A Question About Norton Ghost

[Nev71]

I have a second old IBM ThinkCentre computer with the Windows XP operating system on it that I mainly use for running 32 bit programs. Using Norton's Ghost nine version I have made a backup of the entire hard drive.
 
Now I intend to try and upgrade the operating system on that computer to the 32 bit version of Windows 7. However, first I want to wipe the hard drive clean before attempting to do the upgrade. Should the upgrade fail for some reason, and I have to return to Windows XP by using my Ghost backup file, will the restoration complete ok in view of the drive being previously wiped clean? That is, will Ghost be looking for any necessary information from the drive that it can't now find?  Hoping somebody can please advise on this issue.

[Lisa_maree]

Hi
If you have a cd with a bootable version of Ghost 9 then you would boot from the CD and access the backup. It doesn't need anything from the hard drive to do a restore.
Was the backup a complete copy of the Hard drive so if you swap out your existing drive it would boot and work. Or was it to an image file or files. If it is the latter then it would pay to check the backup will restore before you wipe the hard drive.

Better yet I  would get another hard drive to load Windows 7 onto. If you check around you may be able to get a drive for free  or a few dollars

[strollin]

You need to create a Restore CD or USB stick immediately.  Without a Restore disk, your backups are potentially useless.  Right now, you can only restore a backup if your computer is still bootable. However, if you encounter a situation where the drive completely failed or the computer cannot boot, you will have no way to restore the backup.  I've never used Ghost 9 but there should be someway to create a restore CD.  Do that now.  Also, as said above, make sure you do an image backup which is an exact copy of the drive.

The suggested idea to purchase a 2nd disk to do what you wish to do is a good idea and I have done that in the past.  If your computer is from the XT era, it's possible that it takes an IDE or PATA drive and not a SATA drive.  SATA drives are relatively inexpensive right now but PATA drives are becoming less available and more expensive.  Not sure what size drive you are looking for. It doesn't need to be the same capacity as the original, it can be larger or smaller than the original as long as it's capacity is large enough to fit the entire backup. You should be able to get a 250GB drive for less than $50 on Amazon or some place like that.

[Nev71]

Thank you Lisa and Strollin for your very helpful replies.  Yes, I didn't think it would matter if the drive had been wiped when a Ghost restoration had to be done, but I wanted to make sure. I do have the bootable proper Ghost disks for both versions 9 and 14 and my computer's boot up menu is properly arranged to allow booting up from them.  I don't think I will bother with installing a new hard drive at this stage but I do have a second ThinkCentre IBM computer to raid parts from if required. Yes, my Ghost backup is for the complete contents of the hard drive and is stored on a large modern flash drive.

I notice that the EaseUS Todo company in China seem to have a very popular replacement for Ghost now that they did not want to release a 64 bit version of their software. I use it on my modern laptop computer with Windows 7 64 bit system installed. It's user friendly and simple to use unlike programs like Acronis which I always found a little complex to use.

[Lisa_maree]

I notice that the EaseUS Todo company in China seem to have a very popular replacement for Ghost now that they did not want to release a 64 bit version of their software. I use it on my modern laptop computer with Windows 7 64 bit system installed. It's user friendly and simple to use unlike programs like Acronis which I always found a little complex to use.

You can make either a cd or pen drive to boot other computers with todo backup and use it for backup. Certainly this was the case up to the latest version which I think only allows restores. Perhaps to many people were using pen drives instead of buying the program hence why they changed it. If you have version 9 or earlier then the recovery media does both backup and restores.

[Nev71]

I will need to install the Todo backup and restore program on this IBM ThinkCentre as well as my laptop. Now I'm not sure if I'm allowed to put it on a second computer without paying them a second fee. I think they should allow people to put it on at least two computers for the one fee. I was going to try to clone the entire hard drive contents of the IBM with the Windows 7 32 bit system on it across to a high speed flash drive. Apparently it is capable of doing that. Then I could plug the flash drive into a modern laptop to run old 32 bit programs.

I may have struck a problem with this ThinkCentre project. I've just found the minimum requirements for the Windows 7 32 bit system are 1GHz CPU speed and 1GB of RAM.  Well I have 3GHz of CPU speed but only 512MB of RAM. I don't think I want to go trying to locate more RAM sticks for it so I might have to settle for the Vista operating system installed on it. However trying to buy the Vista installation disk for it may be difficult.

[Lisa_maree]

On other computers you boot from the recovery media which Todo backup allows you to make and do backups and restores as per above.

Lenovo's have a recovery partition and the option of making recovery media which you could do on the other Thinkcenter.

Or the one key recovery for Vista is available from here  https://support.lenovo.com/us/en/downloads/ds011503

I was going to try to clone the entire hard drive contents of the IBM with the Windows 7 32 bit system on it across to a high speed flash drive. Apparently it is capable of doing that. Then I could plug the flash drive into a modern laptop to run old 32 bit programs.

yes todo does that but often the copy of Windows on the pendrive shows as not activated and you need a separate windows key to activate it. Then when you start it on a different computer it can be the same deal. It doesn't get around windows licencing.   

[Nev71]

Hello Lisa,  Yes, I have made an "Emergency Disk" as the Todo people call it, and only a few months ago I had to make use of it to restore a hard drive's contents on a laptop computer. I'm pleased to say it worked perfectly!

As for your comment about "the one key recovery for Vista..." I presume that can only be done for a substantial fee.  Actually I'm thinking of buying a more modern laptop that will take the Windows 7 32 bit system because I really do prefer it to Vista.

I'm really surprised to hear that a cloned copy from a hard drive's computer would need a separate windows key to activate it. That's a neat trick how Microsoft manage that.  Perhaps then, the restoration of a hard drive that has just been completed by Ghost or Todo will require the operator to provide a Product Key again. It was mentioned in a reply to me by one of the technical people at Todo that my cloned OS on a Flash Drive would work as long as it could boot up different computers to the one it was cloned from.  That may turn out to be a problem. I would want it to boot up any modern computer and load the operating system.

[Lisa_maree]

As for your comment about "the one key recovery for Vista..." I presume that can only be done for a substantial fee.  Actually I'm thinking of buying a more modern laptop that will take the Windows 7 32 bit system because I really do prefer it to Vista.

The one key recovery for all Lenovo products is free there is no charge.

The clone to pen drive works on the hardware it was cloned from, the problem is when the hardware is different which is the same when you swap a hard drive from different hardware. That you may need a new licence key. I got really excited when I read todo backup could do the whole run from pen drive but in reality it doesn't work more than it works. 

A used Lenovo T430 should be really cheap and they are great Windows 7 laptops

 

[Nev71]

Thanks for that web address to download the Vista operating system from.  I had a quick look at it, and being from Lenovo it should be a very clean and a totally functional ISO.  By the way, I use Rufas to transfer my ISO files onto flash drives.  It's a great little program for that function. You probably use it yourself.

Also, I searched around on line and found a few Lenovo T430 second hand computers.  Yes, they look great, but here in Australia where I live, they are asking around 600 or so Australian dollars for them.  I could look for one on E-Bay where price tags are probably much lower, but you never know what your buying that way.  Perhaps I better throw in a few hundred extra dollars above that $600 and buy something new.  For a new computer, I gather a Lenovo is still a good choice?  By the way, how do you think such a computer would react to wiping it's hard drive clean and then installing the Wndows 7 32 bit system on it? This of course would only be a temporary installation until I got a clone of it across to a Flash Drive.  Once the OS on the flash drive checked out ok, I could then install the 64 bit version of Windows 7 onto the laptop's drive. I prefer it to Windows 10.

Lisa I gather you were not too impressed with your attempt to install a Windows OS onto a Flash drive?
"when I read todo backup could do the whole run from pen drive but in reality it doesn't work more than it works."