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[help] Logs & Unlogs immediately   [Help!]

By: Laurent Duchastel     Montréal, Québec  
Date: May 23,2004 at 16:21
In Response to: [help] Logs & Unlogs immediately (Andrew Atton)

> Laurent, I would like to try Ghost but can you explain to a newbie how you
> can put "more than one Ghost image" on a DVD? They must be very
> small installations. Are you just ghosting a small operating system
> partition?

Michael explained it quite well, but here's my more detailed explanation.

My operating system is XP Pro, with MS-Office Standard, Acrobat, Finereader, Procite, Inspiration, Corel Draw, few other large apps, and lot of utilities and config.

Yet, on a DVD, I can put the three following Ghost images:

- FIRSTBOOT: This is naked WinXP installation with nothing installed (no driver, no nothing) after the standard 45 minutes installation setup. This image is useful for me only when I want to test something with Windows with nothing installed (such as a new driver) or when I want to reinstall everything from scratch but avoid 45 minutes setup time. Ghost image size: 657,076,164

- BASIC: This is WinXP with hardware drivers, Office, Acrobat, and common utilities installed, and all safe tweaks and configuration (email accounts, preferences, etc). No Windows update at this point. This is the image that I can dump and use at once for "basic things" (hence the name). It is also the starting point of a major update job, when the Regular image has changed to much (see below). This Ghost image saves approx. two hours of configuration, installation and tweaking after the firstboot above. Ghost image size: 1,267,752,250.

- REGULAR: This is WinXP with almost everything. In this version, I added all known Windows patches, antivirus, Novell client, CD burners, some big programs that I don't use very often (Dreamweaver, scripting language, development tools), a lot of minor utilities that are not essential, and all utilities and apps that are updated very very frequently (media players, codec, CD burners, opera, java, ftp client, etc.). I also installed all dictionaries and encyclopaedias that I usually run from virtual CD located on E: (see below). As the name of this Ghost image indicates, this is the regular setup with almost everything. The setup that I use most of the time. An image that works. Ghost image size: 2,058,023,933.

So, on one single DVD, I have three snapshots at different stages of a Windows installation. In addition to that, I keep often a fourth image on a second partition. This image that I call "FULL" is the current working image of the system, with everything that have been included, modified, tweaked, installed, deleted or updated since the "regular" image. This image is often deleted and recreated, so I never back it up on removable support. When I have tested a bunch of new software, I just need to dump that Full image on my system to go back the to exact state I was before I started testing stuff. No leftovers.

With this strategy, I can go back in time very easily. For instance, I suspect a virus or something happen to my system like it did for Rudy, I just have to redump my "FULL" image and I'm business again. When I have to work on a project for few months with some special big apps, I add to to my "Full" image, but when I'm over with the project and I want to slim down my system, I redump my "REGULAR" image, do some adjustments, and recreate a new "Full" image. When SP2 for Windows XP will be released, I will probably dump my "BASIC" image and take the opportunity to refresh my "Regular" image by assessing my selection of apps. And so on. Dumping a Ghost image takes only 10 minutes, unattended. The secret is to document everything that is added, deleted, or tweaked.

Now, for all this to work, ALL DATA must be moved to another partition. This is important ! Otherwise dumping a Ghost image would mean losing data and I don't want to backup 4G of data each time ! So My Documents, Favorites and Desktop folder (and all other associated folders) point on another partition. On a multi-users desktop, each of these folders must also point to the D:.

In addition to that, some programs have to be tweaked or configured to also save data on the D:. Most decent programs can be configured to save important data on another partition. Programs are on C: and data is on D:. Each program being different, it takes some times to find out how to move data on D:, but this is a worthy process. Some examples of data located on D: on my system:

MS Office templates
MS Office Outlook pst file
MS-fax sent/received folders
Dragon NaturallySpeaking files
The whole Palm User folder
MediaMonkey database
Opera user settings
Procite database, forms and styles
Stickies database
PGP Keys

In some case, it is however better/easier to install the whole apps itself on the D: (or elsewhere). My Ztree folder is now on the D: for instance. I have also my Xnews newsreader on the D: In both case, the programs are small and can be included in a "Data" backup without bloating it.

It's not uncommon for me to dump different Ghost images on the C: quite a few times in the same week. Never lost data that way. The only thing I "loose" each time is the current history, cache, and temp files of my system. Big deal! That's exactly what everybody wants to delete all the time! The other advantage of this is that backing up data is easy. Just copy the D: partition.

At last, there are programs that are so big that they do bloat all backups. As Michael does, it's better to install these apps on another partition than the system partition or the data partition (E: in my case). This is a good strategy with games that often takes 300 to 500 Mbs each, or with any "library-like stuff" (MSDN library, dictionaries, encyclopaedia, MS Office cliparts, etc.). The basic idea is that what's written on the E: is usually static, unaffected by a dump of a Ghost image, and can be reinstalled from CD quite easily if something goes very wrong.

(Actually, it's even easier to mount CD images of games or libraries with freeware Daemon-Tools rather than installing them in full. Doing that way avoid bloating all backup because the "backup" of that CD Image is the original CD itself, from which a new CD image can be very easily recreated at any time. Mounting CD images virtual can also be done through network.
On home computer for instance, I have 50 Gig worth of kid's games in form of CD images that are mounted and dismounted at a click of a mouse. All CDs were installed with "minimal setting". Yet, the Ghost image of the C: partition is only 1,7Giga ! At work, I mount Encarta, Bookshelf, Encyclopaedia Universalis, few other academic databases and MS office cliparts CD that way.)

In summary, with every system I work with, I divide the hard disk the same way.

C: partition: 5 - 10 Giga: WinXP + common apps
D: partition: 6 - 10 Giga: DATA
E: partition: what's left. : CD images, Ghost images, MP3, software collection, Big apps, etc.

Hope that this enlighten you.

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