
First of all, download bootdisk.exe (810 KB) and get yourself a 1.44 MB floppy. You don’t even need to format it, when the download is done, just run Bootdisk.exe and follow the on screen questions. After the bootdisk is written, copy the file ghost.exe from the directory where you have installed Ghost 6.x or Ghost Personal Edition to this bootdisk. If you have the Personal Edition of Ghost, after you have copied ghostpe.exe to the bootdisk, rename it to ghost.exe.
The bootdisk has the following menu:
Restart your computer with the floppy in drive A, select “1. Boot computer with support for CD-ROM.” if everything goes right, you’ll get the following error message: FindCD was unable to detect a bootable CD. This is normal since we haven’t made a bootable Ghost CD yet. The trick is that you don’t get any other error messages. If everything works fine, we’re ready to create a Backup.
Creating Ghost Images
Ghost run’s only in FULL DOS MODE thus not from within a Windows DOS box, that’s why you have created the bootdisk in previous section.
There are many options to Backup partitions/drives with Ghost, like cloning partitions from HDD 1 to HDD 2, cloning drives HDD 1 to HDD 2 etc.
In the following example we will clone P-1 (partition 1) of HDD 1 (hard drive 1) to P-2 (partition 2) of HDD 1 (hard drive 1) using a splitted image, autoname and high compress them.
If you check out the autoexec.bat file of the bootdisk, you will find a line that starts the Ghost program it looks like this :
GHOST.EXE -split=640 – autoname -z9
What exactly does it means :
-split=640 : split the image in parts of 640 MB, so that they fit onto a CD-R/RW;
-autoname : automatically names the splitted parts of the image so that you don’t have to type the name anymore;
-z9 : this parameter tells ghost to high compress the image.
If you have version 6.5 of Ghost or later you will have to change the “-autoname” to “-auto” since the -autoname is used in Ghost PE (Personal Edition).
Now we’re ready to make a backup now…
Backup Partition 1 – Hard Drive 1 to an Image file on Partition 2 – Hard Drive 1
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Restoring Ghost Images
Restoring Partition or Drive from Bootable CD
Creating a bootable Ghost CD
On the bootdisk there’s a little batch file, called Rest.bat. This batch file, when it is burned onto a CD-R/RW with the program Ghost.exe and the image file Backup.GHO, loads Ghost and tell it to extract the file Backup.GHO to your hard drive (P1-HDD1). If you look at the batch you will see this line :
GHOST.EXE -clone,MODE=pload,SRC=%CDROM%Backup.GHO:1,DST=1:1
What exactly does it means:
-clone,MODE=pload : sets Ghost in restore mode;
SRC=%CDROMBKUP.GHO:1 : points to the location where the image is on the CD-ROM;
:1 : means partition 1 from the image file;
DST=1:1 : means hard drive 1 partition 1, in other words C:
If you have Ghost 6.5 or later, you could get a step further and eliminate the “Are you sure you want to continue” message and make Ghost restores fully automatically. Just add to the line the parameter -sure. The line will then look like this:
GHOST.EXE -clone,MODE=pload,SRC=%CDROM%Backup.GHO:1,DST=1:1 –sure
Let’s Burn the Bootable CD
You can use NERO to burn the Images, you can obtain Nero from Ahead Nero, but you could also use other burn software (like EasyCD Creator from Roxio), as long as it supports the making of bootable CD’s. Put the Bootdisk in drive A: and launch Nero, choose from the New Compilation menu: CD-ROM (Boot). If Nero starts with the Wizard, close it and choose New from the file menu.
NOTE: rest.bat and ghost.exe must be in the root of the CD, otherwise FindCD can not identify the bootable Ghost CD. If you have the Ghost PE (Personal Edition), you must rename GHOSTPE.EXE to GHOST.EXE, because otherwise it won’t work.
If you are satisfied with the contents of the CD, then click from the file menu Write CD.
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