Using Disk and Partition Imaging Programs

Now, just maybe you've read that title and you are wondering to yourself 
"What in the world is he talking about?" Well, what this tutorial is all 
about is how to use two fairly common programs that can help you recover 
your system regardless of almost any hazard. The two programs are Norton 
Ghost and Power Quest's Drive Image. There may be other programs out there 
that do what these programs do, but these are by far the most well-known 
and popular. 

What is an Image?

For the purpose we are discussing here, an image is an exact replica of 
your partition or hard drive retained in a special compressed format. Ghost 
and Drive Image each use their own special format, and until recently, both 
programs required you to restore all or nothing if you needed to. By making 
an image in one of these formats, you have the opportunity if necessary to 
restore your system to EXACTLY the same condition it was when you made the 
image, and in much less time than any backup program can do it. In 
addition, these programs are capable of making exact copies of a hard drive 
or an individual partition. This is just about the best way to "clone" an 
installation, or to move to a new hard drive. 

Uses for Imaging

Before we dig into the specifics of using these two programs, let's talk 
about what you might use them for. Here are a few things I use Ghost for: 

1. To create full image backups at various stages of a clean install. This 
way, if anything is not quite right, I can simply restore to the image 
prior to the problem, instead of starting my clean install all over. 
2. Regular images of the system when it is working correctly. I do these 
about once a month and burn them to CD. If all goes down the tubes, I can 
restore from the suitable set of CDs. The newest versions of both Ghost and 
Drive Image allow imaging directly to supported burners.	
3. An image before installing Beta software or other questionable software. 
This I do to the hard drive, and if it turns out that the software in 
question causes me problems, restore the image and forget about it. 
4. Cloning installations when identical installations are desired. As it 
happens, I administer a network in which 4 machines are configured exactly 
the same way, another 2 are identical to each other, and 2 more have the 
same basic configuration with a bit more software added to one. Three Ghost 
images let me handle all of these systems very quickly and easily, with the 
only additional installations having to be made on one machine, and changes 
to the names in Network Neighborhood Properties. 
5. Ghost also has the possibility (in the appropriate version and license) 
of cloning NT setups, including creating the unique identifiers necessary. 

There are more uses for these programs, but these are the ones I use the 
most. Also, when I build a machine for someone, I create an image of their 
C: drive which I place in another partition. Believe me, that is a BIG 
rescue net. 

Using Ghost

Although I have used both Drive Image and Ghost, I prefer Ghost. Why? 
Mostly personal preference, but I also like the amount of control it is 
possible to have with Ghost. Unfortunately, having that level of control 
means being willing to use DOS commands (switches) extensively. Drive Image 
is probably the easier of the two programs to use. 

If you have Ghost, and you are interested in the switches, check out the 
switches.txt. I will only address one of the switches in this article. All 
the txt files in the Ghost package are good to read, but they can be 
overwhelming. Here I will try to give you just what you need to know for 
the user of a PC at home. 

Ghost comes in two versions. The Personal Edition and The Corporate 
Edition. The Corporate Edition has additional features; it supports 
multicasting (copying to multiple sources), restoring or imaging over a 
network. Personal Edition does not have the -BATCH and -SURE switches 
available. 

Ghost should be run in pure DOS. I have Ghost on my hard drive, but I also 
have it on a floppy (yes, Ghost is small). Copy Ghost.exe to a blank, 
formatted floppy as the first step. Now, use your Windows EBD (Emergency 
Boot Disk) to boot up (place it in the floppy drive and start or restart 
your computer). When it has finished booting, you should be at an A:> 
prompt. Swap the EBD for the Ghost disk and type: Ghost (Ghostpe if using 
Personal Edition). 

Boom! There it is, the Ghost screen. If your EBD loads mouse drivers, you 
can use your mouse to navigate this screen. If not (like mine), then use 
the arrow keys. From the bottom up, the menu reads: Quit, Options, NetBios, 
Multicasting (Corporate Edition), LPT, and Local. I'm going to address the 
Options and Local areas in this tutorial. 

Under Options you will find the following checkboxes (use the tab key to 
jump from one to the next). They are: Reboot (for auto-reboot at 
completion), Spanning (to span removable media, or if you set the split 
switch), Autoname (to name the parts of a spanned image), Allow 64K FAT 
clusters, Ignore CRC Errors and Override Size Limits. The only ones I 
suggest you may use are spanning and autoname. 

The Local menu divides into 3 sections: Disk, Partition and Check. The Disk 
menu allows you to "Ghost" to Disk, Image or From Image. This means copying 
the entire hard drive, including partition tables to a new disk, to an 
image, or restoring the entire hard drive from an image. If your hard 
drives are exactly the same size, you may find this a useful procedure. The 
Partition menu is divided into the same three choices, and works the same 
way, except it only affects what is inside a partition. It does not copy 
the partition tables, so it is especially useful when moving to that 
bigger, faster hard drive that you just set up with FDISK. The Check menu 
gives you only 2 choices: Image File or Disk. After you have created a copy 
with Ghost, either an Image or another drive, you can use this menu to 
double check that everything was copied correctly. 

Ghost - Step by Step

OK, after all that description, let's actually run through the procedure of 
making an image. You're looking at that menu and you want to make an image 
of your C drive for backup purposes. Well, navigate in the window to 
Local/Partition/To Image and hit the Enter Key. 

At this point, you will get a screen on which to select the drive from 
which you want to make the image (as you can see, the computer I did this 
on shows 3 drives). You can navigate here using the arrow keys and hitting 
Enter when you have the appropriate drive highlighted. To select back if 
necessary, use the tab key. 

At this point, you will get a screen on which to select the partition from 
which you want to make the image (as you can see, the drive I used had 3 
partitions). You can navigate here using the arrow keys and hitting Tab to 
OK when you have the appropriate partition highlighted. To select back if 
necessary, use the tab key. Hit Enter on the OK key. 

After you have gone through all of that, up comes the opportunity to say: 
"Hey, put that image HERE!" I actually find that this screen is easiest to 
navigate with the tab and arrow keys, even if I have the mouse available. 
Use the tab to jump from field to field and the arrow keys to navigate 
within a field. If you are using 6.5 or later (2001 for PE) you can select 
your CD burner if it is supported. When you have typed in the File Name, hit 
the ENTER KEY. Do not try the Parent button! 

Now, depending on the space available where you suggested, you will get a 
screen asking about compression. I always choose High, but you can choose 
whatever you like. I have not had any problems with High, but maybe I am 
lucky. 

Finally it will ask to confirm "Dump" and after you OK, it will make the 
image. Simply wait for it to finish, Quit Ghost (Check the Image first if 
you so desire), remove the floppy from the drive and ctrl-alt-delete to 
reboot. 

That's it! You've made your image on a hard drive! To restore, you follow 
the same procedures, but choose Partition From Image, and choose the Ghost 
Image first, with the appropriate partition as the place to restore to. 

Now, I mentioned making Ghost Images which I burn to CDs. This requires 
using the -SPLIT switch to restrict the image segments so they will fit on 
a CD. The additional procedure is simple. Instead of typing "ghost" at the 
A:> prompt, I type "ghost/split=600" (ghostpe/split=600 for personal 
edition) - this works for me, but you may need to use "ghost.exe -
split=600" (ghostpe.exe -split=600 for personal edition) - which will 
force Ghost to split the image into 600mb segments. At this point you might 
want to go into Options and check those "spanning" and "autorename" 
choices. You still make the images on your hard drive, and as Ghost 
finishes each segment, it will pop up asking for the next media. Just hit 
Enter and it will continue on. When it is complete, reboot to Windows and 
burn the images to CD (make sure you label them in order). Do not use 
DirectCD or a similar program to burn the images to CD. Use EZCD or Nero, 
etc. Also, I recommend you burn to a CD-R. To restore, you simply point 
Ghost at the image on the CD (if you are using a Win98 EBD, you should have 
access to the CD drive). 

One more feature in Ghost, and a fairly new one, is "Ghost Explorer." This 
program allows you to look at the contents of a Ghost image and delete from 
it if you so desire. So if you made that image with your Temp file full, 
well, use Ghost Explorer to empty it. 

Using Drive Image

Drive Image is the other popular program, and it is pretty simple to use. 
First, it is installed in a Windows environment, and if you click on the 
shortcut in your Programs Menu, it will tell you it has to be run in DOS 
and take you there. Once in DOS, it will provide you with a loading screen, 
followed by a very simple first screen. 
The first screen lets you choose to Create Image, Restore Image, PowerCast 
(copy via LPT or peer to peer LAN) or copy to another Drive. I'm going to 
choose Create Image. 

The next screen allows you to choose the hard drive you are imaging. 

Of course, we need to select the partition we intend to image. 

And name the image ... 

Choose how much compression we want... 

And by clicking Finish, we can make the image. 

Of course, if you want to split the file for burning onto CD, you use the 
Advanced Options. 

That's it! You've made your image. To restore, you have two options. 

1. Follow the same startup (if you can get into Windows), and restore the 
appropriate image to the correct location. 
2. Boot from the Drive Image Emergency Disk and restore that way (this will 
not normally give you access to your CD unless the disk has been modified). 
If you need CD access, you can also boot from the Win98 EBD, switch in the 
Drive Image disk, and type: PQDI Drive Image will load, and you are on your 
way. 

I have tried to touch on the basics of the two programs. They are both 
powerful programs with many additional options. Be sure to read the manuals 
and the ReadMe files, as they have a great deal of excellent information to 
get the most out of them. 


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