Ghost is an innovative attempt to make unix dd style backup process more flexible from a little know New Zealand firm. Which was bought by Symantec. The latter in its classic style destroyed it with inept marketing and unability to move from DOS as the base of the program. So it acquired Power Quest which has a similar program called Drive Image, the main competitor of the original Ghost with some innovative features. And destroyed it too. Later in Symantec decided to use Ghost brand for the backup program from Veritas which was acquired and destroyed at this time.
After realizing that this was huge blunder Symantec revived the original style partition backup program in Ghost 14 and later. See Softpanorama Norton Ghost Page for details. Corporate edition has somewhat different path and has some additional features. If we talk about the basic idea behind Ghost, then we should consider it to be a derivative of Unix dd. In principle Ghost is just a hybrid of sector-by-sector disk copying utility and regular "per file" backup based on understanding of the filesystem of the partition which it working with.
But here similarities end. Ghost is hybrid idea: it has two layers -- partition layer on which it deals with partition resizing, etc and filesystem layer on which it deals with file present on the filesystem.
As it needs to understand the filesystem structure Ghost perform much more complex operations the DD for example the restore on a partition of smaller size. But there is no free lunch and versatility and simplicity of dd are gone.
Each new version of filesystem requires new version of ghost. Also ghost can't backup deleted files like DD can: it backs up only disk blocks that contain "valid" files as reflected in filesystem directories. That means that generally it is less tolerant for the errors. And its ability to backup damaged filesystems is really inferior in comparison with DD. Also typically it does not have good recovery methods for damaged archive. Acronis true image is very bad in the respect and you really find yourself in a very difficult position due to a minor error in archive.
Norton Ghost is not a single product developed from one version to another. After initial acquisition Symantec played its typical game with it -- the original product was discarded, competitor was bought but also destroyed, and so on and so forth.
In its current incarnation this is a different product which is not a derivative of the original Ghost. It have little in common other then name and broad function. I think that the simplest and the most flexible way to use Ghost for a regular user is to create a FAT32 partition to store images with current large drives it is possible to do on the same drive or to use a special USB drive devoted to images.
On desktop it is very convenient to install the second harddrive and use it for images. You need approximately 30G for the partition that can store the image of the C partition in case you have Microsoft Office and a dozen of other applications installed a must for any home user.
With current GB or larger desktop hardrives that's peanuts. Please note that Ghost and its derivatives are sensitive to the version of filesystem used. Generally the year of release of Ghost should be at least a year higher then the year of the release of your version of Windows for it to work reliably, so for Windows XP Ghost are OK.
Ghost was not developed by Symantec; like most Symantec products it was bought when an original developer already achieved significant market success. Here is the summary of Ghost development adapted from Wikipedia,.
It was this codebase that was purchased by Symantec in Murray Haszard wrote Ghost in , based on his experience with file-copying program that worked via parallel and serial interface previously produced by Binary Research. In this age of huge organizations producing monster software it's pretty refreshing to see that individual talent still matter.
Initial version of Ghost was just an implementation of a single brilliant idea -- create a hybrid program that behaved like DD but at the same time have flexibility closer to file based backup. It also should be able to clone Windows system disk and system partitions. Software should be able to preserve Windows system disk in workable condition despite minor changes in the size of the target partitions.
As we can see that while initial design was Windows oriented, Ghost can actually be written for Linux without any problems. Murray Haszard wrote Ghost in , building on experience with a parallel and serial file-copying program previously produced by Binary Research. Initially, Ghost supported only FAT filesystems directly, but it could also copy although not resize other filesystems by performing a sector copy.
Ghostwalker is also capable of modifying the name of the Windows NT-based computer from its own interface. Ghost added support for the ext2 filesystem in and for ext3 subsequently. The last version of Ghost released before Symantec acquisition was version 4. It added support of multicast technology for cloning imaging over the network following the lead of a competitor, ImageCast. Multicasting allows sending a single image simultaneously to many machines without putting greater stress on the network than by sending an image to a single machine.
This version also introduced Ghost Explorer, a Windows program which allowed a user to browse the contents of an image file and extract individual files from it. Explorer as subsequently enhanced allowed users to add and delete files on FAT and later on ext2 and on ext3 filesystems in an image.
Ghost Explorer could work with images from older versions but only slowly; version 4 images contained indexes to find files rapidly. Version 4. The additional memory available allowed Ghost to provide several levels of compression for images, and to provide the file browser. Gdisk, a scriptable partition manager was also added. Gdisk serves a role similar to Fdisk, but has greater capabilities.
Multicasting allows sending a single backup image simultaneously to other machines without putting greater stress on the network than by sending an image to a single machine. This version also introduced Ghost Explorer, a Windows program which allowed a user to browse the contents of an image file and extract individual files from it.
Explorer was subsequently enhanced to allow users to add and delete files on FAT, later on ext2, ext3 and NTFS filesystems in an image.
Ghost Explorer could work with images from older versions but only slowly; version 4 images contained indexes to find files rapidly. The additional memory available allowed Ghost to provide several levels of compression for images, and to provide the file browser.
In , Ghost 4. Version 5. Unlike the character-based user interface of earlier versions, 5. The Binary Research logo, two stars revolving around each other, played on the main screen while the program idled.
In Gdisk, a script based partition manager, was integrated in Ghost. Gdisk serves a role similar to Fdisk , but has greater capabilities. There was also a Norton Ghost version called 2. Ghost 6. The Console communicates with client software on managed computers to allow a system administrator to refresh the disk of a machine remotely. Released March 31 , Norton Ghost version 7. Help About reveals version 7.
Released December 14 , Ghost 7. This significantly eased systems management. Ghost 8. Norton Ghost , a consumer edition of Ghost, was released on September 6, Available as an independent product, Norton Ghost was also included as a component of Norton SystemWorks Professional. A simpler, non-corporate version of Ghost, Norton Ghost does not include the Console but has a Windows front-end to script Ghost operations and create a bootable Ghost diskette third-party CD burning software can be used to create a bootable Ghost CD based on a bootable Ghost diskette.
The machine still needs to reboot to the Virtual Partition, but the user doesn't need to interact with DOS. Symantec deprecated LiveUpdate support for Norton Ghost in early Two Symantec knowledge base articles Updates to Norton Ghost How to obtain the programs updates that are archived on Symantec LiveUpdate server provide step-by-step instructions detailing how to obtain Norton Ghost updates from the LiveUpdate Archive.
As of April 24, , the latest version available from the archive is Older versions of Norton Ghost can be also updated from a system with a newer version of Norton Ghost by copying program directory from newer to older.
Reliable support for SATA drives was also provided in This helped to clarify the difference between the consumer and business lines of the product. Released November 15 , Ghost Solution Suite 1.
Ghost is software for creating raw data copies of entire data carriers partitions on other data carriers or in image files and for data backup. In addition to the original core function of creating raw data copies, the use of which was common and advertised for data backup purposes, functions of conventional data backup software were added later. In addition to the blind copying of raw data, a deeper understanding of the structure of various file systems is integrated, which allows adjustments to the created images.
In Symantec bought the rights to it. The main development under Symantec initially continued to take place in Auckland, until it was largely relocated to India in October
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