Ghost freezes on boot up

dont think so, am running on a single laptop

Just had a nightmare with booting from Windows using the interactive ghost. It got stuck in a loop with PC DOs so I had to delete the partition it had created.

Ghost has got me out of a few scrapes before but am uncertain as to whether I should stick with after this?

Also, whats the alternative?

Thanks,

Paul

Actually, ghost 2003 is a very poorly conceived and badly tested product, it has all kinds of problems like you mention, it can even trash your hard drive because of unforseen gotchas that you cannot get out of.  I would definitiely keep away from the program.  The only thing from 2003 that is reliable is the floppy disk boot to run the DOS ghost console, and that is at times flakey.

What are you trying to do on this laptop?  Copy your data to a USb drive, image the entire system to USB or a network drive?  Acronis true image might be a more reliable choice, it is an expensive product though.  There are lots of other imaging products out there, less error prone than ghost 2003.  What are you needing to do, that will tell what to suggest.

I have just done a clean install of xp with drivers. I like to create an image of that so I can always revert back to it. When I start to install new programs sometimes they can cause problems so I can roll back with the image.

Will have a look at Acronis.

Just downloaded PING, will give it a try and let you know.

Was looking at DuBaron but I don't like the look of it.

Just tried PING. Creating the first image for c: partition was ok, but when I tried to the a second image for d: partition it threw an error and restarted. It did this a couple of times, so no joy with that.

Will try something else.

I'm trying the linux/dos software as I'm not certain about getting images from software that run from windows?

No try the windows software too.  The crucial thing is that it needs to say -- "will also backup system state" of "uses volume shadow copy to 'snapshot' the system state".    If you can find one that says that, it will be as good if not better than ghost or Acronis.  I find the linux apps typically are poorly debugged, and the DOS apps generally will not handle large disks very well, especially with big NTFS partitions.

The challenge is really to find a windows program that will do it.  M$ has provided snapshot ability with volume shadow copy etc, so the technology is available to the windows SW developers if they are smart enough to figure out how to do it right.

Concept is simple -- from running windows, make a TOTAL clone of your OS, including system state files, remove the hard disk (simulate dead HDD), pop in a floppy, find the image, restore to a new hard drive, reboot, and VOILA!  it works.  So SO SO simple -- but they are all still struggling to get it right.

I'm going to try Bootit NG, this has good reviews.

I tried bootit NG, and the procedure is a little weird.  When it first asks, from floppy boot, do you want to install, the answer is NO, I think you press escape to get beyond that.  I made the mistake of installing and I could not get it to work right.  Once you get beyond that first question, apparently the floppy clone works fine.  I never completed it.  Let me know how you fare.  

Check out the free DriveimageXML...
http://www.runtime.org/dixml.htm
...it's a most excellent imaging solution for XP. It also uses Volume Shadow Services.

For restoring from an image you may want to look into UBCD4Win...
http://www.ubcd4win.com/
...It's a bootable CD that includes DriveimageXML and many other useful free utilities

Re: bootit,

I installed it yesterday. When I followed the instructions to create an image I was not about to image the c: drive with windows on it, only the option of imaging the two other drives, bit pointless really.

I might get onto their support team about this.

Paul

As I said above, DON'T install it.  just run it again from the floppy, press escape or NO to the install? question, and when you run it from the floppy, it will image the C to whatever you want.  None of these DOS boot programs can image a windows drive while it is running, that is the whole point of a floppy boot, and ghost used to be strictly a floppy boot too.

I have installed acronis version 11 and created a backup image.

not sure to do with this problem as I think I solved my own problem?

close the Q as you think best -- generally award answer to the comment(s) that helped the most, or ask for a refund, you decide.