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Does applying a Norton Ghost image ensure there is not a hard drive failure?

I need some help from the community.  We are completing a large scale roll-out in which we are using Norton ghost to apply a full hard disk image to laptops.  There is a desire to minimize the chance of hard drive failures in the field and the request has been made that after each image application and completing a few post-image steps within the operating system (that couldn't be added to the image) to complete a full windows check disk.  This seems unnecessary in my opinion and so my question is if a full disk image is applied to the notebook..... then doesn't that provide assurance that there is not a physical or otherwise issue with the hard drive? (Otherwise the image attempt would have resulted in an error).
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rindi
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A chkdsk doesn't check for or fix errors on the disk, but rather only of the file-system. To test the disk for errors you need to run the HD manufacturer's diagnostic utility, and since you can't run it on the same disk your OS is running on, you must either do that from a bootCD like the UBCD which contains those tools, or by attaching the disk to another PC and then run the Windows version of the testing utility on the Disk:

http://ultimatebootcd.com

It can be a good idea to run this test before you apply the image to the PC, but it doesn't make much sense to do it afterwards, since if you realize the disk is bad you would exchange it before doing the extra work of imaging.
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netfor

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SysExpert, I hear what your saying on the image restore...but what if it is a fully "disk" image application with like multiple volumes, wouldn't that also address the disk portion un-used?
Well i would rely more on the image backup software than the individual harddisks
I mean i can create image of the remote machines as per the scheduled task defined in my imaging software or use "sugarsync" as a cloud based backup
In my experience u cannot guarantee that the harddisks will never fail but you can confidently maintain proper backup system

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It just didnt fully address the question but it was enough.