test other cd's.

B) Create a copy of the install ghost disk, perhaps the laptop is has trouble reading the original disc? I remember having this problem with some greeting card install discs and had to make a backup copy an it work for some strange reason.

C) If your laptop cdrom still won't recognize the copied version, then you could literally just rip the disc from your pc to the usb drive. Hook up the usb drive to the laptop if you have usb ports on it. Then just run the install files from their or copy them over to the laptop.

D) Purchase an usb external laptop drive case. You could then remove the laptop hd insert it in this casing. Plug that badboy into you pc and windows should see it as a drive.Then open ghost,choose to ghost the laptop to whatever you drive you wish.
Problem with this though is if you backup constantly removing hd from laptop would be a hassle.


You should create the ghost bootdisk on your pc in and burn it to cdrom. Because that way you don't have to literally install ghost on your laptop. The whole reason to install ghost on the laptop would so you can use it in windows, which has an easier interface. You already probably experienced when picking the hd to ghost in the windows interface, it will reboot the comp into dos where the actual ghosting is done.

The ghost bookdisk is what you want to create,it is the key to reviving the ghost images.
Also I think you might have to include usb drivers with the ghost boot disk,if you're using the external to revive the images. Not sure on that though.

I hope this made sense and I didn't blabber on :confused:

[Kris]

Sorry if wasn't clear.

It installs fine on my laptop and reads fine. I can even boot off the disc. The problem is, when I try to boot off the disc it gives me an error I mentioned before so I need to figure out a way to recover everything since it won't boot correctly from its disc.

If I understand you correctly, I can make a boot disc with a floppy and just burn the contents onto the CD so I can boot from that? Is that correct?

[Joshua]

Hope this helps;

first reformat the usb 2.0 drive as bootable and then see if you can boot from it. If you can boot from it copy ghost.exe from the install directory on your laptop to the usb drive, then boot to the drive run ghost and store the image to the usb drive. Other wise buy a usb floppy, copy the ghost.exe to a bootable floppy, and you will be able to ghost your laptops drive.

[MentallyNormal]

Sorry if wasn't clear.

It installs fine on my laptop and reads fine. I can even boot off the disc. The problem is, when I try to boot off the disc it gives me an error I mentioned before so I need to figure out a way to recover everything since it won't boot correctly from its disc.

If I understand you correctly, I can make a boot disc with a floppy and just burn the contents onto the CD so I can boot from that? Is that correct?
Actually my mistake,you just can't copy over the files.

Here is what you can do on your main Pc
Create the ghost bootdisk using that wizard and customizing with drivers you need
Then open a burning program such as nero
Go to the option burn (bootable cd)
The burning program should prompt you for these boot files,which is when you insert the ghost floppy.
After that the burning program should burn you a bootable ghost cdrom.
Then test it. If you have a cdrw you could use that,so you don't have to waste cd if nothing happens.

Their are other ways to do this and tweak the files to your liking. I think this maybe the quick and easy way. I've never done this,because I just use the floppy. I'm sure it should work though.

Here is a guide to ghosting
Ghost (http://ghost.radified.com)