I came up with this guide to make it as easy as possible to deploy ghost images from CDs. I prefer to use unicasting or multicasting whenever possible but there are times when a CD set is needed. I have received a lot of help on these forums and wanted to give a little back.

This guide will help you to take a large ghost image and span it on to CDs with the first CD being bootable. Also the first CD contains ghost.exe and autoloads ghosts to deploy the image.

I am currently using Symantec Ghost 8 Corporate but this process should work for most versions of Ghost.


SPANNING YOUR IMAGE
===================
1. Open up the ghost image to deploy in ghost explorer
2. Select view | options | set a span split to fit your cd media
3. Select File | compile and save your image

MAKING YOUR FLOPPY IMAGE
========================
1. Start with a Windows ME boot disk and keep only these files

AUTOEXEC.BAT
CD1.SYS
CONFIG.SYS
MOUSE.COM (get this from disk 1 of a ghost boot floppy)
MOUSE.INI (get this from disk 1 of a ghost boot floppy)
MSCDEX.EXE
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
COMMAND.COM

2. Change your autoexec.bat to match the following:


NOTE: If you do not want to auto deploy the image then remove
the parameters after ghost.exe

3. Change your config.sys to match the following:


4. Make an image of your floppy using WinImage
a. Open WinImage then click on Disk | Read Disk
b. Click on Image | Change Format and select 2.88
c. Drag and Drop the Ghost folder including ghost.exe from disk 2 of a ghost boot disk set
d. save your image as a .ima image

MAKING CD1 YOUR BOOTABLE CD
===========================
1. Open Ahead Nero Burning ROM and choose bootable CD "CD-ROM (Boot)"
2. From the boot tab put a check in image file and browse to your .ima file
3. Put a check in "enable expert settings" and change emulation to 2.88
4. Click on new
5. Drag and drop the first *.gho image from your spanned ghost image
6. Burn your CD

MAKING CD2-CDx GHOST CDs
========================
1. Open Ahead Nero Burning ROM and choose "CD-ROM (ISO)"
2. Click on new
3. Drag and drop the next *.ghs image from your spanned ghost image
4. Burn your CD

DONE

Just take your CD set now and put in CD1 and let it rip. Ghost will ask you for
the next CD when it is ready for it.

Dennis

Thanks, dlevens!

Always nice to see someone willing to contribute!

Very Nice! I did the same thing, since my eMachine CDs are .gho files.. had to extract them put on a seperate partition and remake the GHO files. pain in the rear.

I though about making a guide but would've never been able to put it as clean as you have. Very nice!

Nice guide mate.

I generally deploy images server side but this is definatly a nice deal if i was doing somthing onsite.
Well done

|Drew|

Thanks for your comprehensive guide - I've created the bootable CD.

However, when Ghost launches off the CD it queries the Hard Drive and says "destination drive too small". I've tried this on different hardware.

I know the HD's are OK as Ghost loads images to them fine if I boot ghost via RIS/Windows PE instead. Interestingly even if I use the built-in boot wizard CD/DVD Startup disk, i get the same error.

Symantec say to try using GHOST -OR to stop ghost checking the destination disk, but this does not fix the problem.

Did you come across this problem/any idea how to fix it?

Thanks alot for your help.

MilkyMagic,

I have not seen that error yet. So far the cds we made work on every hardware we tried. Maybe start from scratch and make a new set to make sure you did not miss something?

Dennis

Thanks it works fine now - the ghost files were spanned and were written incorrectly for some reason.

I've now created a bootable DVD with Nero 6 Reloaded, with your boot image files/config.

One problem I find is that when I insert my bootable DVD (or bootable CD for that matter) and reboot the PC, it boots off the DVD with no chance to intervene. Ie, when I use a manufacturer's bootable CD normally you get the message:

Press any key to boot from CD...

The down side to this is that the PC boots off the DVD, restores the ghost image automatically, reboots automatically, and then boots off the DVD *AGAIN* and goes around in a loop, unless you are sitting at the PC to intervene.

I was really hoping that it would not boot off the DVD if I didn't sit there and press any key when prompted.

Is this something to do with the boot image/emulation specified in Nero?

Any ideas? Thanks.

Yep

I'd love to know this answer to query too.


--- Regarding restoring a image from the server by Ghostcasting: ---

I hope this isnt quite off topic (any admin - please move it to a new topic if you think it should be in a new topic) but isnt there some way of doing the following:

(sorry the following sounds complex, but I sometime find it hard to put things into words hehe)

Have a boot sector on the hard drive that works like the normal XP CD boot sector (i.e. asks for user input to boot the cd) but instead, have it boot a partition on the hard drive which loads up a image of the boot disk that you could have set to automate a restore of the main partiton

i.e.

- You press a key when the hard drive asks something like



- it loads a seperate partition on the hard drive that is basically, the image (or something similar) of the floppy disk you can create in the Ghost Boot Wizard tool.
- This process (automated by params in the autoexec) will restore the primary partition which could be periodically updated i.e. new hotfixes, updated apps,etc. all installed,

I know I've sorta explained it twice hehe but its only to help you all understand what the hell i'm going on about....hopefully

This would cut down on the need for have cd's and floppies lying about, plus where u have many of the same system's i.e. computer suites, etc. u only really need one machine (after setting this up on each pc) to have one cd-rom drive and a floppy drive i.e. cutting hardware replacement costs

Best Regards (and hope someone can suggest a way of doing the above),
Nath.

Milkymagic,

Only the first CD is supposed to be bootable. CDs 2 on prevent this from happening since they are not bootable. If you are going to use a DVD or have a really small image that fits on one CD then you can remove the -rb from this line

\ghost\ghost.exe -clone,mode=load,src=%image%,dst=1 -rb

and then it wont reboot when it is done.

You are right though, it would be much smarter to incorporate the press any key to boot to cd option, which probably is fairly easy but I have not looked into it yet. If you find the time to figure this out please share it with us, if I somehow find the time I will do the same.

it_ybd, what you are describing is similar to what companies like IBM do. There is a hidden partition where an unattended install resides and pressing F11 allows you to boot to Microsoft PE type mini OS That can rebuild the pc. There is also some software that does something similar to this called rescue and recovery. This would be a nice way to rebuild a pc quickly but I have found the unattended install is so easy and fast that there has not been a need to pursue it yet.

Dennis

hehe I'm glad i made "some" sense then

Unattended is fine for a few machines but i need the ability to restore multiple machines - like at the moment, booting with a floppy disk in each pc and ghostcasting 4 at a time usually works well enough.

probably could do more that 4 thinking about it if the network isn't being used at the time.

The trouble with the disk or cd method is it relies on the floppy disk/CD drive actually working and there lies the problem here - pupils = vandalism hehe and many of the cd drives here dont work. No point replacing for them to be "destroyed" again really. Guess I'm lucky that all the floppy drives still work for me to ghostcast.

....i'll be back to edit this after....

Cheers,
N

@it_ybd
What you describe, can be done thru Multi-boot.
You can have 3 options on the bootable CD - one for starting Ghost, one for booting into DOS (for preparing the hard-disk, probably), and one more option to boot from hard-disk. You can make the "boot from hard-disk" as default choice, and then if you need to start ghost or DOS, use arrow keys to select that option and launch it.

Example Screenshot of Multi-boot is below (attached):

Thanx for a great guide. I am having trouble getting the cd1.sys.

Can someone send me their completed .ima image to CoCayden@gmail.com

Thanx

CoCayden

email sent with completed .ima

Dennis

Thanks for that i am burning it now, so hopefully it will work.

Thanks Again

CoCayden

@prathapml:

That sounds great for a cd - but that isnt what I was refering to hehe

I know I was "sort of" staying from the exact topic but i was refering to a method that could be used on the HD, not CD.

If it could be used somehow as the HD boot sector then great I'm after a hidden partition with the Ghost boot disk image on it that can connect to the Ghostcast server and then use that to restore the main partition which has the OS on it, virtually eliminating the need for a floppy or CD device to boot ghost.

Cheers,
Nath

Hey Again all,
I just throught that i might add that it is possible to add instructions and points to ask if you want to continue to the deployable CD/DVD. I found this a little to late when i accidentaly left a DVD containing the deployable ghost image in and i wiped my hard drive.

To add instructions you can just add "echo insert text" and replace insert text with what ever u want it to say into the autoexec.bat

For a hit any key to continue point simply add pause into the autoexec.bat

Hope this helps

CoCayden

Guys,

just a quick question and probably off the topic but has anyone deployed an Gost Image from MS RIS, and if so how??

Cheers

Chris

Chris,

Not sure on Ghost over RIS, but what I do is this:

- Add XP base image to RIS server (via normal MS RIS setup)
- Get hold of Windows PE (cut-down 32bit XP OS) - you need to be a select customer,etc to get this. not available thru oem channels,etc.
- You can then add the Windows PE code to your RIS XP image.
- You can then PXE remote boot over RIS into the Windows PE image.
- Add the 32-bit "Ghost32.exe" file from symantec.
- Call ghost32.exe and restore the image.

I use this all the time to image and restore ghost images when my machines haven't got cdrom's/floppies. It's really quick too as you just boot up, hit F12, Windows PE loads really fast, and the ghost image restores under a 32-bit environment.

You can also wipe/prepare the HD in Windows PE using "diskpart", and this is alot faster than DOS as it has proper 32-bit access to the hard drive.

If you search Symantec's support website I think they have articles on ghost & RIS. I had a quick look but couldn't find a URL for you, but sure I have seen these articles before.

That sounds just like what I've been after

RIS server tho - kinda missing that lol

Regarding WinPE tho, OEM's can get hold of this - not saying where from (no, i'm not talking illegally here) but you can get it if you're an oem Its not just from Select licensing although i wonder if the version is slightly different...hmmm.....

Despite that we get licenses from the county that has a Select Agreement, we have never been able to get any of the support or "utilities" (like WinPE) that go hand-in-hand with the Select Agreement.

I'd love to be able to use this or a Ghost method without floppy/cd's i.e. PXE styley - except I'm not that "up" on that stuff and havent had the time to "play" in order to find out lol

Any suggestions MilkyMagic?

Regards,
N.

Bear with me because I’m using windows xp in Spanish so the wording my differ.

it_ybd, I’m sure this is not the best way of doing it but you might want to experiment...

Requirements:
1. Two Partitions or More: One where system is installed on and the other where your ghost image and ghost.exe will be.
Note: (I used fat32 on both partitions since it was my test machine)
2. Download MS Dos 7.1 (http://newdos.yginfo.net/msdos71/)


First you need an OS on first partitions... I used Windows XP with fat32. It doesn’t have to be a fresh install you can use your current OS. Boot from Bootable MS Dos 7.1 diskettes or Bootable MS Dos cd. Follow the instructions. Install MS DOS on second partition or other. I installed the basic version since I won’t be using dos for anything. The installation will detect your current system and ask you if you want to make your computer dual boot and you must select yes. After the installation is complete it will ask you to reboot your computer. When your computer boots up you should see a dual boot menu asking you if you want to boot to windows xp or msdos. Choose Windows XP.

Once your system is booted right click on MY PC and choose properties. Select Advanced Options Tab then click on Startup and Recovery (once again the wording might be diff but I'm sure you can find it.) On the Next Window Select Windows XP as your default OS. Below that it asks you how long you would like the boot menu to show... I changed mine to 2 seconds because you don’t really want the person to see it for long. Then click on edit boot.ini. Where it says MS DOS 7.1 I changed to “Restore System.” Save Changes and close.

Copy Ghost.exe and Ghost Image to second partition.

Now open up notepad and open up a:\autoexec.bat on the last line add
d:\ghost.exe -clone,mode=pload,src=D:\restore.GHO:1,dst=1:1 -sure -RB

Change d:\ to the location of your ghost.exe and ghost image.


At the time of writing this the website where I download MS Dos was down but if you need it let me know and I can send it to you.

hi guys,

been using ghost and RIS for over a year now, and really think its good

PXE boot a PC, connect to the login screens, and then there is a RIS option created to connect to the ghost server, which is 'pre configured' i.e if i select the Auto ghost option, it connects to my ghost server, uses a session called 'load' and then sends the image down. i have also customised the RIS menus to help other people using this setup.

Best think for me, is that i also have this setup on a laptop.

Windows 2000 Server running on it, with Active Directory and RIS setup.

Great for nipping to different sites etc, just use a cross over cable, plug the laptop into the PC's nic, PXE boot the PC, and ghost away,

works well for me anyway

Dennis,

Thank you for the awesome guide, I used your steps and it worked great. I am now attempting to build on your instructions and am attempting to add USB and Network support to the same Boot CD.

If I figure out how I will post here to share with the group. If anyone has ideas or has tried this please let me know.

Hank

sorted

I followed the instruction, since I didn't have Windows ME bootdisk I grabbed a copy from bootdisk.com, but when I create the cd and try to boot from it I get the following error message:

Invalid setting in the MSDOS.SYS file, any suggestions.

post your config.sys, make sure all of the files called from config.sys exist in their proper locations.

It's the msdos.sys file with the error message but here is the Config.sys file:

Sorry, read one thing typed another.

Typically on boot diskettes that file only contains ";W98EBD" or similar depending upon what os the floppy was made from.

Using Ghost 2003:

I followed these directions exactly and I MUST be doing something wrong. I can't get it to work for the life of me and I know this is an old post but I could really use some help. This is for the company I work for and we are providing ghost "recoveries" for customers. I could very well and have written directions on how to deploy the ghost backup manually but I think it would be so much easier and professional to have it deploy itself (we are working with people from all over the world, so language barriers can be a problem). Please help if at all possible.

Is it possible if someone send me the .ima file. I can't seem to get my to work.

thanks in advanced.

I too am having problems.

I cannot get the dvd to boot. Here's what I did.

1) run Nero 6.6
2) Select Bootable DVD & go to "boot" tab
3) point to image of floppy made w/UltraISO OR point to floppy. I tried both
4) make the compliation (my image, the contents of the two Ghost floppies)
5) burn

I've tried no emulation, 1.44 emulation. Both with 4 sectors (somewhere I read you should change from 1 to 4 on this setting but I can't remember why).

It hangs on Boot from ATAPI CD-ROM: prompt. Eventually I can get it to give me Non-system disc or disk error if I wait long enough.

Somehow it looks like the boot sector is messed up.. BUT, same steps yielded me a booting CD-RW. [image is 1.7GB so I need DVD.]


Where am I going wrong?

Could someone email there copy of a working *.ima file? I keep getting a general protection fault upon boot up and I know its something to do with one of my executables. I appreciate it. wmillen@freedomfe.com

Cansomeone please send me the .img file as I'm having a bit of bother!

Cheers
pdoherty@belfastinstitute.ac.uk

Just put an old-fashioned "Pause" command in the autoexec.

Receiving "Invalid system disk-F-1 retry" can I also maybe get a copy of that correct *.IMA file out there? Thanks a bunch





daniel.mendieta@ff.com

Get JO.SYS and put it in the .ima file
i think it most probably ask for to boot from HD or not

may u can get this from nu2.nu/dootdisk
or /utilities

sorry i exactly dont remember that site

EDIT :exactly it is Nu's JO.SYS

i was wondering if i could do a network ghost with this?

so boot with cd and ghot to and from a ghost server

Your Ghost guide is good. But I have a few questions. I'm using NG2006 and my OS is WinXP Pro formatted as NTFS by default as well as my 2 other partitons. Needless to say Ghost cannot see my C: Drive nor any other partions I have on my system. Ex:

C: OS
F: Data
G: Ghost Images

I want to put my Ghost Images on DVD and have Ghost automatically place it back on my C: Drive while leaving my other 2 partitons intact. Is this possible under NTFS and what are the Ghost Commands to do this. I've called Symantec and they offer no answers even if you paid for it as I did. I'm new to this but I'm also prone to crashes ( A lot ) especially when my daughter gets ahold of my computer. I know this may be an old post but please help me if you can.

Can anyone please send me the .ima they have created as I just cannot seem to get this to work.

ian@creatix.co.uk

ian@vagsystems.co.uk

Thanks in advance.

Ooops, my reply was in the quote in the above post. Here is what I meant to say:

If you have a fairly recent motherboard with updated bios, then they usually have an option to press F8 for BBS popup. This allows you to keep your floppy as your boot #1, hdd as #2. When booting, press F8 and it will let you choose which device to boot from--choose the CD/DVD-ROM drive. When it finishes and computer restarts, it won't ask you to boot from CD/DVD because you haven't changed the bios settings!!

This F8 function is available for newer motherboards. I have an old computer that does not have that function.




One more thing I should add.

For Ghost 2003:

Ghost 2003 itself has CD-RW support--meaning that if you do not load CD-ROM drivers in config.sys file, then Ghost will show the CD-RW drives because of its support.... This means you can create a ghost image of your HDD and burn it directly on CD's.

HOWEVER

If you do load CD-ROM drivers from config.sys files, then ghost won't recognize your drive as a CD-RW. It will only recognize it as a CD-ROM drive.

A particularity of ghost is that if you do not load CD-ROm drivers from config.sys file and let Ghost 2003 load its internal CD-RW supports, you cannot restore images from your CD-ROM drive because Ghost recognized that the images were not burned from the program itself--but rather another program like Nero.

The reason why methods in this post work is because CD-ROM drivers are loaded from config.sys file.

Does that make sense?

Great guide, but, I've tried downloading boots of me and other versions of windows of the net and they don't have any of the files that are mentioned, do you perhaps mean to start with a bootable install disk?

I've got no idea...:S

Ok I know this answer is little late but I thought I would share the info anyway.

I work at a school and if we had the ability for kids to reboot and press a key for reimage etc then they would be doing it all the time to get out of lessens.

What I do here and have spent some time on is the following:

I install XP that has been played with by Nlite etc to get a custom copy with all our logos in it etc.
I create 2 partions and install xp to the first as in a regular install. When windows is up I partion the second partion as Fat32 and name it Restore as my restore partition. Once the XP install is complete and working the way I want it I run Sysyprep on it and shut it down. I then use a local ghost disk that images the xp partion to the restore partion. On the restore partion I also copy the ghost.exe and a batch file to restore the image from the restore to the main partion. (Using active Directory means the kids have no access to drive C or D when they are working and thus they cannot see any of the info contained there) Once I have the image on the D drive I then image the whole machine to the network for further distribution to new machines as they arrive etc.
In order to reimage a machine now all i have to use is a bootable floppy or Cd that boots the machine and runs the batch file on the restore partition. I can then take the disk out and walk away knowing the machine will come up finish sysprep and join the network ready for use. It means when a machine goes down it takes on average 5 mins to bring it back up completely clean.
The other benefit of doing things this way is that with admin rights and shares on the network I can access any of the D drives on any machine in the school. If I need to update and image I build the new on in the office and then i copy the restore part out accross the network to the restore on all the machines over night and then just have to insert a boot disk to get every machine to re image in 5 mins with the new working image.

Does that make sense? I know what i am trying to say and if anyone needs more info please feel free to get in touch.

Bio

@ Bio

Hey thats a great system you have and this is what i have been trying to do for some time now, can you give us some more information, is it run from a batch file?

Ok not sure where you need more info exactly but i'll paste a couple of bits of info here and tell me if these help?

Ok on the boot disk be it floppy or cd it has the following files and content.
Autoexec.bat :

c:\
go.bat


on the restore partition it has a go.bat file that looks like this:

GHOST.EXE -QUIET -sure -clone,mode=pload,src=Restore.GHO:1,dst=1:1 -batch -RB

What you have to remember is that if you install Xp using NTFS then when you boot from a boot disk the ntfs partition is not visible to a 98 boot disk. thus you need to make sure the restore partition is Fat32 and that is why it is shown as drive c:

Obviously while testing you can run the commands manually to test the concept.

Hope this helps?

Bio

@ bio

Hey thanks, thats great, i will have a go.

I still don't get it with the boot disk, I'll post a screenshot of what I'm gettin :S.



That's a screenshot of the Windows ME boot disk I downloaded...

What is it you don't get mate?

First off you need to turn on show hidden files etc so you can see the autoexec.bat and config.sys file. You need only the 4 boot files on the disk. The attached disk shows all you need on a boot floppy etc. You can ignore the autoexec.bat.bak and the go.bat as one is a backup and the other is just a spare copy of the go.bat that should be on the restore partition.

Does this help?

Try giving me some more info about what you are stuck on?

Bio

Exactly which files do you not have?

Show hidden files is set on aswell :S, the image i posted is exactly what I'm getting, and I've tried three different boot disk downloads in case they were dodgy and they're all the same.

The exact files I don't have are all the files that are apparently needed to make this Ghost Boot Disk lol.

In other words, these files:
AUTOEXEC.BAT
CD1.SYS
CONFIG.SYS
MSCDEX.EXE
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
COMMAND.COM

are not there...

Again, as someone mentioned, autoexec.bat, config.sys, io.sys, msdos.sys, and command.com are hidden **system** files. even if you show hidden files, you won't be able to see the hidden **system** files. But they are there. the only files you really need are cd1.sys and mscdex.exe. MSCDEX.exe is included on win95 or win98 boot disks. try to get your hands on one of those. the cd1.sys files is needed to load cd-rom drivers. win95 or win98 boot disks include alternatives cd1.sys. if those work for you, then you don't need cd1.sys.

I'll try that, but if you can't view them even with hidden files turned off, how is everyone else getting them?! lol