How can I run Ghost from a bootable USB key drive?

Question

I have a laptop that does not have a cd-rom or floppy drive. It is able to boot from USB though.

I have a disk image (ghost) of the disk that I need to restore back onto the laptop. I can't find a way to actually run the Ghost utility from a USB key though.

I believe the ghost.exe should run from within DOS just fine but I can't seem to create a bootable USB key with DOS on it that allows me to run an EXE.

Edit: I managed to find a Ghost utility that I could load from a bootable USB drive. Unfortunately, when I plug in my NTFS external drive (USB), it is not detected.

Answer 1

You can use Hirens Boot CD. Newer versions have a free alternative to Norton Ghost, older versions have the real Norton Ghost (though it is shareware). Directions on their site how to make the "boot cd" a bootable usb stick. Very simple, only takes a few clicks with the right software (all explained in the link).

Update:

Newer versions of Hirens Boot CD contain Parted Magic, which has many disk management tools, including Clonezilla, a free alternative to Ghost. All in all I think Parted Magic is the best disk management utility I have ever used. Clonezilla doesn't have a polished GUI like Ghost (maybe it will someday?), but it still gets the job done.

Answer 2

We use Symantec Ghost Boot Wizard here. I am unsure what Symantec program suites it is included in.

Answer 3

From Making Ghost 9 recovery disk on bootable USB?:

I recently bought an ASUS Eee PC 1000H. Lacking an optical drive I wanted to be able to boot my Norton Ghost 9.0 recovery environment from a USB stick. I assume the recent flood of these ultra mobile PC's will cause a renewed interest in this topic.

Here are the steps to make a bootable Ghost 9.0 Recovery USB stick or SD card (works just as well with the builtin SD card reader of the ASUS 1000H):

Format the stick using the HP USB Disk Storage Format Tool (Google will easily locate this free utility for you). No need to use the "Create a DOS startup disk" functionality in this case, the partition on the memory stick will be marked active for boot anyway.

Copy the folder \I386 from the Ghost 9.0 Disk onto the memory stick and rename it to \minint

Copy the file \minint\NTDETECT.COM to the root folder of the memory stick

Copy the file \minint\SETUPLDR.BIN to the root folder and rename it to NTLDR (without an extension)

If necessary install required Windows 2000 drivers. I copied the two files from the Eee support DVD, found in \Drivers\LAN\Atheros\Win2k into the memory stick folders \minint\INF and \minint\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS and Ghost activates the builtin LAN adapter of the 1000H.

You're done! Boot from the USB stick.

As a side note, except for the formatting part, the same procedure can be used to boot Ghost9 from an external harddrive containing an NTFS partition. That allowed me to put the Ghost9 restore environment together with the actual backup itself onto a single 2.5'' drive in a USB enclosure. Now that is what I call a portable backup solution! In contrast to memory sticks, the normal Windows Local storage disk management console (under Administrative Tools) allows to mark partitions on external harddisks as active. So no need for the HP format utility in this case.

Answer 4

For creating the bootable USB using the Ghost Boot Wizard, see this thread.

Otherwise, see also How to Make a Norton Ghost Bootable USB.
Remark: Be very careful when using the DiskPart utility.