Image a PC & keep partitions

[thom]

I have 8 fancy media PCs and I have just finished setting up the reference PC ready to ghost.

My only concern is that I have two partitions on the computer. They are both on the same disk (see diagram attached) C is 40GB and D is 110GB. The D partition is virtually empty, it just has a few empty folders and documents on it.

What I don't want to do is create a 150GB image!

 

I normally run sysprep, reboot, then ghost (v8) to the network.

How can I ghost both partitions and restore them as the same partions on a new blank 160GB hard disk?

This may not be worth the bother for the D drive as I can copy the content over manually. If so, can I ghost just the C: partition and when I restore it can it just restore as a partion as oppossed to taking up the whole drive?

 

I only have limited knowledge of Ghost so the solution may be obvious, please be gentle with me

[Dos_Box]

Not sure about the partition creation, but you won't create a 150GB image as empty space is not imaged. Only files and folders.

[steve]

From what I remember you have 2 options

 

Use compression on the image, given the second drive is empty, this should keep the image small. Use switch -Z1 for fast compression

 

Or

 

Resize D: to be just a few meg, then use the -szeL switch to resize the last partition to fill the drive.

 

More Ghost Switches

[NetworkGeezer]

Ghost only copies poupulated sectors so you could image the whole disk if only 5GB was occupied.

[thom]

THanks for that.

So when I restore the image to a new pc can I set up the partitions through the ghost (dos) interface or will it know automatically from the image I created?

[Geoff]

If you created a 'disk' image that had mutliple partitions then yes, it'll recreate the partition structure. There is one gotcha though. If the new disk is bigger than the old one then you'll end up with some unused disk at the end of the drive. You need to use partition magic (or similar) to tidy things up.

 

Alternatively you can create 'partition' images that can be restored one at a time on partitions you create.

[thom]

Thanks, I'll give it a try and let you know how I get on

[spc-rocket]

If you created a 'disk' image that had mutliple partitions then yes, it'll recreate the partition structure. There is one gotcha though. If the new disk is bigger than the old one then you'll end up with some unused disk at the end of the drive. You need to use partition magic (or similar) to tidy things up.

 

Alternatively you can create 'partition' images that can be restored one at a time on partitions you create.

 

Hi Geoff,

 

I thought when you restore the disk image it does give you an option to specify the partion sizes. It automatically fills in the partition sizes of the PC where the image was created but you can then enter a bigger partion size if the target disk is bigger.

 

This is supported on Ghost 2003, haven't used other ghost version so i don't know if they do.

 

HTH,

 

Ashok.

[Geoff]

I'm using Ghost 8 Enterprise here. All our images here are single partitions. When I reimage a PC it does use the whole disk. My advice to thom was erring on the side of caution.