Norton/Symantec Ghost has long been a network administrator’s friend/foe. I have always been supported by sysadmins or technical architecture teams so I had never a need to set up workstations and create images of drives to rapidly deploy a configuration to all machines in the lab or network. Well I had a crash course this week and finally got it all to work - I thought I would share how with others so they don’t feel the same agony.

I used Norton Ghost 8.2 Corporate Edition. It is similar to Ghost 2003. I hear Ghost 9 and current version, Ghost 10, have some easier handling of my situation but again, I had to make due with what was available - IT mantra, I reckon.

PCs were brand new Dell Dimension B110 or 1100 with Philips DVD +/- RW Drives. 145GB 7200 RPM Hard Drives, 1GB RAM, XP Pro SP2. Nero for burning CD/DVDs, although Sonic comes standard - either will work. No floppy drive (the main issue)!

Upon running Ghost32.exe or Ghost Boot Wizard, it became apparent that an A: or B: drive was required to create the necessary boot disk. I didn’t have one so I toiled over how to overcome. Ultimately I used the DOS SUBST command to assign a folder as drive A:. I scoured the web and found a few great resources; ultimately I had to use 2. I only had one CD/DVD ROM drive so I first attemted to create a bootable CD with Ghost Running. I finally got that working only to find that I couldn’t write to DVD if the drive was running the program. That lead me to solution 2, boot on flash drive and write to DVD on CD/DVD ROM drive.

1. OBTAIN NECESSARY FILES:
First I followed the tutorial here:
Create bootable Ghost CD. I used WinImage but emulated a 2.88MB floppy since some of the files were too large to fit on 1.44MB. If you follow the instructions, you will have an extracted directory with all the programs required for MS DOS boot disk. You actually just need to follow their steps up to the point where you have the contents of the extracted directory - so you can optionally create your image using WinImage (it’s good to have if you ever want to burn a boot CD-ROM so might as well).

2. FORMAT FLASH DRIVE AS BOOT DISK:
Next, I downloaded this HP Utility:
DriveKey Flash Formatter Utility. You can insert your flash drive and run this program to format it as FAT32 and create MS-DOS boot disk.

3. RUN GHOST BOOT WIZARD:
In you Ghost Installation, there is a Ghost Boot Wizard. Prior to running it, open up a command window and CD to the directory where your extracted files from step 1 are (where all the MS-DOS startup files are). Once in that directory, use the SUBST command to assign drive A: to that folder.

c:> SUBST A: .

Now you can run the Ghost Boot Wizard. Choose standard boot disk and click the checkbox for adding the Adaptec (aspi) files. When prompted to either use PC DOS or “Get MS DOS”, choose get MS DOS and choose A: drive and “get” the DOS boot files. Stop there!

Next, you will need to create a destination to write the “boot disk” to (faking drive A again). Create a directory (I used c:\tempa). In DOS prompt, CD to the new directory and first remove the old A: drive assignment and create a new one by typing the following:

C: > cd c:\tempa
C: > SUBST A: /D
C: > SUBST A: .

Once the A: drive has been reassigned to your blank directory, complete the Ghost Boot Wizard. It will first write the DOS files and then prompt you to insert a second floppy into drive A:. Simply continue and then click Finish.

4. COPY GHOST BOOT DISK FILES TO FLASH DRIVE (likely E:\)
The files currently residing in your c:\tempa or A: drive directory are the only files you need to boot/run Ghost off your flash drive. Copy and paste them into your flash drive.

5. EDIT CONFIG.SYS FILE
The Ghost Boot Wizard creates some unneeded script commands based on the assumption that you will need to insert more than one floppy diskette to run GHOST.EXE (the DOS version of Ghost). Open CONFIG.SYS with a text editor (either Notepad or your preferred text editor). At the top of the file, it includes text that runs MOUSE.COM. Directly after that line, you should add:

cd ghost
GHOST.EXE

Then remove all the other stuff in that file and save it. Next open AUTOEXEC.BAT, again with your favorite text editor, and verify that it declares several [device] = aspi4dos… etc. and the last line has something like LASTDRIVE = Z. If all this has been performed, your last step is to prepare your PC for ‘cloning’.

6. PREPARE YOUR PC FOR CLONING
Make sure you have extra programs you do not need removed, you have emptied your recycle bin, cleared temporary cache, recent documents folder, temporary internet files, passwords and cookies. It is also recommended you run disk defragmenter after all this and a final step is to run SYSPREP.

7. RUN SYSPREP TO CLEAR SIDs AND ACCOUNT INFORMATION
download xp sp2 version here

Search for Microsoft SYSPREP and your operating system. You need to download the correct version for your OS and service pack (for example, I would search for SYSPREP XP SP 2). They provide instructions but essentially you extract the downloaded files to: C:\WINDOWS\DEPLOY. You will run the setup program which will allow you to pre-populate the windows setup information with regional settings, network settings, administrator login and product key. Once you run this, it will create a SYSPREP.INI file.

CREATE C:\sysprep directory. Copy the 4 files, SYSPREP.EXE, FACTORY, SYSPREP.INI and that other file they tell you to (I forgot, sorry) into your new directory. Once the 4 files are there, double-click on the SYSPREP.EXE file. Check the first 2 options, make sure “Shut Down” is selected and then click the (I’ll get back to you) button. It will execute and then shut down your PC.

8. TURN ON PC, MAKING SURE YOU SELECT BOOT OPTIONS PRIOR TO WINDOWS STARTUP
On these new Dell PCs, I hit F12 immediately when the black screen appeared with the Dell Logo. It displayed a menu with boot options (Master Drive, C: Drive, CD ROM, Flash Disk). Choose Flash Disk option. It will prompt you with 2 options, choose Ghost Boot Disk, not boot CD. It will shortly display the Windows 98 startup screen, then go to the black DOS window, attempt to add [device] = aspi4dos… going through the various drivers for the CD writer until one installs. It will then execute GHOST.EXE and you can begin to write your image.

9. RUNNING GHOST.EXE TO WRITE IMAGE TO DVD (OR CDs)
Click ‘Enter’ to start the program. Choose Disk > Image options. Select your source as your main hard drive (my 145GB drive in my case). Select “No” for writing bootable disk as it will require an A: drive with boot files - not worth the hassle. Choose the “Fast” option. Select your re-writable DVD RW drive as destination. Begin writing disk.

WARNING: I had an issue that took a day to solve. It would not recognize any CD or DVD +/- R disks (I tried +R and -R) I put in, continually prompting me to Insert a blank disk. I was using Maxell DVD -R and +R disks purchased at Wal-Mart. As a last resort, prior to giving up altogether, I tried a TDK disk furnished by a friend - it worked! So, if you run into that error, before pulling your hair out (or in my case no hair), try a different brand of media.

10. CLONE OTHER PCs using your image
Okay, assuming you successfully followed steps 1-9, you merely need to shut down your other workstations. Insert your flash disk into an available USB slot. Turn on the PC and follow instructions in step 8. Insert your image DVD (or first CD) into the CD/DVD ROM Drive. After you start the Ghost program, instead of Disk > To Image, choose Disk > From Image. Follow the prompts and choose the source (DVD ROM in my case) and destination (145 GB C: Drive in my case) and run the program.

After the program completes, you now have a cloned workstation, plus a backup copy of your desired computer/software configuration. Repeat as necessary to set up as many workstations as your licenses allow.

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NOTE: there may be a few steps missed as this is all from memory, but knowing the solution and tricks to get Ghost 8.2 (or Ghost 2003) to create boot disk and write Image to DVD without a floppy drive is seemably very valuable information. I hope this at least gets you on the right track and saves you days of headaches that I had to endure.

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 4th, 2006 at 6:16 pm and is filed under Knowledge. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. This post has been viewed 14,403 times.