Rating: 
Summary: Norton Ghost is a Nightmare
Review: I bought ghost to copy an image of my old hard drive and transfer it to my new hard drive on a laptop. I tried to use the peer-to-peer tcp/ip connection to copy the old hard drive image to another machine as a file so I could retrieve it after the new hard drive was installed on my laptop. I spent 3 days fixing problem after problem and researching the tech support knowledgebase until I finally gave up. I found myself manually configuring the nic card driver files and editing the ms-dos system boot files. If your nic card isn't available in the list of only 130 available templates, you need to manually create one. The list included a host of brands I have never heard of, but yet for a well-known brand like Netgear, it contained only 1 nic card template. Of course it wasn't one that I was using. In addition, the msdos system files needed to create a ghost network boot disk can only be obtained from a Windows 95 or Windows 98 startup disk. Now, this might not be a problem if you are running W95 or W98, but I am running WinXP. The tech support documentation claims that ghost will accept msdos files from a disk created in WinXP, but it doesn't. I could go on, but I think I have made my point.I am returning this piece of trash software and I want my money back. The time I spent troubleshooting all its problems is worth far more than what I paid for it.
Rating:
Summary: The only thing worse is the support
Review: I bought Norton Ghost 2003 and installed it on my Dell computer. I then ran the backup facility. The system went to DOS and hung. Nothing would induce it to go back to Windows as it had created a virtual disk partition with software that would not run on my computer. I went on the web and found that it does not run on computers with new hard drives (SATA). I called tech support and they wanted big bucks to fix the problem. There is no help for the problem online.
Rating:
Summary: Poor support, won't backup to external drive....
Review: I bought this program because it was advertised as being able to backup an image to external firewire devices...... EXCEPT the ever so popular Maxtor drives which I happen to own 2 of. So, since I always want to keep my image stored off of my actual pc, I need (16) cd's and spend a lot of time swapping out discs when I want to update my image which takes a couple hours out of my day. It sure would have been nice to know the "fine print" BEFORE spending good money.
Rating:
Summary: Can't handle complex tasks, too complex for simple ones.
Review: I had a basic hard drive upgrade task. Take my exisitng single NTFS partition on my 40G drive, transfer it over to my new 80G drive. If you are a computer novice, it sounds straightforward enough. If you are a guru, you know it's fraught with pitfalls and busy work, for Windows NT based OS'es are mighty peculiar when it comes to upgrading drives. This program was absoultely no use in this project. I spent 12 hours of on-line research, waiting for fruitless copies of 40G of data, and a particularly scary few hours when neither drive allowed me to log-on to Win2K. Why? I'm not sure why exactly, it wasn't due to my rig, or my methodology. I eventually used an open-source sector copier and it completed the copy in 45 minutes and I didn't have to modify any registry settings (!). With this version of ghost, I was subject to lengthy waits, frequent reboots and not a whit of online assistance. Based on the virtual-assistance I recived, you would think I was the only person on the planet who ever even considered to upgrade an NTFS dynamic hard drive. Lesson to be learned: Don't use this overpriced, under performing K-Mart utility. Instead, find a specific application that you can be shown, unequivically, it will do what you want it to do, correctly and quickly. Ironically, Ghost 7.0, bundled with many enthusiast motherboards (Epox for example) is more potent and fast than this retail mess, not recommended.
Rating:
Summary: Ghost backups failed
Review: I have been using Norton products for many years to keep my Hard drives working. Ghost has failed me. I backed up my Hard Drive 3 times using Ghost and when I had to recover from a corrupt MBR, none of the backups worked.
Rating:
Summary: Ghost backups failed
Review: I have been using Norton products for many years to keep my Hard drives working. Ghost has failed me. I backed up my Hard Drive 3 times using Ghost and when I had to recover from a corrupt MBR, none of the backups worked.
Rating: 
Summary: Good idea, bad implementation
Review: I have bought Symantec's System Works 2003, that includes Ghost 2003. Since I need a semi-professional solution to back-up my servers and I can't really rely on Win2000's backup (it's terrible for backing apps), I've got the Symantec product since it was the cheapest semi-professional solution out there.
The s/w has a easy to use and understand GUI and it looked quite promising initially.
However, my first attemp to back-up a Dell server that has 2 hard drives was unsuccessful:
- you cannot select both HDD's (no big deal)
- the first drive is a 40 GB and is 3/4 full. It took a long time to back it up (no big deal again). Then I went back to verify the image I've got on my external USB drive. It was fine for the first span (a total of 4 spans with high compression, since the max file Ghost 2003 can write is 2GB - I guess this is a DOS limitation though). Then, Ghost tried to get to its second span, when it hit another snag - it could not recognize its own file ?!? Suffice to say, if you have a large amount of data to back-up, you have to verify the integrity of the image. Do not assume it is OK!
OK, I said - maybe there was something wrong with my first try, so I've tried a second time. Same problem.
Before my third attempt I've read the manual :-) so I can understand how to use command line parameters.
I have tried a "-split=4600" so I can then copy the resulted files on my dvd-r drive (obviously, I haven't read the full manual - my mistake). Ghost started to do its thing, then it reverted back to Windows stating illegal parameter. How much extra work would have been for Symantec to build a parameter check before attempting to use those parameters?!? Really silly design...
Anyhow, the correct "-split=2048" worked and I've got again 4 resulting span files. The integrity check result was OK as well, so I was starting to feel almost OK about this software.
Then I went to back-up the second drive. I've inputted the new file name (different from the first one, but starting the same "Dell02_*"), but I used the same folder on my external HDD. Bad idea...
The s/w created the first backup span file and then the next one. Of course, since it used the same generic name for the second span file it overwrote the previous back-up. This is a totally stupid design!
So, in conclusion: if you have already bought Ghost 2003 you can learn how to bypass the bugs. If you don't have it, then buy something else.
It's a shame that this product wasn't put through a more rigorous testing before being released. Good idea, bad implementation.
Rating:
Summary: Booooo to Symantec
Review: I have programmed and installed PC software for over 15 years. Most of my experience is using Ghost with Win98. I spent many, many hours learning how to use this product. IN MY OPINION: the user instructions are very poor, and the program has a few serious flaws that have caused me great PAIN. After installing Ghost 2003 on a plain XP machine, it crashed from the first start-up. No more Symantec for me.
Rating: 
Summary: WORKS LIKE A CHARM
Review: I have used Ghost 2003 to reimage two new hard drives and restore a working drive and it has worked like a charm. I have saved images to a second hard disk and to CDs without any problems. My C partiton is 5GB and holds only Windows XP, the D partiton is 5GB and holds all my applications. Those are the only two partitions I save using Ghost. I make sure to defrag and remove temp files, etc before making an image. In the right hands this program is a lifesaver. In the wrong hands it is useless. I love it!!
Rating:
Summary: Norton Ghost 2003 ate my RAID array
Review: I have used Norton products for the past few years and most are generally pretty useful (with the exception of the infamous crashguard, but we can all forgive). I have used Ghost 2002 many times to clone hard drives and make backups with no problems. However, I tried to use Ghost 2003 to clone two drives in a RAID-0 configuration to a separate independent hard drive, and somehow it failed and [ruined] all of my data. I am now an extremely disatisfied customer and will not be recommending Ghost 2003 to anyone soon.
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