After a recent (and somewhat devastating) system crash, someone recommended that I get Norton Ghost. He billed it as a quick and easy way to back up my hard-drive image - something that would obviate the nightmarish weeks of restoring hundreds of settings and reinstalling programs that followed in the wake of my catastrophic system-wide collapse. I finally got around to "Ghosting" one of my HDs today (with Ghost 2003 Pro) , and I found the process confusing, laborious and unpleasant. But because most folks rave about its efficiency, speed and simplicity, I assume that I am NOT using the program properly. In order to back up my 11.1 Gigs of files I had to use 13 (yep, thirteen!) 700MB CD-Rs. It took about 90 minutes to complete the process -- a 16x CD writer was used -- and I now have a thick wallet full of discs that Ghost annoyingly needs to have swapped in and out in order to even CHECK that the image is OK. Did I not set the compression rates properly? The math is simple enough - 700MB x 13 = 9.1 Gigs - that's a reduction in size of less than 20%...Almost the same thing as just copying the entire contents of the HD to CD's without Ghost.. I suppose I should use my DVD burner for this but I'd like to know if I'm using Ghost in the manner it was designed before I start using up my precious DVD-Rs. (Can't find cheap 2x/4x compatible DVD-Rs yet..like 5 bucks a pop unless you buy in bulk...sheesh) The uhh..big problem is that my other HD has all of my media files - 60G worth - and I shudder at how many discs it will take to back THAT up - even if I use the 4.7G writeable DVDs... Advice? I've read a few tutorials and watched the Symantec demonstrations, but I can't seem to figure out what I'm doing wrong.. Regards, Dave

I always ghost mine to another HDD. It is way cheaper than buying CD's. If you insist on using CD's then use CDRW's so you can reuse the disk whan ever you make a back with Ghost and only have to add one or two CD's each time, rather than Burning them to CDR's which can only be used once and then tossed. I like using then HDD option instead of the CD's because then you can add it to scheduled tasks and set it for a time when you won't be using the computer and it all happens automatically. I back mine up with Ghost once a week.