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Date:	Sun, 23 Sep 2001 23:49:44 PDT
From:	"J. R. Fox" <jr_fox@pacbell.net >
Reply-To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
To:	scoug-help@scoug.com
Subject:	SCOUG-Help: Ghost vs. Drive Image

Content Type: text/plain

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I know that some SCOUG member(s) use Norton Ghost, since it was
mentioned at one of the last couple meetings. I've been a
longtime user of the competing Drive Image to make whole
partition backup images, but the latter's
packet-writing-direct-to-CD feature never worked on my hardware.
So, when I saw Ghost on sale, I bought it to try some
comparisons. Haven't had the chance to actually do this yet, but
I've read some of the documentation, which points up certain
differences and possible issues.

DI recognizes and can handle HPFS automatically. (Version 4,
anyway. Per some reports, Power Quest seems to have dropped
*any* remaining functionality relevant to OS/2 from their
Partition Magic product, and may have done the same with the new
version of DI, which has just been released.) Ghost can only
cope with HPFS partitions via a sector-by-sector copy mode, which
-- if I read this right -- does not yield a compressed image,
whereas DI's can be compressed up to 50%. That would be a major
PITA, if you are trying to archive onto a single CD.

Further, the Ghost docs say that for Restore purposes, due to
drive geometry issues, an HPFS image can only go onto another
h/d of _the same model and size._ It says this is because there
is specific drive geometry / location info contained in the HPFS
partitioning. If true, that almost makes the program worthless
to me. The thing is, I'm pretty sure I used DI for several
partition restores, a couple years ago when I migrated from my
old hard drive, a 4.5G Quantum, to the 9.1G IBM I've used ever
since. (Both H/Ds were SCSI.) And everything worked just fine.
But apparently, Ghost would not be able to do this, nor would it
be of use when I migrate again to a larger H/D. This is also
important because my DAT drive now needs repair or replacement,
so I presently have no other backup option available.

Any of you Ghost users care to step up in defense of this program
? (I have the "2001 Personal Edition" for Win98/NT/etc. It's
Command Line version, included, works under real DOS.)

Jordan

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