User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Unable to copy disk image!by rinseattle - March 2, 2007
Pros: User interface is fine
Cons: It simply does not work
Review: Purchased Ghost10 to copy my primary drive after it started having problems booting. After using Ghost to copy to the new drive, it would not boot. Their web tech support recommendations were idiotic. Do not buy this software. Get Acronis instead.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
The best for techs imaging workstationsby cleverett - August 4, 2005
Pros: DOS, so it's easy to make bootable media
Cons: None that I know of
Review: I create images of Windows XP and our standard applications that are deployed on desktops and notebooks. Ghost 2003 is the perfect tool for the job.
Once the original computer is ready to be imaged, I run sysprep and it shuts down. Then I boot up Ghost 2003 and image the drive to an external USB hard drive. Because Ghost 2003 is DOS-based, I was able to easily make the external drive bootable directly into Ghost! This saves a lot of time and trouble. I also have a bootable USB key for slightly different circumstances. Since Ghost 2003's executable is only 0.98MB, it will fit on anything you can boot from.
Restoring the image to a new workstation is just as easy. I just boot off of the external USB drive, select the proper image and in about five minutes the computer is booting into the Windows mini-setup.
Ghost 9.0 is worthless for what I do, because it is designed to work within Windows. My images must be made when Windows isn't running. Symantec must have realized the issue, as they provide 2003 in the 9.0 package.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost 9 Works Great, As Advertised!by canaima - May 2, 2005
Pros: * Easy To Use * Ability To Schedule BackUps *Straightforward Approach
Cons: * Inability To Backup Small Portions, Such As Folders - Must BackUp Entire Drive
Review: This program works extremely well for entire drive backups. The scheduled backups run unerringly as well, cleanly & efficiently.
There's not too much of a learning curve, but it does require a bit of plain,common sense to use. Although it's extremely easy to use, if you expect to be spoon-fed by NORTON every step of the way, this program, && every other program that exists) isn't for you. The HELP file is there to help you, but you shouldn't need to refer to it too frequently, if at all. Make sure you have no disk errors prior to using - run Scandisk first. Don't know how? Just force-shutdown your computer off with the power button and restart it again, letting it scandisk the drive. This is a very crude, but effective way, of doing it if you're inexperienced and don't want to actually learn how. Like everything else in life, do a little homework first before tackling anything & you shouldn't have any probolems using this program, it's THAT straightforward.
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Its a bate and switchby - March 18, 2004
Pros: Few
Cons: It does not work as advertised. You have to pay for it and then pay for an upgrade to get it to work
Review:
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It's cloned everything I haveby - January 24, 2004
Pros: I've never had a problem, I've used both 2002 & 03, I've restored my system countless times from viruses, incompatible software, and just deleting the wrong stuff. Ghost explorer is a great item, you can pick out individual files that you want to res
Cons:
Review:
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Raid0by - January 16, 2004
Pros: Works fine until I converted my system to a 10,000RPM Raid configration.
Cons: Don't use if you have a Raid0 configration. It will create a DOS partion and will force you to rebuild your entire Operating System
Review:
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
can't get it to finsh an image b/u !by - January 7, 2004
Pros: don't know since the stinking thing gives me errors when trying to close a finshed cdr/cdrw.
Cons: won't get through writing a cdr/cdrw. getting close errors which their site said its not compatible to my burner, but they tested it ok.
Review:
User Rating: 1.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
keeps crashing when finishing burning cd !!!!!!!!!!each cdclosingby - January 1, 2004
Pros: features look good enough and manual is thorough with good help from web site
Cons: keep getting error 3 on close cd/dvd after writing to cd drive even though drive was 'successfully tested'per symantec. tried multiple cdr/cdrw media including those labled high speed. tried toning down write spped and increased virtual partition area. pi
Review:
User Rating: 2.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It's a Trusted Productby - December 12, 2003
Pros: Yes it uses the old style Dos interface but it works solid. It backs up to DVD and external Harddrives flawlessly. Yes its slow but what backup program isnt ? I've done a restore for testing and as with any Symantic product it's been reliablel after inita
Cons: $ 25 support fee if you need it.
Review:
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Archaic overcomplicated softwareby - November 25, 2003
Pros: Detailed user guide, nice interface.
Cons: Won't work if mouse drivers aren't loaded in back up. Won't work or subfolder on mapped network drive. Won't burn if you do not include old MS-DOS from an old computer. Won't work if you do not include drivers. 200+ page book to understand all the intrica
Review:
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Solid TOOL built on solid tech footing.by - November 7, 2003
Pros: It's nice to get something that simply does what it is supposed to, After getting a second drive for expansion and, specifically, backup purposes. I installed the NG2003 component from my SW2003 CD on my Win XP Home Edition system. While I ran the NG20
Cons: NG2003 does require the user to be somewhat technically competent and be able and willing to read instructions. The package tries to cover all possible hardare configurations, so a newbie might become confused/overwhelmed as to what information does or d
Review:
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost Rules!!by - October 4, 2003
Pros: Code Abort Message Action 8004 The -sure and -batch switches are not allowed in evaluation copies Using an evaluation copy. To use these switches, purchase Ghost. 8005 You may NOT run GHOST.EXE when the SoftIce debugger (nis loaded remove SoftIce and r
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Review:
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Resurrected my Computer from the Graveby - September 23, 2003
Pros: Like other posts, I believe running in DOS is also a benefit in that its way more reliable than MS Windows. Was able to restore a three partition 22 gig in 23 minutes and without a hitch, which came as a pleasant surprise since previous attempts to clone
Cons: Cloning and restoring partitions is a little clunky, could not get it to recognize the OS on restore.
Review:
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
crashes after getting 99% through backupby - September 10, 2003
Pros: can't see any as I can't get it to work
Cons: doesn't work, it crashes 99% of the way backing up to cd/r.
Review:
User Rating: 1.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Cloning doesn't work correctlyby - August 24, 2003
Pros: The only reason I purchased the product was to do cloning. I didn't try any of the other parts of the product.
Cons: I have tried to clone my C drive 6 times and everytime I have gotten different results. There was one folder that didn't get its contents copied at all, for no apparent reason. The Program Files folder and the Windows folder (I am using ME) never got copi
Review:
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Bought it yesterday - saved me today!!by - July 3, 2003
Pros: I purchased Norton Ghost 2003 2 days ago & backed up my hard drive yesterday on 5 cd's. Today I downloaded a program called Zip Genius & when I went to uninstall it I noticed my hard drive spinning continuously for 5 minutes. Then a window appear
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Review:
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
WORKS PERFECTLY STRAIGHT OUT OF THE BOX!!!by - July 1, 2003
Pros: First, I like Symantec's upgrde discount policy and their 60 day refund and download policy. It is very important WHO you buy from so in case you want to download again or get a refund you don't have hassels and that is why I look at Symantec 1st and give
Cons: None
Review:
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Symantec GHost 2003 bad idea!by - June 28, 2003
Pros:
Cons: What kind of application developer does Symantec have? Knowing this will run in DOS why didn't they not include driver supports for all devices. TOo lazy? Let windows handle it? Sure, windows can handle it but the problem is norton ghost develop this t
Review:
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Good...but needs better support for external drivesby - June 18, 2003
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Cons:
Review: Symantec claims this program fully supports external drives, however, the program (even after a liveupdate) will not recognize my External USB 2.0 80GB Seagate Drive. I am disappointed. But aside from that, I must say the program has proven to be reliable and effective.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Easy to use, almost idot proofby - June 18, 2003
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Review: I recently built a new system, which included the addition of a new hard drive to replace a primary drive 8GB full. My biggest concern was my operating system, Windows XP. I added the new drive as a slave and copied my entire primary drive in a matter of 25 minutes, switched the new drive to the primary and hooked up my old slave drive in the origional configuration and just like the product promised my system booted like nothing had changed with the exception of lots of free space avalible on my new pirmary drive. And I consider myself to be virtually computer illiterate! Great Product!
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
people...read the instructions!by - June 18, 2003
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Review: This is a great piece of software. All of these complaints about external devices??!?! I imaged a hard drive to an external usb2 cdrw drive. There is an OPTION which gives you support for this. Nortan scans your PC and tells which external device you'd like to give functionality to. Geez, just READ the instructions folks! And what's this about taking a long time? This is for making an image. To protect your data. If you need to do this every second of the day, then get a harddrive back up server. C'mon people, just read.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
DOS=Good!by - June 18, 2003
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Review: lots of people don't like DOS but it is actually more stable than Windows. the fact that Ghost uses DOS is good, because if you want to restore an OS with it you can because it boots up in dos. is the Ghost gui really that hard to use?
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
dont waste your moneyby - May 4, 2003
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Review: Me and a friend have messed around with ghost for three days trying to restore a OS with a disk burned image, not one success yet !! Even when a integrity checks are done, and r ok , it still doses not install, and just stuffs ur whole computer
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Cannot recommend at allby - May 1, 2003
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Review: In summary: Norton Ghost 2003's support for external USB drives is very poor (if non existent). If anyone wants to use it to clone or backup drives to external USB drives, this product will not serve you well. I have ThinkPad X30 (1.1) and purchased 40 Gb USB drive (in USB 2.0 enclosure). Norton Ghost 2003 could not recognize this drive at all. I spent lots of time and tried to make it work. Good news: Acronis True Image 6.0 worked perfectly. Acronis will even sell True Image to Norton Ghost users for $9.99. This product is clearly trying to capitalize on its brand name as opposed to its capabilities.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Used it on countless machinesby - April 20, 2003
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Review: I have been using norton ghost for years. Now using V7 and never had a problem on countless machines from off-lease suppliers. Its not a backup utility it a clone utility. If you buy it for backup and give it a thumbs down its your own fault
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Nothing but trouble!!Run from Ghost 2003by - April 15, 2003
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Review: Is there such a thing a reliable disk imaging program that works with USB 2.0 External drives, and actually does what its makers claim it will do? I tried Drive Image-("We don't have any USB 2.0 drivers-license too expensive") then This disaster Ghost 2003-I refuse to pay $30 a call for live support-the online support takes a day for them to answer any question for the most part and even then the answers are usually simplistic and point the finger at almost any other product. I found the entire experience maddening. I also lost my HD contents and as of this writing, I am still attempting to restore an image (33GB) that took me 15 hours to create.
User Rating: 3.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Great for two internal drives - but Firewire forget it....by - April 9, 2003
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Cons:
Review: Perfect application for backups between two internal drives. However I bought it to back up to a firewire drive and have had nothing but issues. Symantec support - even paid - is apalling
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
***DESTROYED*** MY PARTITIONS!!!by - March 22, 2003
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Review: I had to reinstall my whole f*ing computer because the Ghost 2003 windows restore app rewrote over my existing partitions!!! Do not buy this product!!! The Ghost 2003 DOS utility is good, because it lets you burn directly to CDR and does not destroy your hard drive, but it is not worth the cost of product. Download that from Kazaa or something. (www.kazaalite.nl).
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Works rather well I'd say.by - March 21, 2003
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Cons:
Review: Not a whole lot to say other than it works. I was able to create a solid working image to a backup HD and a working split image that I manually burned to CDs. I was able to extract copies of both images and boot into them without problem. I don't understand what the problem is with having to boot to DOS, the program has a gui interface, at no point do you have to use the command prompt (with the exception of entering command switches while in windows). No comment on mapped drives or network function which have been driving many nuts, don't use it. Overall not too bad, but I'd rather use Acronis True Image.
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Works Like a Champ!!!!by - March 13, 2003
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Review: It's amazing how evenly split the reviews for this product are. I had a great experience with NG2003 right out of the box. I never read a single page of the manual. I installed, rebooted, made a backup of my 120G hard drive, made a boot disk, booted up to the boot disk and verified the backup. This application is so easy to use. I really question others who say it is too difficult. If you want a proven backup application look no further.
User Rating: 1.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
This program has seen its best days and should be retired.by - March 9, 2003
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Review: I purchased and installed Ghost 2003 on a pc running Windows 2000. Because this program always runs in DOS to save an image, it is very time consuming if you have to make any script changes and try them because of all the reboot time. There was no DOS driver for my ethernet network module which was built into my D845PESV Intel motherboard. I wanted to test a peer-to-peer connection with another pc. It took several hours of playing around to take the DOS driver from my motherboard driver cd and load it into Ghost. There were no directions on how to do this. Thinking I wanted to buy another copy of Ghost for my wife's Windows 98 pc, I did an install and test run. What a disaster that was. After 12 hours I could get it to function ok, but it wouldn't write the file index for the image at the end and kept going with the file counter running negative. I had to forcibly shut down the program with ctrl-c which they don't tell you. I promptly uninstalled Ghost and decided I will buy a copy of Acronis True Image 6.0 for the Win98 pc. I will make due on my Win 2000 pc for now since I invested the money already. The other thing that bothered me a lot is that all this excess "live update" baggage comes with the program and it tries to consolidate other Symantec applications in one window to access. This makes a mess if you need to do an uninstall and you want the other Symantec applications left alone. Thumbs down on Ghost 2003.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
BETTER THAN THE REST!!by - February 21, 2003
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Review: I'm a big Symantec user and I found Ghost2K3 better than the rest of the products out there. I actually prefer the function of booting up into DOS to restore or backup an image. I managed to create and span a 12Gb partition onto 4 CDR's with WinXp, OffXP, and other pre-installed software so if I do have to restore It's a matter of shutting down XP, setting up the PC to boot off the CDROM, pop in CDR 1 of 4 and choose my options - which are usually the defaults - NO FLOPPIES REQUIRED. I've restored a couple of times with no problems. Bottom line GHOST2K3 IS THE BETTER AND EASIER PRODUCT COMPARED TO POWERQUEST OR ANY OTHER SOFTWARE OUT THERE.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost convert? Yes, probably.by - February 10, 2003
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Review: I bought version 2002 about 18 months ago but didn't bother to use it as I found it difficult to use, i.e. it didn't seem user friendly. At about the same time, I discovered Drive Image and this seemed more user friendly etc., and so have been using this ever since. However, on occasions I've experienced problems with this, so I thought I'd give Ghost another chance. Rather than 2002, I thought I'd try the latest version 2003 to see if it's any better and easier to use. Ok, so the progam executes in DOS, but so what? As long as the progam works and does what it's supposed to do then that's what matters, rather than some fancy graphical interface. Anyway, I installed the prog and made an image of my hard drive - about 7GB worth. It compressed this down to about 3.5 GB and what's more, did it in half the time that Drive Image normally takes. I noted that Ghost was writing data at a rate of around 400Mb/minute, whereas the best that Drive Image ever managed is about 200Mb/ minute. The setup meant that I could also do an integrity check on the final image, which it checked at a rate of about 1600Mb/minute. All in all, in about 20 minutes I had an image of my hard disk. I'd say that the program works - it does what it says on the box. Drive Image also drops into DOS to create the image, so I don't know what the reviewer is going on about. Ghost 2003 does have a better windows interface so you don't have to do everything from within DOS. What matters is that it works. My first attempt has been a success and if it's more stable than Drive Image, then I'll stick to Ghost. This doesn't mean that I've abandoned Drive Image, but I'm more likely to use Ghost for my c drive partition than use Drive Image. Drive Image for me has always been a bit unpredictable - different kinds of errors too often. All I want is something that works and is reliable. Ghost does this (or has done so, so far). I give it the thumbs up.
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost 2003 does what it says, but is not for the faint-hearted!by - February 7, 2003
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Review: Although I do not whole-heartedly endorse Ghost 2003, it does what it says it does, and I believe probably better than competing products (TrueImage, DriveImage). However, I still think it is expensive for what it does, and the market is ripe for a better product to come along. Good: - The DOS-oriented nature of Ghost 2003 is a benefit, not a hindrance. When you are dealing with disaster recovery, having a utility that can boot from a single floppy disk is critical. My hard-drive was failing intermittently. However, I did manage to create an image from it and restore the image, all using a single floppy disk: no hassling with Windows, or worrying about attempting to backup files inaccessable under Windows. Who cares about having a Windows interface when you are trying to restore a hard-drive?!? (Note: Other Products, although claiming Windows operability, state that you have to create a clean Windows partition in order to boot into Windows. There is no way that I would have been able to restore my hard-drive that way!) - The on-line technical support is alright: I managed to find out I had to get a LiveNet update to solve some issues without e-mailing anyone. - Creating the image took about 1/2 hr for 10GB. Restoring took about 20 minutes. Considering this is over FireWire, I was pretty happy with that. Bad: - The version of the software I bought did not work with my Firewire external drive. However, getting a NetLive update fixed the problem. - The rebooting into DOS via a virtual partition from Windows never worked properly for me. Just hung at a certain point. I just created a standard Ghost boot disk and used that instead. Not sure what users without a floppy disk should do. - I wish they would just put all of the Ghost utilities on a floppy disk as well, especially for reformatting a disk. What is you want to reformat a drive from a laptop with only one internal hard-drive bay? - The documentation is poor. It pretends that the utility is easy to perform and states things very simplistically without really describing some of the more advanced behavior. - The on-line tutorials and help has the same problem: simplistic. - There are some restrictions with NTFS. For example, the CRC32 check is only on a volume basis, not a file-by-file basis, and the Ghost Explorer can only operate in read-only mode for NTFS. This seems strange to me: NTFS has been around for a long time! Why would you use anything else under Windows 2000 Pro? Summary: - Ghost 2003 does what it says. Some of the features are limited (esp. NTFS). The effort at developing slick documentation and on-line help/tutorials would have been better spent at beefing up the features. The attempt at Windows/DOS integration was a complete failure for me. Expensive, but worth the time it saved for me (about 5 to 10 hours of mindless reinstallation).
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
CNET rating system: ignorantby - January 30, 2003
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Review: i've tried them all and recomend ghost. DOS mode is more stable than windows. it's the only way to insure a correct image of your disk. windows can crash, DOS cant... if you are ignorant: use a windows GUI, it's EASIER but not BETTER. if u want results: use ghost
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Symantec Swings and Misses With Norton Ghost 2003by - January 28, 2003
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Review: Norton Ghost 2003 promises a lot, but for me and many others, it failed to deliver anything but trouble. Those are difficult words for me to utter, as I am a long-time fan of Symantec products and a successful user of Norton Ghost 2002, which I recommend in my latest book, PC Fear Factor: The Ultimate PC Disaster Prevention Guide. First, the positive news about NG 2003. This latest version of Ghost has many great new features, including a Windows based user interface for launching backups (to replace the DOS user interface), support for more internal CD writers, support for some USB and firewire CD writers, and support for some DVD writers. The user can now set a password on his hard disk backup without having to run Ghost using a command line switch, a task that would vex most mortal PC users. In addition, the product comes with some truly outstanding interactive tutorials that help compensate for the (still) Einsteinian product documentation. 99% Doesn't Cut It Unfortunately, it all goes for naught for me, as the product crashed during my hard disk backup. A number of people who have tried Norton Ghost 2003 get 99% of the way through the backup, only to have Norton Ghost crash on the last CD. Some have reported far more serious problems, including damage to their hard disk's boot sector. My experience was similar, with a twist. Norton Ghost 2003 crashed on the last CD when my hard disk backup was 99% complete, and then my system then exhibited the following strange behavior: It ejected the CD, and then immediate retracted it again into the drive before I could even take it out. My computer then automatically booted up into Windows, and that is when the really strange things happened. When my computer booted up, I saw, for the first time ever (and I have had this computer for more than two years) the Windows 98 set up screen, which required me to enter my name. My computer then displayed the Windows 98 product key entry screen. Fortunately for me, the product key was pre-filled in so I was able to continue to boot up. I should note that I was using NG 2003 on the same computer that I have successfully backed up and restored many times using NG 2002. I should also note that prior to running NG 2003 I ran live update to download the latest program fixes, so I was in fact working with the latest, greatest version of the software. To add insult to injury, when I tried to uninstall NG 2003 and reinstall NG 2002, I was unable to do so. Apparently, the Norton Ghost uninstall program does not work properly. Ultimately, I was forced to restore my hard disk from my most recent NG 2002 backup in order to get NG 2002 reinstalled on my hard disk. In other words, NG 2003, which is supposed to help you recover from hard disk disasters, caused a hard disk disaster for me. So for me and many others, NG 2003 gets a big thumbs down. And that's a shame, because it would be a big improvement in ease-of-use and functionality over NG 2002 had it actually worked. Having said all of the above, there are many users who have reported positive experiences with the product. What happened to this great product? I am guessing that the newer your computer, the more likely you are to have a positive experience with NG 2003. I also wonder if an incomplete uninstall of NG 2002 caused a corrupted install of NG 2003. I also suspect that Symantec added so many new features to NG 2003 that they didn't have time to test it adequately, but again this is just speculation on my part. What Should You Do? Given the dangers, there is certainly no need to upgrade if you are currently (successfully) using NG 2002, and I think that many are likely to find more success with NG 2002 than NG 2003. If you do decide to use NG 2003, you should be aware of the following: Symantec left out the most important interactive tutorial of all: disaster recovery. Symantec's hard disk restore tutorial assumes that you can still boot into Windows and launch the hard disk restore from within Windows. This is certainly not the case if you have experienced a hard disk crash, or if a computer virus for badly behaved application has trashed your hard disk to the extent that you can no longer boot up. The documentation does not clearly state which emergency boot disc you will need to create to facilitate an emergency disaster recovery. It is the last option among four choices (CD/DVD Startup Disk with Ghost). This option creates a floppy boot disc that includes generic drivers to access your optical drive to restore your backup. (Note: if your computer's BIOS is set to include your optical drive in its' boot sequence, you won't need the floppy boot disc. However, it is a good idea to create one just in case. And I should also mention that in NG 2003, this process actually creates a set of two floppy discs.) If you are currently using NG 2002 and wish to switch to NG 2003, take a complete backup of your hard disk prior to uninstalling NG 2002 and installing NG 2003. You may need to restore from this backup, as I did, should NG 2003 not work properly, and it is always preferable to install from a current backup. I am sure that Symantec will eventually get it right, although I fear we may have to wait until Norton Ghost 2004. If you do not own either version of Norton Ghost, I would suggest that you try NG 2002 first if your CD-writer is supported under Norton Ghost 2002. You can purchase it on eBay for as little as $15. Then I suggest that you forego the Einsteinian user documentation and follow the detailed, step-by-step illustrated instructions for using Norton Ghost 2002 that are found in PC Fear Factor. (Frankly, I wish Symantec would engage me to write their documentation.) Of course, if your CD writer is only supported by the latest version of Norton Ghost, you will have to purchase NG 2003 if you want to use this product. Hopefully, your experience will be better than mine. Finally, I would urge Symantec to dedicate its resources to making Norton Ghost 2004 a stable, reliable application, rather than adding any new features to the product.
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Does the job, very well.by - January 16, 2003
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Review: I installed ghost just to see how well it worked and i was impressed. I made a backup of a bare bones configuration (WinXP SP1, Office XP SP2, all drivers, bare essentials...) 3.8gigs worth of stuff, ghost easily fit it on 2 CDS and will restore the lot in under 20mins on my athlonxp 1800+ you can't argue with that. I also see that dos is a good thing, its tons more stable than windows and gives you full, unrestricted access to everything, it has pretty menus and stuff so most users shouldn't have any issues with understanding it all. All in all, it does what it should and is a top product.
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It worked for meby - January 14, 2003
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Review: Bought the retail box, installed on XP Pro, ran LiveUpdate. Ghosted the XP boot drive to a network drive -- the only glitch there is you can't use a UNC path, must be a Windows drive map already established. Big deal. The ~9GB hard drive compressed down to about 5GB (I selected max compression); took only about 30 mins. to create the image. Next created a Ghost boot disk. This was a little more troublesome as I had some trouble finding the right DOS NDIS2 driver, but once I had the right driver, there was no further issue. Boot the system to that disk (PC DOS), system maps to the remote system with the Ghosted image. Run Ghost. Restore. No problem -- worked perfectly. This is exactly what I want & need. Me happy.
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
NO Firewire Support and not 100% reliableby - January 2, 2003
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Review: The program contains bugs that can screw your whole computer (happened to me twice), then it does not work with firewire, techsupport sucks too. A backup software should be 100% reliable, and when firewire support is advertised then I expect it. Symantec used to have great products, but they really suck now. Norton Ut. is a joke, as well as the Cleansweep Suit, and Ghost since with Symantec sucks too.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Highly effective, great features.by - January 1, 2003
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Review: I'm in the IT field and use this product daily. It is wonderful. I keep images of base-OS installs and machines that have "trouble" users. I can have a user back up and running in 15 minutes because of Ghost no matter what they do to their PC. What's not to love?
User Rating: 2.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Fails to oftenby - December 16, 2002
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Review: On many different types of machines and many differnt instances on he same hardware I get "Enter the next disk in the span" when there is only one disk or "This disk was not created with Norton Ghost" when it as just created just a few minutes earlier. If you do use it check your image after you create it and turn off CRC checking in the "Options".
User Rating: 2.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost 7.5 does not support Win XP image for laptopsby - December 8, 2002
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Review: That is not the first time that I tried to transfere WinXP Home or Prof. from 20 GB HDD of IBM thinkpad/Compaq Presario to similar hard drive with even same sector size. It never worked out in NTFS mode. When I connect imaged HDD to a desktop system, at least reach to boot.ini level, but not in laptops.....
User Rating: 1.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Don't buy to Image to Firewireby - December 6, 2002
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Review: I only bought this because it says it will image to Firewire Drive. Whatever I do, it won't and looking at the support site, many others are having the same problem
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Better then Everby - November 30, 2002
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Review: I can't believe complaints about Ghost using DOS. Any computer tech knows the problem of using pure Windows to backup / copy itself. A program in Windows will - not - copy or backup system files that are in use. Symantec wisely uses DOS outside of Windows so - ALL - files are correctly included in the backup. I work on a tech team and we always have to fall back on DOS commands when Windows fails. So beware programs that use Windows to copy / backup itself.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It does what it is supposed to do.by - November 21, 2002
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Review: I have been using Ghost since well before Symantec bought the rights to the product. This program has always worked as advertised for me. Drive mapping is very handy, as well as the added option of Firewire/USB 2.0. Even works with Linux partitions. I also disagree with the reviewer. Who wants to install a base copy of windows in order to restore from your ghost backup? Booting from DOS takes 15 seconds. The utility is simple, because that it what it is *designed* for. Windows based drive imaging? Give me a break! I suppose if that makes people happy, let them use something else, at least I do not have to support them.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
works great for xp!by - November 12, 2002
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Review: I wanted to upgrade my hard drive that had XP Home on it and I tried several disk utilities and none of them worked. I bought Norton Ghost 2003, installed it and 40 mins. later I had my new hard drive up and running with ZERO problems. I had a 20GB. drive, DOS or not 40 mins. is fast.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It's a good toolby - November 8, 2002
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Review: My experiences with it thus far have been great. I will mention, however, that when working with HARDWARE RAID, be cautious. G2003 still doesn't support it and some hardware RAID 5 will cause lockups. But as a backup tool for your system it's a great imaging system.
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Yes it does Workby - October 28, 2002
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Review: To all those ppl whinging about this program being a DOS based program as someone pointed out DOS is more reliable than WIndows O/S also there are hidden or locked files that Windows will not release for backup/imaging purposed so it has to be done in DOS so all files are unlocked. and to the tech who whinged YOU should have known this for starters abd you call yourself a computer NERD maybe a Computer JERK more like it. Sure Norton Ghost is basic but it does work and is more reliable than ANy Microsoft Product,
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
A Hidden Strengthby - October 28, 2002
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Review: Norton Ghost 2003 is the absolute best. True, it lacks in the user friendly area, but if you trust in Microsoft Windows, you will eventually be disappointed. Therefore the DOS aspect, is a strength, not a weakness. One reason I use a backup utility in the first place, is because Windows will not boot if it is messed too bad. DOS never fails, and it is forever.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Wow! This Norton Ghost 2003 is GREAT!by - October 20, 2002
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Review: First time I've used the Ghost, and very impressed at what a good job it does of cloning the hard drive. I don't mess with backing up data to CD's, too much hassel, much easier to clone the whole hard drive because it saves all your system with all it's setting, all you software programs with all their settings, plus all your data. If you ever have a problem with your Hard Drive, just unplug it, and plug in your cloned backup hard drive, and you are instantly back up and running! No having to RESTORE anything! No having to reinstall and set up applications again! It's ESAY! It's a SNAP to to daily backups this way! It's the only way to go! The Backup is Soooo Easy, and smooth. I turn off computer, pop off side cover, plug in 2nd hard drive to the IDE Ribbon cable middle connector, plug power connector into 2nd hard drive, boot up system, Launch NORTON GHOST, select GHOST ADVANCED, Select CLONE WIZARD, Select drive #1 as source, select drive #2 as destination, Click OK through a few screens, and away you go! It will shut down the computer and restart the computer in DOS (which is fine), and copy drive one to drive two. It copies my Windows XP system hard drive with 20 GB of data on it in LESS than 20 minutes, then automatically reboots the computer back to windows. Then just shut the computer down and remove the second hard drive and store it in a safe place, and you are totally protected against calamity and virus's! It's really GREAT and I really love it! It's the BEST software I ever bought! Big AL
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
2003 is great!by - October 17, 2002
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Review: 2003 works great here for image backup from notebook at external hd via firewire: about 400mb/minute! my boot partition (appr. 12gb) was imaged that way within 25 minutes! really great. restoring image from external hd to boot hd via firewire took about same time - and was bootable! absolutely great tool! no faults at all. easy handling. all with winxp/home.
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Lost everything on my diskby - October 14, 2002
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Review: When I used ghost to create my backup on Dell Inspiron 5000 with Win 2000, the system kept saying the drive no longer had any software. What a nightmare: I had to rebuild all from scratch. I ama professional IT administrator, yet I couldn't get ghost to repair its mistake. Run like the wind from this terrible product
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Dangerous at best!by - October 11, 2002
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Review: Don’t even think about using this product to back up to a second drive! It trashes the boot sector (I think) so that Windows no longer sees the drive. After 3 attempts and numerous postings to the Symantec site the response from tech service was “From the error logs, I can see that there was a preexisting drive geometry issue with your drives” and “Unfortunately, I don't believe we will be able to recover the data on your 2nd drive.” My response to them was why wouldn’t any responsible programmer (and I use the term loosely in their case) first check the “geometry” of a drive before proceeding to alter the boot sector. Not only was my response not posted but there has been no further response from them to either my posts or to the other person who complained about the same problem.
User Rating: 2.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
DOS Dinasaurby - October 9, 2002
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Review: It could seem my USB 2.0 connected CDRW drive or my USB 2.0 120 GB drive. Acronis True Image could see both AND I didn't have to "live in the past" (No DOS mode needed...)
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Great Program!!by - October 9, 2002
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Review: I purchased the download upgrade for Ghost 2003. In about 5 minutes, I was ready to do my first backup. Ghost 2003 worked flawlessly with my Pioneer DVD writer. In fact I made the 9 GB image onto a single DVD-R perfectly the first try. The total time was only about 50 minutes! I was amazed how simple everything was and straight forward. I agree that working in DOS instead of windows is a strength. The reason I even use an imaging program is because Windows is not always reliable especially when you like to make a lot of changes frequently. I tried to use Drive Image 2002 and could not get it to make a backup even to CD-R much less a DVD-R. It kept getting an error 1805 after completing about 8% of the backup. It was very frustrating!! I have used both Ghost and Drive Image before and this helped jumpstart the process for me. The ability to use, local hard disks, mapped network drives, CD writers and DVD writer makes Ghost 2003 the perfect program for me. This may be the last backup program I ever buy!!!! Great Job with this sofware Symantec!!
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Easy Choice over Drive Imageby - October 8, 2002
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Review: While the reviewer comments on lack of integration with Windows, I find that to be a moot point. In fact, I find the single bootable DOS disc to be a great advantage. The single purpose I've always had for ghost is upgrading my machine/other machines to new HDs.. something that, in the end, is easy to do with equipment lying about and one boot disk. Which is a nicety. Drive Image makes a two disc set for a "boot disc" and even then, it's set doesn't offer the feature advantages of Ghost. Ghost is fast, and it's compressable format works well. Ghost works better then any other product at managing non-windows platforms; Ghost successfully made runs and copies of Mandrake Linux discs for clients - something DI didn't even try to do. I get it, everyone wants everything to be in Windows. But for what ghost does, it's strengths really shine through. Any day of the week I'd pick this product for it's management of other file systems and easy, one boot disc complete system over anything else on the market.. which don't offer that nice of a solution
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost 2003 is what I neededby - October 7, 2002
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Review: I'm an average user who needed to make an Image of system drives. Ghost 2002 was good (saved my butt a number of times)but 2003 with DVD media support is a god-send. I can now create images on 2-3 4.7GB disc instead of 10-15 CD-R's.
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Ghost is fineby - October 5, 2002
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Review: geez, i installed 40 comps at a time for months using ghost, took 15 mins a pop with win 2000, whats to complain about?
User Rating: 3.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Network backup is great!by - October 3, 2002
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Review: I recently looked into a utility that would let me backup and recover quickly in case of a hard drive crash. For my Windows machines I decided to buy Norton Ghost 2003 since Drive Image did not let me backup Windows 2000 Server unless I buy a more expensive version. At first I had trouble backing up over the network to my Samba server because my NIC didnt have a Dos driver(Netgear FA310TX,FA311,FA311). Finally I tried my 3Com Etherlink(3C905C-TX) and it worked great. I tried Peer-to-Peer between my Windows 2000 Advance Server and Windows XP Pro. I also tried backing up to my Samba server and all works great. Norton Ghost 2003 works for me. It does what I need to do. I see some negative reviews but I think it depends on what you want to do.
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
This is a Toyby - October 1, 2002
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Review: I am a hardcore computer junkie since the days of S100 card cages. I have always admired, used, and looked forward to new Norton product releases. Until now. I originall bought Ghost 2002, but found out the hard way that the backup would not restore (reminds me of the old DOS backup utility FastBack which never actually worked--the business owners reasoned that by the time the few who needed it realized they had been had, they would be long gone with their money). I upgraded to Ghost 2003 to use the drive mapping feature. No go. I tried everyting an experienced network engineer could think of (I have spent the better part of my career writing device drivers and protocol stacks--i.e. I have been an OS systems engineer for over 20 years). Line traces only proved what I had suspected--this code is amatuer hour at it best, and not not even up to programming 101 standards. Was this BS farmed out overseas to some guys that only heard of PCs a month ago? I have lost faith in what was once a great company. The name 'Peter Norton' will now forever be shamed. He sold-out, and now Symantec has sold-out. Shame be on both. My advice: save yourself the grief and money that have been the hallmarks of this product (i.e. cannot backup much more than ~15G--EVER--, does not actually validate backups--I found out the hard way on CD #18, even Ghost couldn't make head nor tail of it even though it claimed to have not only created it, but validated its contents--what total BS, mapped drives is a joke--it will not work consistently, and I have never been able to do even one complete backup to date. This is a product that was rushed to market in order to prop-up Symantec's bottom line in a tough Tech sector. They are abusing their goodwill. They will learn the hard way that goodwill should never be squandered. I will no longer consider Symantec products for my shop, my customers, nor myself personally. What a piece.
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
teckie's favoriteby - October 1, 2002
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Review: as a tech, i use this program quite often. i am entirely pleased with it. it is my favorite from this category. it may not be completely intuitive, but if you read a little bit, you can figure it out fairly easily. i have had no problems with it yet - and i've been using it since norton utilities 4.0!!!
User Rating: 4.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
DOS Operation is A Plusby - October 1, 2002
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Review: I use Ghost with a bootable CD ROM with a batch menu with command prompts Ghost commands. Any of my clients use this method with no computer training. Since it works in DOS I dont have to load Windows to perform backup and retore operations
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
It was my First, It will be my Last Utility.by - September 30, 2002
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Review: I was weaned on DOS with help from Norton Commander, I saved many a file and drive with NU's. If you check into the code for scandisk/Defrag it's no other but Symantec!. Bill knows who's the best. Any body that complains about DOS, Hey they made Windows for you, they made it so easy any one without the brains to blow there nose can use it! What happened to all my files and icons?.
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
No need for windows!!by - September 30, 2002
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Review: Why would you want to do a disk image in windows? a) it is slower because you cannot do direct disk access in Windows NT/200/XP. b) you cannot backup a drive to restore user data if you cannot boot to windows c) you cannot load an image until you have installed windows. It makes sense to do disk imaging under DOS. Why can't the reviewer see this! Obviously they have never used the product and have never done PC support. DOS based imaging is a god send to support personnel
User Rating: 0.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
DOS base not a weaknessby - September 30, 2002
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Review: Ghost does what it is supposed to do. Heaven forbid that Norton will move to a Windows-based Ghost and eliminate the stability of it's DOS base. We depend on it 100% and have never had troubles.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
For copying old hard drive to new hard driveby - September 26, 2002
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Review: Ghost works in dos, that it may setup the partion of the drive and format and copy files from old hard drive to the new one without having to install windows first.
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Dreadful.by - September 26, 2002
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Review: The USB support only works with specific USB cables (not supplied.) These cables are unavailable anywhere in the nation's fourth largest city. Tech support took ten days to respond to email query on whereabouts of the cable and then deleted the above information from the posted version of my query. I asked for a refund.
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Mapped drives don't work...by - September 26, 2002
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Review: The product is fairly reliable for backing up a hard drive to a second in the same machine and it does well going to a CD/RW. But forget the interface for mapped drives. I checked this out and it's a pain for average users. The NDIS / Packet drivers for a lot of cards don't work, and Ghost wants you to use PCDOS to work in DOS. If you want to use MSDOS, get your own boot disk!! Many popular network cards are not included, and PCDOS always screws up the bindings to many cards. I don't know if the Enterprise 7.5 product is any better, but I'm going to try that. I just don't think Symantec wants you to use the home product for something the Enterprise product (more expensive) will do. Oh, the integration with System Works isn't great (graphical write problems) and the XML reports generated in "Documents and Settings" lead to appcompat problems with XP. This product needs work, but so does its competitors. Use it for simple imaging to backup your stuff, and then use Image Explorer to make sure it's there! At least the restore works; don't try PQ Drive Image Pro 2002 for that!
User Rating: 5.0 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Top productby - September 26, 2002
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Review: The speed of backup and reliability added to trouble free operation beats the other products hollow!!
User Rating: 4.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Great Capabilityby - September 26, 2002
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Review: Requires steep learning curve. However the fact that it runs in DOS mode is it's strength rather than a shortcoming. Windows is always unreliable. Making an image in DOS ensure a perfect backup rather than guesswork. Ghost 2003 finally supports USB and firewire harddrives. The best feature that was reserved for Corporate version is now finally available - Mapped Network drives. I totally disagree with CNET reviewer. It is great for what it does. DOS is a strength not a shortcoming.
User Rating: 1.5 stars
out of 71 user reviews
Added support for USB and Firewire devices doesn't work!!by - September 23, 2002
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Review: I purchased Ghost 2003 after being disappointed with Ghost 2002 and it's lack of support for external USB and firewire storage devices, as well as being basically a DOS based utilitiy. Well, sadly somethings never change. Ghost 2003 has a Windows GUI you can utilize to initiate a backup, but it still reboots your computer to PC-DOS to run. Although Ghost 2003 claims to include DOS drivers for USB 1.0 and 2.0 devices and firewire support, the only external device it recognized on my machine was my Zip 250 USB drive. My Maxtor firewire HD, USB CD-RW and Que USB 2.0 HD went completely unrecognized. Support for Windows XP is better, with disk images now being written to NTFS partitions. Unfortunately, the same DOS-based Ghost program still is the core of this app and is required to run to image all partitions, not just the boot drive (unlike Drive Image 2002 that can image other partitions while still in Windows). As a DOS based app, images in excess of 2 GB are automatically split up into 2 GB files - my 8GB image file is in reality 4 separate Ghost files. In addition, the Image Integrity check also needs to run via DOS mode and is exceptionally slow - an 8GB image file integrity check took almost 2 hours to run on my Athlon XP 2100+ machine. While this version of Ghost is marketed to home users, in all honesty, with this poor compatibility with external devices, it has limited practical use as a back-up tool (unless you plan on burning the image to multiple CD-R/RW disks, and even than isn't practical when 10, 15, 20 or more disks is needed, or use it to place the image files on a second internal drive). Ghost 2003 remains the same archaic DOS tool it always was. Symantec really needs to move past this DOS based approach and come up with a really modern tool. A really disappointing program for what still remains a DOS based app that costs $69.95 and you have to create your own boot disks for!
The good: Supports FireWire and USB external drives; supports removable drives, such as recordable CD and DVD drives.
