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).

Must Follow PC Expert Tips To Prevent Computer Data Loss

We, as a computer user, must take the right steps to prevent computer data loss as data is of great importance to us.

A very good and real life quote that I find applicable in computer’s world is that Prevention Is Always Better than Cure. Rather than taking steps later to rectify a computer problem we should rather take steps that the need for rectification of fault doesn’t come. Makes more sense right? After all, we all can take some basic and not so difficult steps to ensure that the computer is used intelligently without causing harm to its data.

Data loss is the damage to data stored on a computer that results in the user not able to get access to it by normal means. Data can be stored by a user over a period of many years and may contain very critical and useful information. Loss of such critical and important data can mean loss of several thousand of user hours.

Thus computer data prevention is very important and critical to a personal home business user as well as a company. In order to not face a PC data loss situation or avoid such a scenario of computer data not available fully or accessible partially, you could take care to follow the following steps:

1. Use an Anti Virus Software And Regularly Update It

Antivirus software – better paid one than free, is designed to safeguard your PC from harm causing computer virus. Some virus infections can delete, modify your data secretly and lead to crash of your computer. So be sure to update your Antivirus software with the latest patch and signature files for maximum security.

Also, configure your antivirus to do regular scans of your computer drives at least once in a week when your computer is idle. Also, setup real time scanning so that virus are tracked via email and Internet etc.

2. Use A Good Quality UPS to Protect PC From Power Surges

An uninterruptible power supply protects your computer and data during a power surge or failure. A power surge (sudden high voltage) if allowed to enter a computer can cause storage devices and associated circuitry to malfunction leading to data loss.

The chargeable battery in the UPS gives you enough time to save your documents and shut down Windows properly so that you don’t lose any files or damage any hardware components of your computer due to sudden loss of electrical power.

3. Keep Your Computer in a Dry, Shaded And Dust-Free Area

Never operate your computer near places where it is directly exposed to rain, sun, humidity and dust. Such conditions can cause rusting and other problems to your PC hardware parts leading to loss of data.

4. Do Not Attempt To Repair or Open Up Your Computer Without Assistance If You Do Not Know Anything

If you try to attend to a computer fault by opening it without having computer hardware experience, you may damage the circuit boards, hardware components and worst of all, receive a damage causing electric shock! Kindly consult an appropriate computer expert rather than trying to do it yourself without having any experience and knowledge to do so.

I personally know of cases where untrained people have caused their PC motherboard to burn in trying to troubleshoot a simple problem of computer not booting up.

5. Do Not Over-Tweak Your Computer

Every Computer has a peak performance limit beyond which it cannot work whatever you may do as it cannot exceed it design limits of processor and other components.

So, avoid make changes to your system registry or over clocking your computer hardware to get performance boost unless you’re absolutely sure of what you’re doing. I am sure that you don’t wish to burn your computer by making its component heat up due to too much of processing load.

6. Have Your Data Backups Store at An Off-Site Location

This helps to protect your backup from damage in case of a fire or other natural disaster such as lightning, earthquakes and floods etc. Storing data and its backup at a single location is not a good idea for places where the probability of some natural disaster mentioned above is high.

7. Do Not Shift Your Computer when it is Powered On

Always power off and remove the power and data cables before shifting your computer even if you are doing it for a very small distance. A computer has ports, connectors and sockets to which various devices are attached and voltages are fed in them. Movement of computer with power being supplied to its parts can cause electric sparks leading to data loss.

8. Do Not Share Access To Your Networked PC with People Who You Do Not Know 

Your computer data can easily be lost and modified if anyone on the network (local or remote) can access your files freely due to you sharing it with everyone openly.

9. Practice Regular Hard Disk Maintenance

Clean up temporary files, junk files, and unused files and defragment your hard disk regularly from time to time. This helps to keep your hard disk on top form which decreases the chances of computer data loss. The most important secondary data storage device is computer hard disk and thus you need to take special care of it to avoid data loss due to its failure.

10. Hard Disk Read Failure Symptoms

You know it’s time to start taking backup of all your data files when your hard disk starts producing too much of noises and your system starts behaving strangely.

11. Do Not Drink Beverages While Working On Your Operational PC

Avoid drinking beverage on an operational PC as the spilled liquid can lead to a short circuit inside the computer causing data loss.

12. Make Sure That Electrical Wiring and Electrical Devices in Question Are Of Excellent Quality

Electrical wires, sockets, plugs, strips and switches etc. being used in any form to operate a computer must be of premium quality so that there are no short circuits or burning in any form of wires etc. leading to fire and thus damage to the PC and data stored on it.