Create Ghost Bootable SD Card or USB Flash Drive

It's a good practice to create an image of your hard drive before you start using it. Especially when you had to build that computer from scratch and spent hours installing the operating system and all of your favorite apps...

As Symantec Ghost becomes more user friendly, people start to recognize this idea. The idea also works well when you need to clean your PC from viruses. In case anything goes wrong with the operating system, you just need to restore the image using the Symantec bootable CD.

However, the problem comes when we deal with the new version of those small laptops: The netbooks! which usually don't come with a built-in CD-ROM drive to bootup the PC.
The most simple solution would be buying an external CD-ROM drive, which costs you money. And in some cases, you just want to bootup the Symantec Ghost.... with whatever available!



The good news: Almost every recent laptop/netbook comes with a card reader, and even if you wasn't lucky enough, your laptop/netbook should have a USB port!

This guide will tell you how to create a bootable SD card or a USB flash drive with Symantec Norton Ghost.
This task can be done with several different versions of Symantec Ghost; however, the steps from this articles are based on Symantec Ghost 14.

What you need?

• Symantec Ghost 14 bootable CD. (Some other versions might also work)


• A PC with bootable CD/DVD drive.


• An SD card (either SD or SDHC), or a USB thumb drive. The size can be as minimum as 1 GB. You can also pick a large SD card if you want to store your hard drive image to the card as well.


• An SD slot or a card reader (for SD card) or a USB slot (for thumb drive)

 

 

Follow the steps in order. Use this guide at your own risks.

 

1. First, check to make sure your CD/DVD drive is bootable. (See your BIOS manual or PC user guide for details since this is out of the scope of this article).


2. - For SD card: Make sure the SD slot or the card reader is available. if it's a card reader, connect it to the PC. Also insert the card.
   - For USB thumb drive: Make sure the drive is inserted into one of the USB slots.


3. Bootup the computer using the Symantec Ghost CD (Details vary on different computers). On Windows XP, during the startup, you should see the prompt "Press any key to boot from CD...".


4. Once the Symantec Recovery startup is complete, you should see the main screen of Symantec Ghost 14 Recovery similar to this image:
   
   


5. Select "Analyze" from the left menu.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


6. Then click on "Open Command Shell Window". A command prompt window will display.


7. At this command prompt window, type: "diskpart" (one word, without quotes) and hit enter. The prompt now changed to "DISKPART>"


8. Now type "list disk" and hit enter. You should now see a list of all available disks. Base on the size of each disk listed, find the one that matching your SD card (or thumb drive) and note its disk number under "Disk ###". If you don't see your SD card (or flash drive) listed, verify if it is inserted or plugged in (you might need to restart the computer and try again).


9. Type "select disk <n>" (replace <n> with the disk # noted from the previous step) then hit enter.
   Important!! Besure to select the correct disk (your SD card or thumb drive) as you will be erasing the drive.
   Sample image with a 4-GB SD selected:
   
   


10. Create a primary partition for the the disk by executing the following sequence of commands:
    clean
    create partition primary
    select partition 1


11. Set the primary partition active, type: "active" and hit enter


12. Perform a quick format with the following command:
    format fs=fat32 quick


13. Then type:
    assign
    exit


14. Your SD card (or the flash drive) is now bootable and will act similar to a local hard drive. In order to boot this card with Symantect Ghost Recovery, copy all contents from the Symantec Ghost disc to the SD card (or the flash drive). Besure to copy everything including any hidden files/folders.
    
    The SD card or flash drive is now bootable and will boot your laptop/netbook to Symantec Ghost Recovery utilities exactly the same way as of the CD (To boot with the card on your laptop/netbook, don't forget to set your bios to search for the SD card or USB external devices in the boot sequence).

Burn a CD on Windows XP without using software

Windows XP comes with a builtin CD-copy feature that not many people are aware of. Although almost everyone has his/her favorite CD-copy software to stick with, it is still good to know about this CDR feature from Windows XP. You will find it very useful when you come to another PC that doesn't have a CD-copy software, and you can't just install your favorite software to it. With this feature, you can write some data or MP3 files to a CD/DVD, or erase a re-writable CD/DVD.

If you're using a Re-Writable CD (CD-RW), make sure the disc is blank. You might need to erase (or "format") it before use. For information how to erase a CD-RW on Windows XP without using any other software, see this article.

Requirements: You need to enable the CD-R feature on Windows XP. If you haven't done so, see this article.

 

1. Insert a Formated-ReWritable CD or a Recordable (CD-R) disc into the CD drive.


2. From Desktop, double-click on "My Computer".


3. Navigate to the files/folders you want to copy to CD. Select them and press "Ctrl-c" to copy.


4. Browse back to the CD-ROM, and press "Ctrl-V" to paste. The files/folders will show up as temporary files/folders at this time.
   
   


5. On the left panel, select "Write these files to CD".
   
   


6. The window "CD Writing Wizard" appears with the default CD name. Change the CD name if you wish, then click "Next".
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   


7. The "CD Writing Wizard" starts to write files/folders to the CD:
   
   


8. Once the writing process is complete, the wizard will disappear and the CD-Rom will be ejected.

Reset Windows Password

Forgot your administrator password? Don't panic, it happens to some other people too, and you have found the solution! The following instructions will show you step-by-step how to reset your local Windows password. This only works for local user accounts, however, not domain accounts.The password recovery tool from this page is written by Petter Nordahl-Hagen, and the original information, as well as the downloadable tool, can be found from his website. According to the author, this tool should work for Windows NT/2000/XP/Vista.

WARNING! Users who have EFS encrypted files on the Windows XP or Vista computers will loose access to the EFS encrypted files after recovery of your password!

Use this trick at your own risks

The tool to reset your password can be downloaded here.

 

I. Download the bootdisk:

1. Download the bootdisk, which includes the password recovery tool here. The file contains the ISO CD image.


2. Unzip (extract) the ISO file and burn it to a CD. Note that this is an ISO file, you must burn it to CD as an ISO image, not as a "data" file. If you're not sure how, see this article. Also, the image is bootable, you need to burn the image to a CD using the image burning feature; do not extract the contents of the ISO and burn them to the CD, you'll end up with a CD that can't boot!

 

II. Understanding the process: You'll use the bootdisk created from the above steps to bootup your computer, which you want to reset your administrator password. You'll be asked for things like: which drive is the boot drive, which path to the SAM file, etc.. but don't worry, details will be provided. Once you have selected an account to reset the password, you'll need to type in a new password; however, it is highly recommended to use a BLANK password at this point, then you can change your password later in Windows. Follow the prompts to the end. You'll need to save the changes at the end!

 

III. OK! Enough talking. Here are the steps:

1. Startup your computer with the bootdisk created above. You should see a welcome screen following with a prompt:
   

   	boot:

   
   


2. Just wait, the bootup process will continute automatically. Then you should see a screen similar to this:
   

   	=========================================================
   	. Step ONE: Select disk where the Windows installation is
   	=========================================================
   	....
   	NT partitions found:
   	 1 :   /dev/sda1    4001MB  Boot
   	 2 :   /dev/sda5    2148MB
   
   	Please select partition by number or
   	a = show all partitions, d = automatically load new disk drivers
   	m = manually load new disk drivers
   	l = relist NTFS/FAT partitions, q = quit
   	Select: [1]

   
   


3. Notice the last line "Select: [1]" which shows the [1] as default selection because the tool detected the bootup partition is [1]. This might be different on your own machine, so you should review the list shown under "NT partitions found:". The partition with the word "Boot" should be selected.


4. Hit Enter once you confirm the selection. You should see a similar screen as follows:
   

   	=========================================================
   	. Step TWO: Select PATH and registry files
   	=========================================================
   	....
   	What is the path to the registry directory? (relative to windows disk)
   	[windows/system32/config] :

   
   


5. Notice the last line "[windows/system32/config]" which shows the default path. This was also detected by the tool. If the path is correct, hit Enter, or if you wish to enter a different path, enter it now then hit Enter.
   Here are the paths for different versions of Windows:
   - Windows NT 3.51: winnt35/system32/config
   - Windows NT 4 and Windows 2000: winnt/system32/config
   - Windows XP/2003 (and often Windows 2000 upgraded from Windows 98 or earlier): windows/system32/config


6. Once you hit "Enter", you should see the next screen similar to the following:
   

   	-r--------    1 0        0          262144 Jan 12 18:01 SAM
   	-r--------    1 0        0          262144 Jan 12 18:01 SECURITY
   	-r--------    1 0        0          262144 Jan 12 18:01 default
   	-r--------    1 0        0         8912896 Jan 12 18:01 software
   	-r--------    1 0        0         2359296 Jan 12 18:01 system
   	dr-x------    1 0        0            4096 Sep  8 11:37 systemprofile
   	-r--------    1 0        0          262144 Sep  8 11:53 userdiff
   
   	Select which part of registry to load, use predefined choices
   	or list the files with space as delimiter
   	1 - Password reset [sam system security]
   	2 - RecoveryConsole parameters [software]
   	q - quit - return to previous
   	[1]

   
   


7. Hit "Enter" with the default option selected "[1]". Then ...:
   

   	=========================================================
   	. Step THREE: Password or registry edit
   	=========================================================
   	Loaded hives:   
   
   	  1 - Edit user data and passwords
   	  2 - Syskey status & change
   	  3 - RecoveryConsole settings
   		  - - -
   	  9 - Registry editor, now with full write support!
   	  q - Quit (you will be asked if there is something to save)
   
   	What to do? [1] -> 1

   
   


8. Hit "Enter" with the default option selected "[1]". Then ...:
   

   	===== chntpw Edit User Info & Passwords ====
   
   	RID: 01f4, Username: <Administrator>
   	RID: 01f5, Username: <Guest>, *disabled or locked*
   	RID: 03e8, Username: <HelpAssistant>, *disabled or locked*
   	RID: 03eb, Username: <pnh>, *disabled or locked*
   	RID: 03ea, Username: <SUPPORT_388945a0>, *disabled or locked*
   
   	Select: ! - quit, . - list users, 0x<RID> - User with RID (hex)
   	or simply enter the username to change: [Administrator]

   
   


9. Hit "Enter" with the default option selected "[Administrator]", or select another user account. Here you can enter the full user account surrounded by < and >, CASE-SENSITIVE, or enter the RID number (i.e. 0x1f4). Assuming you select the Administrator account, you should see the following screen:
   

   	RID     : 0500 [01f4]
   	Username: Administrator
   	fullname: 
   	comment : Built-in account for administering the computer/domain
   	homedir : 
   
   	Account bits: 0x0210 =
   	[ ] Disabled        | [ ] Homedir req.    | [ ] Passwd not req. | 
   	[ ] Temp. duplicate | [X] Normal account  | [ ] NMS account     | 
   	[ ] Domain trust ac | [ ] Wks trust act.  | [ ] Srv trust act   | 
   	[X] Pwd don't expir | [ ] Auto lockout    | [ ] (unknown 0x08)  | 
   	[ ] (unknown 0x10)  | [ ] (unknown 0x20)  | [ ] (unknown 0x40)  | 
   
   	Failed login count: 0, while max tries is: 0
   	Total  login count: 3
   
   	* = blank the password (This may work better than setting a new password!)
   	Enter nothing to leave it unchanged
   	Please enter new password: *

   
   


10. At the prompt "Please enter new password", Enter the * for a blank password (HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!) then press Enter
    

    	Please enter new password: *
    	Blanking password!
    
    	Do you really wish to change it? (y/n) [n] y

    
    


11. At the prompt, type in "y", then press Enter. Note that the default option is "n".
    

    	Do you really wish to change it? (y/n) [n] y
    	Changed!
    
    	Select: ! - quit, . - list users, 0x - User with RID (hex)
    	or simply enter the username to change: [Administrator] !

    
    


12. Enter the "!" to go back to the main menu. Then select "q" at the following menu to quit:
    

    	<>========<> chntpw Main Interactive Menu <>========<>
    
    	Loaded hives:   
    
    	  1 - Edit user data and passwords
    	  2 - Syskey status & change
    	  3 - RecoveryConsole settings
    		  - - -
    	  9 - Registry editor, now with full write support!
    	  q - Quit (you will be asked if there is something to save)
    
    	What to do? [1] -> q

    
    


13. A prompt to save changes displays, enter "y" to save:
    

    	=========================================================
    	. Step FOUR: Writing back changes
    	=========================================================
    	About to write file(s) back! Do it? [n] : y

    
    


14. The changes are saved! You should see the following screen, press Enter, and reboot your computer.
    

    	Writing  sam
    
    	***** EDIT COMPLETE *****	You can try again if it somehow failed, or you selected wrong
    	New run? [n] : n