"But my question is, can I Use a blank 80gb HD to ghost 120 gb hd which is only quarter way full. Or do both of the HDs have to be the same size?" The blank HD has to be larger than 120GB.

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Hi Xp-No, they do not have to be the same size. BUT the master hd will overwrite all data on the hd being cloned. It will even create the proper partitions and overwrite any data on the cloned hd.

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XpUser- I consistently clone a 120 to a 40 and a 40 to a 20. No problem IF you use the floppie in dos.

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I don't use Ghost and assumed it doesn't compress the file. If I'm wrong, I stand corrected.

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Per, Theoretically speaking 120 to 40 means Ghost could compress the HD image by 60%...interesting What Ghost do you use?

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It doesn't compress any thing. You just must have enough space on the drive to clone the files to the HD. Then it creates a partition relative to the space on the master to accept the files on the cloned drive. It is a complete clone, bootable and copyable back to your master if you lose it. Been using it for years and has saved my butt many times when i became adventurous and trashed the primary HD.

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I am using ghost 2004 now, but is the same as 2003.

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Thanks for the info. I've been looking for Norton Ghost 2004 at CompUSA, Best Buy, Staples - to no avail. Any idea where they could be purchased?

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I just did a google search and it varies from $10 to $79. Nextag had a price thing. I have 2 machines that I have been using this on for years. I have the slide in/ slide/out trays and do a clone about once a week. Works great and as I said has saved my butt a few times. The trays are about $20 a piece. Don't have to open the case, just turn the machine off, slide in a tray with the hd , clone it, exit, turn off, slide the tray out and reboot.

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Thanks :::::-----)))))

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In answer to the original question, no the destination drive does not have to be the same size or bigger than the source drive. The only way you would need another 120GB would be if you have your current drive filled. If you have a 120GB drive 50% used then a 60GB might work if you save the image at high compression and Ghost compresses enough to make it fit. Look at the total amount of used space on your drive and plan on the destination drive needing to be larger than that. The key is that Ghost can create the image to fit the available partition size. When you go to restore it to the bigger drive you can have the restore use all of the space and the partition created will take the 120GB giving back all of the free space. Richard

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Richard- you are using the term image as opposed to the clone. They are not the same. an image can be compressed, a clone cannot. my response # 12 explains this.

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per, I got on a track thinking about images. Most of my ghosting uses this since I can save them to CD and rebuild without having to have a full size drive. No matter how you back up the working drive any backup is better than none. Richard

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Understand. I gave up on doing CD's. Too much time and Sometimes the don't work. I have been backing up {clone} to a hard drive for years. Takes about 10 mins. to clone 10 gigs.

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Hi there, per. You are obviously a man with lots of Norton Ghost experience. I have an 80 gb HD and I do a regular Ghost image of my C: drive to a 40gb external HD, but thankfully have never had to use it yet. I don't overwrite the old image, but delete it when the new one is sucessfully created. A couple of questions: What is the advantage of cloning the HD instead of creating an image? If I cloned my C: drive on to my removable HD. could I boot from it as a substitute if my main HD failed? My main HD has two partitions. ( C: and D: )Would cloning back up both of these? Does cloning only backup the portion of HD used... not the whole drive? EG. The total space used on my C: and D: drive amounts to about 10gb. If this is so, could I add other backups to the unused space or would cloning prevent this? Can cloning only be accessed from the floppy disk? Many thanks if you can find the time to reply to these questions

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Hi Ted #1 I have never used the image function. As #2 answers #1, Yes it is fully bootable. When you clone disk to disk it clones the complete disk. It partitions the cloned disk to fit the relative size of the master. It clones all partitions. Yes only accessed from the created boot disk.The boot disk is only used to create the clone. has nothing to do with booting the system.

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Hi, per. Many thanks for your helpful remarks. So, my 40gb HD. would be more than adequate to backup the ten or twelve gigs used on my 80 gb HD then? And, after creating a successful clone of my C: drive there wouldn't be a need for any other backup, would there? Having created the boot floppy disk there is really no need for the Ghost programme now, is there? So, if I don't renew my Norton anti Virus sub and lose my Ghost, it won't really matter. In the event of a C: drive failure, would the cloned drive be accessed by tapping F8 during boot up and selecting it?

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The 40g would be Ok. You won't need any other backup, but you may want to reclone occassionaly as your master changes. The HD must have ghost installed on it to work as that is where ghost keeps it's file. You don't need the NAV updates. If you lose C: just install the cloned HD on IDE 0 and it will boot to the clone as it was created. The drive letters may change but it will still be C:.

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Thanks for all that, per. I will now have to do some serious reconsidering regarding cloning and imaging. Cloning certainly seems a better option. Just pop in the cloned drive and you're back in business. Ted.

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Correct. Glad to be of help.

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i use ghost all the time, the backup disk doesn’t need to be 120gb, just so long as its as large as the amount of data being used on the original disk. Ghost does use compression when making an image or else it wouldn’t ask if you wanted to compress it. It’s probably a better idea to make an image on the backup disk and then extract it if and when you need it. You can use ghost explorer to extract selected folders and files so no need to worry about extracting the whole disk unnecessarily. if windows works and no one sees, did it really work at all?

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