Norton Ghost is an advanced backup and recovery system for your Windows based computer. You can make a backup of the entire hard disk or limit your backup to only those files and folders that are important to you.
You can schedule backups to capture your changes automatically on a set time period, or you can start a backup manually at any time. You can also configure Norton Ghost to run a backup in response to specific events. For example, a backup can run when a particular application is started or when a specified amount of new data is added to the drive.
If you found that you lost a file, or a file has been corrupted, you can restore that file or folder easily. If your hard drive crashes, you can restore the entire hard drive to the state at which it was when the last backup was created. Even if you have to replace the drive, you can restore your system including the operating system, applications, and all of the data files.
What is needed to run Norton Ghost 15?
• Windows (XP or greater)
• 300 MHz or faster processor
• 512 MB (1 GB recommend) RAM
• 430 MB hard drive space
• CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive
• SuperVGA (800x600) or higher resolution monitor
How does this work? First you have to create a recovery disk CD that will use a driver validation tool to compare your hardware drivers on the Symantec Recovery Disk CD with the drivers that are required to run your computer's network cards and hard drives.
Once you have created and tested your recovery CD, you can then do an initial backup. For most people that will be creating a full system backup of your primary system drive (probably C:). This backup will be placed on another drive that can be an external drive, DVD-ROM, network drive, or some other location not on the primary drive.
Your particular situation and the amount of data that you are backing up will determine your best backup practices. One such option is to do a full backup once a week or once a month, and incremental backups on a daily or weekly basis. Norton Ghost will let you define these backups and then you can set a schedule when it will automatically run. Once the backup is run Ghost gives you the ability to create an off-site copy as well. This means that when your regular backup is done, Ghost will make a copy on another location. This can even be an FTP site for your copy destination.
Article comments
1 - Bob D
Just purchased Norton Ghost 15. The only drawback is that if you're cloning/ghosting an older drive to a newer drive with the intent of *replacing* the older drive, expect trouble. There is NO drive re-lettering feature. Example: Older 80GB HD low on space, want to replace it with a 500GB HD. Normally you slave that 500GB into the system and do your cloning - BUT that drive is assigned (say) drive letter D: (and it will STAY drive D:). Do NOT use the Computer Mgmt snap-in, it will NOT re-letter *any* boot/system drive. And guess what drive letter all your reg-keys point to... I made the mistake of thinking I could re-letter my C: to E:, then re-letter the clone drive (D:) to C: - NOT HAPPENING!! And you've just hosed your C: drive. This means you will hang at the logon screen, *never* getting the logon prompt..! RecoveryConsole will *not* fix this problem. I had to pull the drive, and slave it into another system, launch regedit, highlight HKLM, import hive -> Drive(?), windows\system32\config and the "System\Mounted Devices" key. Changed the key that had "D:" on it to "C:". Unload the hive (MUST DO!). Pull the drive, and put it back into the other system, got on my knees and prayed that it would work - it did... But *what* a nightmare! All Symantec had to do was give the option to re-letter, and I would have been finished in 5 minutes (minus the cloning time). Hope this helps, ~Bob.