How to Restore OS Using Ghost Image File in Win7 ?

Hope someone can please advise....

Recently got a nice little VAIO P (generation 2) laptop with Windows 7 on it.

Seller put a ghost image (.gho type file) on the 'D' drive partition and said I could use it as recovery image. However, I come to find out that:

A. You need Norton Ghost to restore the ghost image onto the C drive. So, costs $'s....

B. Apparently, newer versions of Norton Ghost can't restore .gho files, now uses other file format for complete drive restores. You can use Ghost Explorer to restore individual files from a ghost image....so, doesn't help.

C. From what I've read, you have to go back to Norton Ghost 2003 to be able to restore ghost files. However, that version was developed prior to Windows 7, so, from what I've read there are compatibility issues with using Ghost 2003 on Win7 computers.....

So, wondering if there's any relatively easy way to restore using that Ghost image file or should I just forget it and do fresh Win7 install?

Thanks for any and all input!

Mark

 

I just use another tool to back up what you currently have, then wipe it off to prep for a clean installation

cheers ...

 

Yeah at this point you're pretty much screwed. Maybe a trial version of an earlier build of Ghost can be found somewhere (FileHippo might be a good place to start)? Proprietary format that's been obsolete for a while...

You might as well download a W7 ISO (see this thread for links) and use that to reinstall.

 

For Ghost try Other Norton Products - Norton Community

 

Thanks for the input, everyone....pretty much figure that there's no alternate way to use the old .gho files now...not the end of the world....just a bit more work for me now to make a new restore image with another program...

 

If your goal is just to make a new restore image are you aware that Windows 7 has a "backup and restore" program built in? You can access it either by typing "backup" in the "Search Programs and Files" from the Start ORB or accessing "Backup and Restore" in control panel. Those are just two ways to access the program.

 

Thanks for your input, but my goal was to see if I could make use of the full OS restore image in .gho file format on the D drive partition of the laptop.

Since it looks like I can't use that file, I can use Acronis True Image program that I already have and make a new restore image file....

Again, the only purpose of this post was to see if there was any way to use the Ghost restore file already on the laptop. Since it seems that this isn't possible, unless someone has a way to use it, I'll just make a new one....

 

I think what you need to do is get yourself a bootable iso of Ghost 9 or 10 and boot from it. I'm going to guess Ghost 10 would be the most preferable because it's newer. That's what you want to do to restore the image. You should be able to restore the .gho image because you aren't doing it from within the Windows 7 environment.

Once you get your image restored and are back in Windows, make an image using Acronis?

 

Would you need to make Ghost boot floppy disks to make this work? If so, that's problematic to do I think...

Exactly!

Thanks for your input...