RE: [OT] Alternatives to Ghost for server builds.

["Paul Gordon" <paul@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

David,

I've always used PowerQuest DeployCenter (sic) for this purpose. - So much
so that for some time now whenever I have done server designs for customers
I always "reserve" a 10GB chunk of storage for precisely this
reason. One more than 1 occasion I've needed to use it as well!

I haven't touched Ghost for quite a number of years, but I am suprised that
it doesn't support W2K3 (well, perhaps not that surprised after all) - I
presume this is an entirely artificial limit designed to make you go and
purchase the next product up the line....

Some of the things I like about Powerquest include (and Ghost may do these
things as well, but like I said I haven't touched Ghost for ages...)

Scriptable - complete job can be scripted, including shutting down Windows,
saving or restoring an image, and rebooting to Windows again afterwards.
Virtual floppy - You don't need a CD or Floppy to boot from, - you can
configure a job that uses a virtual floppy image to boot from
Windows based image  browser - the compressed image files can be mounted
and browsed. Ideal for restoring a single file/folder etc.
Good network support - boot disk builder can make network boot floppies for
most combinations of NICs & networks

Using the above, I have created an icon on the desktop of my parent's PC,
that when run, automatically shuts down windows (with a pause to ask for
permission of course!), then reboots into a virtual floppy, takes an image
of the C: drive (with max compression), and finally reboots back into
Windows when complete. - the only interaction required from my parents is
to press "OK" right at the beginning in the message box that
tells them what is about to happen (i.e. Windows will shut down). - I could
even have omitted that part and run it as a scheduled job overnight if I
wanted to.

HTH

Paul G.




________________________________

From: ukha_d@xxxxxxx on behalf of David Chapman
Sent: Thu 06/10/2005 15:03
To: UKHA_D Group
Subject: [ukha_d] [OT] Alternatives to Ghost for server builds.



For years when building servers and PCs for HA and other uses I have taken
Norton (Symantec) Ghost images at each major step - nothing worse than it
all going pearshaped at the last stage as you load video drivers .... Being
able to boot from floppy or CD to DOS and restoring an image has been a
lifesaver.

For some reason Ghost 9 and 10 do not support Windows 2003 server and there
are a number of issues running old Ghost 2003 on newer hardware so I'm
looking for an alternative.

Ideallly something that will copy and compress a complete image of a
partition or disk to a file and allow me to quickly restore it from
bootable
media. Any suggestions ?

David C