Ghost (software)

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Ghost is a disk cloning program, originally produced by Binary Research, but purchased by Symantec in 1998. The Ghost program launched the market for disk-cloning software. The name Ghost originated as an acronym for "General Hardware-Oriented System Transfer".^[1]

Symantec's Norton Ghost v.14 home screen.

The main Task page from Norton Ghost.

Additional Tools in Norton Ghost v.14.

Murray Haszard wrote Ghost in 1995, building on experience with a parallel and serial file-copying program previously produced by Binary Research.

Initially, Ghost supported only FAT filesystems directly, but it could also copy (although not resize) other filesystems by performing a sector copy. Ghost added support for the NTFS filesystem later in 1996, and also provided a program, Ghostwalker (DOS name: ghstwalk.exe), to change the Security ID (SID) that made Windows NT systems distinguishable from each other. Ghostwalker is also capable of modifying the name of the Windows NT-based computer from its own interface. Ghost added support for the ext2 filesystem in 1999 and for ext3 subsequently.

Binary Research developed Ghost in Auckland, New Zealand and, although a few functions (such as translation into other languages) now take place elsewhere, the main development and quality assurance remains in Auckland.

Symantec purchased 20/20 Software in April 2000 and integrated its Autoinstall technology into Ghost.^[2]

Although disk cloning programs are not primarily backup programs, they are sometimes used as such. A key feature of a backup program is to allow the retrieval of individual files without needing to restore the entire backup. Disk cloning programs either provide a Windows Explorer-like program to browse image files and extract individual files from them, or allow an image file to be mounted as a read-only filesystem within Windows Explorer.

Ghost is marketed as a backup program. It comes with an ISO file that needs to be written to a CD. This provides a recovery environment to perform a full system recovery. There's also provision to mount a drive & select backed-up files from that drive and recover them to the primary hard disk.

Ghost can copy the contents of one hard drive to another and can convert a hard drive's contents to a virtual disk format such as VMware VMDK file.

[edit] PowerQuest

At the end of 2003, Symantec acquired its largest competitor, PowerQuest. It then released Norton Ghost 9.0 on August 2, 2004 as a new consumer version of Ghost, based on version 7 (the last major version produced by PowerQuest before being acquired by Symantec) of PowerQuest's Drive Image product.

Norton Ghost 9 can back up partitions and entire drives and supports direct cloning (without first backing up a partition and writing the image on a different partition).

Ghost 9 is not backward compatible with previous versions of Ghost in that it won't restore GHO images created by Ghost 8 or earlier. However, there is a version of Ghost 8 included on the Ghost 9 recovery disk located under the "restore legacy image" option in utilities. This ensures backwards compatibility with previous versions of Ghost. The version of Ghost 8 included cannot restore images made by version 8.3 of Ghost, which was released later.

[edit] Phantom

The internal project name Phantom designated a complete rewrite of the Ghost cloning engine at Symantec in Auckland. The Phantom project ran for about three years in parallel with the ongoing development of the Ghost code. Some parts of the Phantom code, such as the ability to write to NTFS filesystems from MS-DOS, got folded into the main Ghost product. Symantec released a prototype of Phantom as Ghost for Manufacturing in 2003.

[edit] Ghost Versions

[edit] Ghost 3.1

The first versions of Ghost supported only the cloning of entire disks, but version 3.1 in 1997 allowed the cloning of individual partitions as well. Ghost could clone a disk or partition to another disk or partition, or to an image file, restorable either to another machine or the same machine later. Ghost allowed for writing a clone or image:

• to a second disk in the same machine
• to another machine linked by a parallel or network cable
• to a network drive
• to a tape drive

[edit] Ghost 4.0

Version 4.0 of Ghost added multicast technology (following the lead of a competitor, ImageCast). Multicasting allows sending a single image simultaneously to many machines without putting greater stress on the network than by sending an image to a single machine.

This version also introduced Ghost Explorer, a Windows program which allowed a user to browse the contents of an image file and extract individual files from it. Explorer was subsequently enhanced to allow users to add and delete files on FAT (and later on ext2, ext3 and NTFS) filesystems in an image. Until 2007, Ghost Explorer could extract files from NTFS images but not edit NTFS images. Ghost Explorer could work with images from older versions but only slowly; version 4 images contained indexes to find files rapidly.

Version 4.0 also moved from real-mode DOS to 286 protected-mode. The additional memory available allowed Ghost to provide several levels of compression for images, and to provide the file browser.

[edit] Ghost 4.1

In 1998, Ghost 4.1 allowed for password-protected images.

[edit] Ghost 5.0

Version 5.0 moved to 386 protected mode. Unlike the character-based user interface of earlier versions, 5.0 used a GUI. The Binary Research logo (two stars revolving around each other) played on the main screen while the program idled.

Gdisk, a scriptable partition manager, joined the growing suite of Ghost programs in 1998. Gdisk serves a role similar to Fdisk, but has greater capabilities.

[edit] Ghost 6.0 (Ghost 2001)

Ghost 6.0 included a Console application in 2000 to simplify the management of large numbers of machines. The Console communicates with client software on managed computers to allow a system administrator to refresh the disk of a machine remotely.

As a DOS-based program, Ghost required machines running Windows to reboot to a DOS environment to run it. Ghost 6.0 required a separate DOS partition when used with the Console.

[edit] Ghost 7.0 / Ghost 2002

Released March 31, 2001 Norton Ghost version 7.0 (retail) was marketed as Norton Ghost 2002 Personal Edition. Help|About reveals version 7.00.

[edit] Ghost 7.5

Released December 14, 2001

Ghost 7.5 in 2002 created a 'Virtual Partition' instead - a DOS partition which actually exists as a file within a normal Windows filesystem. This significantly eased systems management. Ghost 7.5 could also write images to CD-R drives, and later versions can also write DVDs.

[edit] Ghost 8.0

Ghost 8.0 includes a standalone executable (DOS name: ghost32.exe) that runs directly from Windows, without the need to reboot. It is very well-suited for placement on bootable media, such as BartPE's bootable CD. The Corporate edition supports Unicast, Multicast and peer-to-peer transfers via TCP/IP. Ghost 8.0 also allows an image to be saved on, or read from, an NTFS filesystem, although NTFS is not normally accessible from a DOS program.

There was also a Norton Ghost version (called 2.0) for Novell NetWare, with supported NSS partitions (although it ran in DOS, like the others).

[edit] Norton Ghost 2003

Norton Ghost 2003, a consumer edition of Ghost, was released on September 6, 2002. Available as an independent product, Norton Ghost 2003 was also included as a component of Norton SystemWorks 2003 Professional. A simpler, non-corporate version of Ghost, Norton Ghost 2003 does not include the Console but has a Windows front-end to script Ghost operations and create a bootable Ghost diskette (third-party CD burning software can be used to create a bootable Ghost CD based on a bootable Ghost diskette). The machine still needs to reboot to the Virtual Partition, but the user doesn't need to interact with DOS. Symantec deprecated LiveUpdate support for Norton Ghost 2003 in early 2006. Two Symantec knowledge base articles (Updates to Norton Ghost 2003 How to obtain the programs updates that are archived on Symantec LiveUpdate server) provide step-by-step instructions detailing how to obtain Norton Ghost 2003 updates from the LiveUpdate Archive. As of April 24, 2008, the latest version available from the archive is 2003.793. Older versions of Norton Ghost 2003 can be also updated from a system with a newer version of Norton Ghost 2003 by copying program directory from newer to older. Reliable support for SATA drives was also provided in 2003.793.

[edit] Ghost Solution Suite 1.0 (AKA Ghost 8.2)

Symantec Ghost 8.2

In 2004, Symantec renamed the Enterprise version of Ghost to Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 1.0. This helped to clarify the difference between the consumer and business lines of the product. This was further defined in February 2006, with the Release of Norton Save And Restore (some packages are labelled Norton Backup And Restore), a standalone backup application based on Ghost 10.0.

Released November 15, 2004

[edit] Ghost Solution Suite 1.1 (Ghost 8.3)

Ghost Solution Suite 1.1 was released December 2005. Some of the new features includes multi-terabyte support, more comprehensive manufacturing tools, and the ability to create a universal boot disk. Ghost Solution Suite is a bundle of an updated version of Ghost, Symantec Client Migration (a user data and settings migration tool) and the former PowerQuest equivalent, DeployCenter (using PQI images).

[edit] Ghost 9.0 (includes Ghost 2003)

A screen shot of Norton Ghost 9.0 as seen in Windows 2000

Ghost 9.0 was released August 2, 2004.

Recovery Disk: The recovery disk for this version of Ghost can be found inside the download/CD.

Please help improve this section by expanding it. Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion.

[edit] Ghost 10.0

Supported media CDR/RW and DVD+-R/RW drives, USB and FireWire (IEEE 1394) devices, and Iomega Zip and Jaz drives. Enables the encryption of backups and support for Maxtor external drives with Maxtor OneTouch buttons.

[edit] Norton Save And Restore 1.0 (Ghost 10.0)

Norton Save And Restore 1.0, released February 2006, was the renamed consumer version of Ghost. The system utilized Ghost 10.0's engine, with the addition of features to allow backup and restoration of individual files.

[edit] Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 (Ghost 11.0)

Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 was released in November 2006. This version provides significant improvements in performance, as well as the ability to edit NTFS images. This version also adds support for Windows Vista, x64 versions of Windows, and GUID Partition Table (GPT)-based disks (although the software does not yet fully support systems with Extensible Firmware Interface (EFI)-compliant firmware).

[edit] Ghost 12.0

Ghost 12.0 includes Windows Vista support with an updated and more thorough user interface. It allows for a full system backup & one where individual files or folders can be selected & backed up.

This version also provides a "LightsOut Restore" feature. This restores a system with an on-disk software recovery environment, thereby allowing a recovery without a bootable CD. Upon boot-up of the computer a screen will ask which drive to boot from from, the regular drive, or the LightsOut restore virtual drive.

LightOut restore augments the ISO disk, which comes with the Ghost program, that has to be copied to a CD. This contains a recovery environment that allows one to recover files even if Windows doesn't start up, but the computer can turn on. The latest update to the program is 12.0.3.24711.

[edit] Norton Save & Restore 2.0 (Ghost 13.0)

NSR 2.0 has fewer features when compared to Norton Ghost 12. NSR 2.0 offers one-time backups, file and folder backup, simplified schedule editor, Maxtor OneTouch integration and modifiable Symantec recovery disc.

This version also supports 32-bit and 64-bit versions of Windows XP and Vista.

[edit] Norton Ghost 14.0

The window where you can set Norton Ghost to automatically back up a drive based upon the level of global computer based threats, as judged by Symantec's ThreatCon grading system.

Same as Ghost 12, but with Google Desktop integration, the ability to make full Volume Snapshot Service (VSS) backups and the option to make remote backups to a secure FTP site as another storage option.

Ghots can now trigger incremental backups whenever ThreatCon reaches a specified threat level. ThreatCon is a malware-detecting utility that triggers a backup on Norton Ghost whenever a pre-set level of threat is reached. However, this functions only when connected to the Internet, so it will not resist any local attack.

Version 14 also offers back up to Network-Attached Storage devices and supports NTFS partitions up to 16TB. Other features and the general user interface are the same as v12. It's installer also manages other Norton Ghost installation (v12 or higher) across a Local Area Network.

Version 14 no longer supports older versions of Windows, just Vista and XP. The latest version is 14.0.2.26325.

[edit] Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5

This is the current version of the enterprise software, and includes Ghost 11.5. It was released in May 2008.^[3]

[edit] Release history

[edit] See also

• Disk cloning

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Norton Ghost - Enterprise Edition product page
• Radified tutorials and pages on Ghost
• Softpanorama Norton Ghost Page
• Brief overview of Symantec Ghost and Norton Ghost versions
• Binary Research Ghost Version History
• Symantec News
• Symantec Ghost Release Details (Dates seems somewhat questionable based on press releases)
• Symantec Ghost Solution Suite Release Details (Dates seem somewhat questionable based on press releases)