Customer Reviews

Norton Ghost 2002 [OLD VERSION]

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(5)
1 star:		(21)

 

 

I have to sadly agree with many of the negative reviews. But I'm including thie review not to be negative, but to relate what I've found that you CAN and CAN'T do with this product. (1) As others have said, this isn't going to work with a network. And I guess if I wanted to directly burn CDs then I'd need a DOS device driver (good luck finding that for a Sony DVD+RW), so I'm glad I'm not doing that either. Fortunately for me, I'm working with a test machine that I deliberately configured with an extra hard drive just so I had a local place to Ghost back and forth with. (2) While Ghost does a fine and fast job shuttling entire-drive clones from drive to drive, it has this incredibly annoying habit: every time that I want to move an image drive/drive then it demands that I punch in the 15 character serial number. Sheesh! (3) This is a nit, but I found it annoying that on the one hand this is a for-the-home-user, reduced-functionality version of Ghost... but I still had to type in an organization name, or it wouldn't install. (4) I only need this to reset a single test machine, but I'd complain if I had other systems and was forced to buy a separate copy of this infrequently-used utility for each one. Were the license a bit more reasonable -- "go ahead and use it for all of the computers in your house" -- then I think Symantec would win the hearts -- and business -- of other small users.

I read the other reviews on this product Norton Ghost 2002 and was amazed at the mixed reviews. I go way back with the Norton products and like the other two products I'm using: Norton Firewall and Anti-virus. I've always found the Norton products to be well written and compatible with the PC. When I installed Windows XP on my system and chose the NFTS file system, my usual backup system no longer worked. I used to use the Maxtor "MaxBlast" utility to backup my drive to another drive which always worked great. Not anymore, I could not access the Windows XP drive with the NFTS file system. I needed a backup system, so despite some nightmarish reviews, I bit the bullet and bought figuring what happened to the others would not happen to me. My intuition was right, the Ghost cloned my drive onto a second drive in less than 15 minutes and all went smoothly. I then booted up with this cloned drive to make sure it worked, which it did, then I tested the applications which worked just like the original drive - Now I had a perfectly cloned drive. Also, mentioned by someone else, I was able to make an MS-Dos bootable disk entirely through the installation without going elsewhere to get the MS-DOS (and instead of using the PC-DOS default that may or may not work). When you go through the installation, at the end it asks if you want a quick format of your floppy which is pre-checked, but the other option is to make an MS-DOS bootable disk. Uncheck the quick format and check the MS-DOS bootable disk option and it will make one for you. Then there is an option to start the process over and you will have your bootable MS-DOS disk on which it can load the new configuration files for your new Ghost 2002 boot disk.
If you have Windows XP and want to back up your system to another hard drive, BUY THIS.

I wish I had read the reviews here before buying Ghost 2002 as an upgrade to my old Ghost 5.

I have a WinXP machine with a 75GB hard disk. It is partitioned into four logical drives. Usually, all I'll want to do is make a backup of selected partitions like the C: operating system partition or the E: data partition. I planned on dumping the image to the hard disk of another computer on my home network.

I was thwarted. The problems were:

1. Since Ghost 2002 is DOS-based, it sees my 75GB NTFS-formatted drive as one huge single 75GB volume. It doesn't see the individual NTFS partitions.

2. It can't write images to NTFS partitions. So even though it can read my NTFS drive (albeit as one gigantic volume), it can't save to an NTFS drive. You have to make sure that your destination drive is formatted with FAT or FAT32.

3. Ghost Explorer (the part of Ghost that lets you explore through a Ghost image in an Explorer-like manner, as if it were a regular hard disk) is a joke with NTFS. You can view an image of an NTFS volume -- BUT you can't add, delete, or do *anything* with the image. Ghost Explorer can only view it. That's it.

They obviously want you to buy the corporate edition. Yeah, right. Not only is that a lot more expensive, it is also overkill. Home users don't need advanced functions like multicast servers and would probably get confused and frustrated with all of the extra features in the corporate edition. But they DO need full NTFS support. Wake up, Symantec. With Windows XP, NTFS is the new gold standard -- for both home and business.

Better get off your rears, sack your stupid marketing people (is there any other breed?), and make a USEABLE product next time.

In general, Ghost is a fabulous piece of software, in particular, I am thinking about Ghost 2001. I was excited to see that 2002 was released and that it supported XP. I owned the software for about 20 minutes before I returned it. Symantec has a "new license procedure" where you have to write down a long serial number (15 digits I think) that shows up on the splash screen, and then type that number in the next screen that requests it (and no, copying and pasting is not allowed, nor is there a switch where you can manually bypass or enter the license number). I suppose Symantec's idea was to annoy people using the product to Ghost multiple machines into buying the Enterprise version. Regardless, it is silly exercise of writing and typing that legitimate customers shouldn't have to endure. I hope Symantec wises up.

Overall, unless you are needing support for XP, stick with Ghost 2001.

This software is a real MARKETING breakthrough! They have taken away the ability to backup across the network via an ftp or rsh server. I ended up sending it back and getting my money returned. The package promises, "...cloning using home network IP connections..." This is true however you must be running their DOS server software on the server. Also, their server doesn't support NTFS or EXT2 partitions for saving the image. I ended up developing my own system using Linux (dd | gzip | rsh) for FREE! I spent a better part of a week wasted on this product. If you want to duplicate a harddrive in the same machine then it will probably do what you want but don't expect to use your network connection reliably. Also, it comes with a paltry amount of drivers for USB external CD Drives. Not recommended for any situation where the hard drive you want to backup is not in the same system as the spare hard drive.

What a piece of junk. I was using Ghost 2002 for several years, and it did do the job. During that time I was not totally happy as I always had to delete my backup before I created a new one; plus I'd always have to check on some options otherwise I'd be stuck checking on my machine every 15 minutes. I recently upgraded to Windows XP, and found out that 2001 version doesn't work with it. So I had to pay for a 2002 upgrade. And wouldn't' you know it, the stupid thing didn't work either. Oh it installed all right, but I kept getting an error message that wouldn't' allow me to make a backup. Well, Symantec has no phone support, so off I went to their waste-of-a-time support site, and found no help there. I looked at other reviews on Amazon and saw similar problems, and chucked it in.

Do yourself a favor and buy DriveImage 5. It blows Norton away in usability, plus they actually have phone support. And best of all, the product makes backing up your drive a no-hassle pleasure.

As for Ghost, the name is fitting: it'll haunt you.

I've been using Ghost since the first versions, before the product's technology purchase by Symantec and the inclusion in the Norton series. This is simply a valuable piece of software for anyone using Windows systems and having no time to waste. Most users know how Windows slowly degrades (for many reasons) and needs to be reinstalled from time to time. Installing your OS from scratch can take quite some time, installing the main OS, installing drivers, installing essential software, configuration, all that can take a whole afternoon for a single home system. If after a complete install you create a ghost image, you will be able to restore the OS (even to an empty HD) in about 10 minutes (For a Windows 2000 Professional fully configured, for example), exactly as it was when you created the image.

Ghost's main executable code runs in DOS mode, and surprisingly, takes less than 900 kb. That means a single bootable floppy plus the image file can restore your whole system back to the previous state. The process is extremely simple, you write the image, and then later write it back. Most newbies will have no problems using the default settings (for home usage). I've had a few problems with images failing to boot in previous versions, but in general, results are very positive, and I now ghost every fresh install.

Some people complain about the CDR module. I have no opinion on that since I prefer to create the compressed images and record them to CD myself. If you know how to create a bootable CDROM with applications like Ahead's Nero, you won't even need Ghost's CDR part. You can also boot from a normal floppy and have the images in other sources like CDRW or a remote machine.

I don't care for the Ghost Explorer, and to be honest, only use the single 800kb executable, but in any case, considering the pathetic size, this is one of the most useful and effective pieces of coding I've ever seen...Essential for all who have no time to waste, and above all, it is very reliable and stable.

Highly recommended.

I have been very happy with Ghost 2001, which I purchased a year ago. The only problem Ghost 2001 had was that it does not support Windows XP. Therefore, I purchased the Ghost 2002 upgrade.

My advice to you is not to touch Ghost 2002. A real clever marketing person in Symantec had devised a new trick, never before used in the industry. Each time you restore a Ghost image, they make you type a 16-char license number into the restore screen. The way it works is: first they display the license code in a flush screen, then you navigate to the restore screen, and have to type the number. BTW, no cut+paste between the flush screen and the restore screen, that would defeat the purpose of the trick.

Reading Symantec's FAQ, the goal of this becomes clear: they want you to buy a pricier version of Ghost, a version that has more features (which I personally do not need), and does not make you type meaningless numbers. Oh, BTW, that costly version does not even support XP according to their site.

Symantec are not using the typing of the license code as a legitimate anti-piracy measure (the way license codes are used by any other software manufacturer), but rather as a way to slow down the user. The way everybody else in the industry convinces customers to invest in a higher-priced software is by offering better *features* in the higher-priced product. Not by purposely making the lower-priced product annoying to use.

By buying Ghost 2002 you are not only buying grief, you are also providing legitimacy to a totally illegitimate marketing ploy. Don't buy it.

I purchased Norton Ghost to see how it compared to Drive Image. It damaged my system and required me to do a low-level format of my hard drive. I had to restore my system using Drive Image. Now Symantec won't refund my money. Seems like I'm stuck with it. Beware!!!

My primary use for ghost 2002 was to backup my laptop. After extensive research on the Symantec sevice and support website. I was given the impression that a parallel connection is the only way to interface between my laptop and my Backpack CD-RW (suggested by the Symantec CD-RW compatibility list). I followed the Symantec, and Backpack instructions to a tee and everytime (6 times, until I giveup) I received a 12020 error - "failed to write to disk" at different times during the burning process. Now, I understand software has bugs and sometimes it just does work, but at least I would think you could get some free person to person tech support for home/small business users; but with symantec that idea was tossed out the window. Symantec provides an extensive knowledge database and its easy to understand. But when the solution to your problem is not in the knowledgebase they expect you to pay $29 per incident; that's half the price for the software - give me a break. Symantec is a leader in the drive cloning and backup arena and I'll give them this ghost 2002 was user friendly but overall, for my application, it was extremely slow and just didn't do the job. That is why, if it was an option, I wouldn't give ghost 2002 any stars. But what do they care they already have my money!