Rating: 
Summary: Intentionally Crippled Software
Review: I think this program is intentionally crippled so as to prevent companies from buying Ghost 2002 as a substitute for the enterprise edition. By doing this, Norton has made this program unusable for all but the most basic of needs. For example, I wanted to copy a partition on a laptop to an image file on a desktop computer using my home network. Ghost 2002 allows this, with the limitation that both computers must be booted to DOS using Norton's boot disks, and the "slave" computer must run Norton's server software. After a few hours getting the DOS drivers to work, I was able to boot both computers to DOS and get them to see each other over my network. (Note, how to do this is not explained in the manual. You must go to Norton's support web site and search for "Slave" to figure out the procedure.) While I was able to get the "master" computer to see the DOS drive on the "slave" computer and begin the cloning, I was very surprised at the throughput speed. The cloning process was averaging 1MB/min and would have taken 14 hours to complete. I aborted this attempt and instead tried to clone the laptop's NTFS partition to an image file on a DOS partition on the same laptop hard disk. This cloning proceeded at 150Mb/min and took 11 minutes. I see no reason why disk cloning over a 100Mbps network should proceed so slowly unless the program's performance is intentionally retarded to thwart those administrative tasks typically done in enterprises. Unfortunately, I'm a home user who wants to clone a partition over a network to a network drive. Ghost 2002 will let me do this, but only if I tie up both computers (in DOS mode) for over half a day.
Rating: 
Summary: Norton Ghost 2002
Review: I was about ready to return Norton Ghost 2002 after reading the negative reviews here. I decided to try it for myself and was greatly pleased how fast it made a mirror image of one 12.5GB hard disk to another. I didn't even need the manual. Just selected Disk - Disk and in 28 minutes it was completed. I turned off my computer and swapped hard drives and re-booted. Exact duplicate and everything runs fine. Count my 4 stars as a PLUS for this product. Yes, you have to enter your license number each time you make a copy, but it just takes a second to type it in and a small price to pay for the power of this product.
Rating:
Summary: Think I'm gonna return this product
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: An excellent time-saving tool you can depend on.
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: Reliable peace of mind
Review: I've been using Norton Ghost for a few years at work for quick and easy cloning, but recently saw the need for me to have it at home. I have had several problems with my system over the past few months and was getting frustrated with re-imaging it from square one every time. I bought the download and was making my boot disks within a half hour. I burned an image of my machine right to my CD-R without a problem the first time. For those without prior experience with Ghost, it might take some reading up to get the hang of it, but it's truly invaluable to have a clean copy of your machine ready to go if disaster strikes. Good product!
Rating:
Summary: Very happy with Norton's Ghost
Review: I've been using the Ghost program since it's inception. While I have had problems with some other Symantec products (mainly Norton Utilities 3.0 on some old WIN 95/A/B systems, which I now no longer own, where it wiped out essential files). I've never had any problems with Norton's Ghost or Anti-Virus products. I highly recommend this product as it makes the task extremely easy to perform.
Rating: 
Summary: Feast or Famine
Review: If you can get Norton Ghost to work on your machine, then the software can make a cloned image of your hard drive for quick restore. However, notice the word "IF". Instructions for using Ghost are not straight forward. Creating a sucessful clone can be a real challenge. Additionally, there is no try before you buy option, so if Ghost doesn't work with your system, you are out of luck. I've had much more success with a program called Drivebackup from Newtek, Inc (NTI). With Drivebackup, I easily made a self-booting image copy clone of my Windows XP laptop computer for emergency purposes. Plus, NTI's website has a trial download option so you can make sure their program works on your machine before purchasing.
Rating:
Summary: Symantec Decides to Punish its customers
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: 2002 Stinks
Review: It stinks and Symantec isn't satisfied with the money they have duped us out of....they want us to upgrade, further, to Ghost 7.0. No thanks...now what was the name of their competitor? It's looking pretty good to me.
Rating:
Summary: It just doesn't work
Review: Many attempts to backup files from hard disk to CD-R's failed. So much time and so many CDs wasted that it is unacceptable. The system I have is Pentium 4 1.7GHz, 40GB IBM hard drive, 512MB RAM and Sony CRX 140E writer. Please make yourself a favor and save your money and time.
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