Creating a Ghost System Backup

This tutorial will explain in detail how to create a Norton Ghost bootable CD using Nero, configure your BIOS to boot that CD, and to subsequently perform a full system backup using Norton Ghost.

This tutorial requires that you have two partitions available to your system, correctly formatted, one with enough space to store the Ghost images to. This tutorial is based on Norton Ghost 2003, but should work with newer versions.

The tutorial is split into 3 sections: Creating the Ghost CD, Booting the Ghost CD, Creating the Ghost Image.

Creating the Ghost CD

This section will guide you through creating a Ghost bootable CD.

You will need:

What you are going to do is burn an image of a bootable Ghost floppy disk, either direct from the disk, or from an image, to the CD, making the CD bootable.

  1. New Compilation DialogLoad Nero and choose File > New... from the menu
  2. Select CD, and from the list on the left, choose CD-ROM (Boot)
  3. If you have a floppy disk, choose 'Bootable logical drive' and select the letter of your floppy drive.
    If you have a disk image, tick 'Image file' and click browse. Browse to the location of the image file and double click it.
  4. Click 'New' to close the 'New Compilation' window
  5. You can put any other files on the disc you want, just drag them into the compilation
  6. Once you are done, click 'Burn' on the toolbar
  7. Ensure that the options are as you want, and click burn

Booting the Ghost CD

If your computer's BIOS is already set to boot from CD, you can skip this step and proceed with Creating the Ghost Image below.

If your BIOS has an option, for example "Press F12 for boot device menu", reboot your computer and press that, choose CD-ROM or Removable Devices, and if you get the Norton Ghost welcome screen, proceed to Creating the Ghost Image below. If you don't have this option, read on.

Boot SequenceIn order to start the CD instead of Windows, your computer's BIOS needs to be set to boot from the CD-ROM drive. You may want to print this section for reference as you will need to reboot your computer. The following stages vary between computers, but the process is generally the same.

  1. Reboot your computer, and when you hear the beep, press DEL, or F2 to enter setup
  2. Go to the boot tab, on Award BIOSes, this should be under the 2nd option down (Advanced BIOS Features)
  3. Make sure that the CD-ROM is the first boot device in the list, depending on your BIOS, page-up/down, or +/- will change the order
  4. Once the CD-ROM is the first in the list, press F10 to save changes and reboot your computer

Creating the Ghost Image

The following explains how to use Norton Ghost to create an image of your system.

The first time you launch Ghost on a new system, you will be prompted to mark the disks. This will be shown as a 'License agreement warning', you may mark the disks if you choose, this will remove this warning in the future.

Ghost Screenshot

Follow the steps below to create your disk image.

  1. On the menu, choose Local > Partition > To Image
    Menu screenshot

  2. A dialog will display asking you to select the source drive, this should be the hard drive on which your Windows installation resides, press enter and click OK
    Source disk screenshot

  3. Select the source partition, this is usually the first in the list, but use the Volume Label and size of the partition to verify, once selected, click OK
    Source partition screenshot

  4. Next, select where to save the image file. Note this cannot be the same partition as you are creating an image of.
    Save image screenshot

  5. Select the amount of compression you want, higher compression means smaller file sizes, but it will take longer to generate the image.

  6. Finally, confirm creation of the image, and you're set. Make a coffee and check back in about 20 minutes or so, depending on your system.

To Restore an Image

To restore an image, boot from the Ghost CD, choose Local > Partition > From Image. Set the destination partition the same as you set the source partition in section 3 above, browse to the image file, and restore it from there.

It may be worth running an integrity check on the image before attempting a restore, as a corrupt Ghost Image will not restore, and could destroy your current installation.