A question on Norton Ghost

Norton Ghost, over the years, has not been my favorite backup program.  Kind of like overkill.

But now I have a situation where I really need it.  My question is this.

I know that Norton Ghost is very good at taking one primary drive and making a copy of it on another drive.  So that when the copy process is completed, the new drive can be swapped into the same machine and boots right up with everything unchanged.

I need this for my CAVS machine.  If we have a failure in the middle of a show we can swap drives and keep on trucking in a matter of seconds since my drives are attached by long SATA ribbons that go outside the machine from the motherboard.

I would prefer to make my duplicate drives, however, using my new Windows 7 laptop.  Does anyone know if I can hook up my SATA dual drive USB device and copy from one USB drive to the second?  These would be drives that I use as primary drives in the CAVS machine, but my Windows 7 laptop would do the copying much faster than the old CAVS machine.  The drives themselves contain the XP operating system.  But they will only be used in the CAVS machine, so all the drivers, reg files, operating system etc would never need to know they are being copied to each other by a Windows 7 machine.

Does this make sense to any of you techies out there?

Smoky

The copying speed will be limited by the USB port speed and not the CPU speed.  SATA is much faster than USB as well so do the drive image copying using the SATA connections.  The computer speed won't matter.

pretty much what he said. I use acronis these days, it has a nice gui and features. It is easier to resize partitions with acronis.
I copied dozens of drives for work with ghost till I got a copy of acronis.

The earlier "Ghost" software was so much easier and functional....  Can't remember the versions, back about ver 7, had the DOS boot files included and it was very easy to image and restore.  If I remember right, there was a lawsuit by MS that caused the program to change dramatically, then it got real GUI and it was down-hill from there.

Well, I appreciate the help, but I guess I need to be clearer.  Version 12.0 of Ghost is a great change and the GUI is so much easier now.  Also it is highly recommended for the CAVS machine.  I have Acronis and it has been my favorite.  But I see now why CAVS wants me to use Ghost.

And Ned, it is the USB 3 ports that I want to use on the Windows machine.  Also the 4 gigs of memory since the other XP machines are maxing out the 1 gig memories with all the other stuff that has to run in resident.  The SATA connections are over in my slow CAVS.  I am copying 3.5 inch drives so my laptop cannot use any SATA connections for this job.  And I would also have the added problem that the source I am copying would be a moving target, if I hooked up SATA connections in the CAVS though ghost claims it can solve that problem.

For many reasons other copying from my laptop is more convenient than the desktop CAVS.

Anyways I am hoping to find someone who is using the new Ghost.  I think I am pretty safe in giving my idea a try, since I will not be using my master drive for the CAVS, only my "gold" backup copy of the master and a new blank drive.  I will drag my feet for a day or so and see if anyone verifies I can copy from USB to USB in Ghost 12.  The Ghost manual talks a lot about using a USB destination, but doesn't say much about the source.  The manual seems to assume that most people will be copying the primary drive on the PC where ghost is installed.  I want to use another USB drive as the source.  I will start the job one evening and it should be done by midmorning.

Smoky

Forget anything Norton. Nothing but a computer brake. Try Acronis.

Bruce.  I already have Acronis.  I tried USB to USB on it last year and it thoroughly botched the job.  Acronis has its strong points, but for me it had trouble handling an exact complete copy of a drive USB to USB.  Maybe it was botched by the operator, but I ended  up preferring Acronis for routine backups of an internal drive. Curious, Bruce, have you actually tried it and tested the results for a mirror image drive to drive copy via USB as both source and target connections? Were you able to successfully swap the new drive as the primary drive after a USB to USB exact full copy including partitions?

The CAVS company highly recommends Ghost for this job.  I put a call into the CAVS staff with this USB to USB question but have not heard back from them.  Since no one here apparently likes/uses Ghost I will post my question on the Norton forum.  I tried here first because this forum has people I know personally and lots of technical expertise.  Sometimes we have to wade through some personal bias and sales pitches though LOL!  That's OK though because I often get brilliant advice here.

Smoky

Smoky said:

Curious, Bruce, have you actually tried it and tested the results for a mirror image drive to drive copy via USB as both source and target connections? Were you able to successfully swap the new drive as the primary drive after a USB to USB exact full copy including partitions?
Smoky

Click to expand...

I did do a mirror image copy via USB and it went OK. I have not swapped the drive. I did the mirror image on an external drive figuring to use it if one of my hard drives ever went south.

Like Ned said, it doesn't take much CPU horsepower to read data from one drive and copy it unchanged to a second drive - the bottleneck is the interface between the drive(s) and the computer.  SATA version 1 allows up to 1.5 Gbps vs. 30 Mbps for USB 2 or 80-120 Mbps for USB 3 so even the most basic SATA is a much faster connection than USB. I doubt you'd gain anything by copying your drive on a machine with a slower interface (the USB port) regardless of it's processor speed.

Bruce:

Was the drive that was your "source" an internal drive, or a drive connected externally on a USB cable? 

Not sure you understand I am talking about taking a primary partioned drive out of another computer and attaching it to my windows 7 laptop via USB and then taking a fresh blank drive and attaching it to another USB port.  Then making a full operating copy from the first external USB drive to the second USB drive.  Neither drive will be used on the laptop making the copies but will be used inside an XP machine. Both source and target drives will be externally connected via USB but are in fact internal desktop drives.

Based on the words of your last message you only referred to an external USB target drive but did not specifically define the source drive.  Need to know if the source drive was also a USB connected drive and had a bootable operating system which transferred via USB to create a fully operational identical drive that can then be operated moved back to the XP desktop and inserted as the primary drive for the desktop.

Lou I understand what you and Ned are saying.  But I cannot connect a 3.5 inch SATA drive to a laptop computer unless it is an external connection.  The drives I am copying come out of a desktop.  I am picking the laptop because it has the fastest USB connection.  I am not using the original computer because it has only 1 gig memory and it is already overburdened.  This is also complicated by the fact that Ghost can only be installed on one pc.  I want to install it on the new Windows 7 laptop for many reasons.  This forces me to use USB or an external SATA port(which I do not have).

I just hope someone knows the answer to the question I am really trying to ask LOL. 

Thanks to all taking the time to comment!  I guess I asked a pretty complicated question and was not clear enough about it.

Smoky

Smoky,

The external drive is a regular hard drive mounted in a cabinet that makes it an external drive. I could take the hard drive out of the cabinet and install it in a desk top and boot from it since it's a mirror image.

Bruce:

Thanks for your patience.

I am still looing for an answer.  Unless I am misunderstanding you, you are still describing the target drive which is an external drive connected via USB.

Where is the source drive, i.e. the drive from which you are copying?  Is it the internal drive in the same computer that is performing the copying?

Smoky

Thanks Bruce, I thought maybe that was your case. 

It does not apply to my situation. 

I have a question now pending on the Norton forum and hope the answer is positive for my case.

Smoky