Ghost image vs. Format + Re-install...


  

25 members have voted

  1. 1. Ghost image vs. Format + Re-install...

    • Man, I'll Ghost Image the damn thing
      9
    • Meh... I'll reload everything
      16


Recommended Posts

I made an image of my HDD right after i installed windows and got everything working just right...

It takes less than 7min to do the ghost, which does all of the following..

- Formats

- Installs Windows Again

I really like it, because i just have to tell it where the image is, and it does the rest... I do not have to stand around and type in ****. So thats what i would suggest

making IMages is a LOT better than formatting specially when you have settings galore and color settings registry tweaks/hacks all that **** that you'd forget to do again if you did format that along with all the programs you may have installed etc. but i guess a good format is good every once in a while

Ghosting is much better if you had to do what I did last year. Our company is contracted to the bigest steel producer in Africa and they requested a complete change from 386/486 and Pentium1/2 up to P3's running Windows 2000. Now all the PC's were already loaded with Windows 2000 when we received them but they needed to have updates and security settings done as well as Office 2000, Antivirus package and various programs installed. So doing something like 3000 installs was going to be much easier with a ghost.

So for about 2 months I was doing installs on a few hundred PC's. The image sure did help as it only took about 10 minutes per PC. Now to load the whole lot would have been around 2 hours per PC. Work out the difference and multiply that by 3000 and you get the idea on what a time saver it is.

But for a single user I guess formatting and installing once in a blue moon is not gonna be much of a problem. I wanted to image after my last format but never got round to it. Best is do as many updates as possible to the OS. Install must have software then tweak and then finally make an image. That way it is at it's best setup so that you can bugger it all up without a worry.

"Ghosting" is basically creating a copy or "image" of your harddrive which you can use to restore your system with later in case of failure as an example. The benefit of this is its fast, around 10 mins on average as opposed to an hour or two to reinstall manually and then your apps and favorite tweaks.

This image can be burned to cd and can be used as many times and on as many systems as you like. It is an exact copy, so it will restore everything, your apps, settings, and your OS.

Visit www.norton.com and see if they have a trial version of Norton Ghost on offer for download.

Greetz

This topic is now closed to further replies.
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
  • Posts

    • I'm old I guess, first thing I think of is just regular input/output.
    • Now, kids, Dan O'Dowd is what we call a professional hater.
    • Billionaire slams 'Tesla Cultists' for praising Robotaxi, says it's 5+ years behind Waymo by David Uzondu Image via Depositphotos.com The Tesla Robotaxi program has kicked off in Austin, Texas, and reactions are pouring in from all corners of the internet. A select group of investors and influencers have been invited to try the service, which operates within a limited area of South Austin for a price of $4.20. While the vehicles are operating without anyone in the driver's seat, the program has specific rules for this pilot phase, including a human "safety monitor" who rides along in the passenger seat just in case things go sideways. Of course, the launch did not go unnoticed by Tesla's most vocal and well-funded critic, Dan O'Dowd. O'Dowd is the billionaire founder of a group called The Dawn Project, which has dedicated itself to highlighting what it calls critical safety failures in Tesla's Full Self-Driving software. He refers to himself as an expert in creating "unhackable" software for military and aerospace clients, and ran for U.S. Senate back in 2022 on a single-issue platform: to "make computers safe for humanity" by banning Tesla's FSD. In 2023, He was banned from advertising on X after He made promoted posts that show Tesla FSD among other things, failing to stop at Stop signs. Last year, his group, The Dawn Project, paid for a Super Bowl ad, where a Tesla equipped with FSD did not act on a child-sized mannequin in the road. That commercial ends with a message, urging parents to "boycott Tesla to keep your kids safe." Today, O'Dowd took to X to slam the launch of the Robotaxi service, saying the "Tesla Cultists are celebrating victory" over a system he believes is years behind the competition (especially Waymo). He pointed out that with only fourteen cars operating for half the day, the system was already making significant errors, a rate he claims is consistent with community-tracked FSD data. The videos shared by the creators (Rob Maurer and Ed Niedermeyer), O'Dowd mentioned in his post, appear questionable, depending on your perspective. In Maurer's video, a trip that was otherwise smooth had a few unnerving seconds of the vehicle slightly swerving into the wrong lane, correcting itself, swerving again, correcting itself, and then finally settling. The other video from Ed Niedermeyer shows something entirely different. Niedermeyer captured a Tesla Robotaxi approaching an "extensive crime scene" with multiple police vehicles parked on the side of the road. On his personal Bluesky account (Ed stopped posting on X late last year, in protest of Musk), He claims the Tesla braked hard twice for no clear reason. In his commentary, Niedermeyer argued the car "shouldn't react to any of these police vehicles," and that it was concerning how it reacted to some but not others, before stopping in the "middle of the road instead of defaulting to a minimal risk condition."
    • Arch is now also using Wayland as the default session for Plasma 6.4, with X11 session becoming optional (so upgrading to Plasma 6.4 on X11 Arch might need manual intervention). It's been well over a decade in making, but I guess the time for Wayland to be the default is finally upon us.
  • Recent Achievements

    • Week One Done
      ravenmanNE earned a badge
      Week One Done
    • Conversation Starter
      Brett76 earned a badge
      Conversation Starter
    • One Month Later
      Miguel Batista earned a badge
      One Month Later
    • Dedicated
      moojay67 earned a badge
      Dedicated
    • One Month Later
      Jim Dugan earned a badge
      One Month Later
  • Popular Contributors

    1. 1
      +primortal
      662
    2. 2
      Michael Scrip
      229
    3. 3
      ATLien_0
      216
    4. 4
      Steven P.
      146
    5. 5
      Xenon
      141
  • Tell a friend

    Love Neowin? Tell a friend!