How does Ghost work?

Was wondering if it could help me in this situation.

Pretty much my HD is messed up, my parititons of C:, D: and Q: are jumbled into B:, M: and Q:, and I can't boot from the HD for some odd reason. I attempted to rename the drive as C: but it results in conflicts when I try to use another computer and use my notebooks HD as an external.

So can I do this: Ghost M or was was once C , format C: and restore XP on formatted C:, using Ghost, restore that C: from the ghosted M:?

I wouldn't mind restoring but installing and updating all my stuff(as well as finding the program CDs and random stuff) is a pain in the rear

Thanks.

 

You're right--that is messed up...how on earth did it get like this?

Now, you are not going to be able to do what you are describing,,,least ways, not as simply as you are describing....

First, I need to bow out on GHOST--I haven't used Norton Ghost for several versions. However, I use Acronis True Image and you can get partially to where you want using it (Ghost may or may not have a similar ability)

Acronis will let you make an image of a partition, as well as an entire drive, and let you restore just a partition. So, you could image the partition, wipe the drive, then restore that partition as your first partition.

However, it does not sound like you will be good to go once that is accomplished. Your boot record and partition records will probably still be pointing in the wrong place.

However, once you have complete restoring partition M to partition C, you CAN run a windows repair, which should get you the rest of the way home.
When you run repair, it will search for existing windows installations, find the remnants of your old system now on C: and restore the boot files so you should be able to get up and running again.

 

Argh, thanks for the reply. As for how, no idea, just booted up one day...

Sounds trickey, not sure of its doable huh...

I'll attempt it once i backup what I need. Does a drive have to be "c:" in order to boot?

 

No, I drive does not have to be c to boot with Windows XP, though Windows will require to place some files on the first partition, which then point to the system partition where the windows install is.

It actually sounds pretty doable to me. I beliueve thast Acronis even has a 30-day trial of True Image to test it.

If it were me, I'd place the effected drive as a slave in another machine with lots of storage space, image the entire drive (so you can get back to where you are currently), then image each partition. Then, wipe the drive and restore the desired parition to C: then run the Windows repair....I think it will work

 

you can change the drive letters with in disk management.

 

Yes, you can, but when this occurs with a boot drive, the problem is something deeper.