Ghost (short for General Hardware-Oriented System Transfer) is an excellent backup & restore tool (commonly known as cloning software) for system, data on hard disk/partition developed by the famous Symantec company from America. For the vast majority of advanced users like system administrator/network manager, it is used to backup the system partition (so as to minimize the time and labor spent on each reinstallation of OS furthest) or data on a disk.

Ghost can provide a complete backup & recovery to the OS, supports various file storage formats used in multiple operating systems (including FAT, FAT32, NTFS, OS2, HPFS, UNIX, NOVELL, EXT2, EXT3, Linux Swap, etc.). This means Windows, Linux or Mac OS users can use Ghost to backup their OS caring nothing about what it is, which even allows to make a full backup for unsupported partition in the sector-to-sector method. So, with help of Ghost, we can clone all the content on a disk to another, compress the whole disk and store it as an image file. In particular, if you have several PCs with similar hardware configuration that want to use the same OS, then you will find that using Ghost makes things become much simpler and more efficient.

Besides, the storage media types that Ghost supports are beyond our imagination, and what’s more, this feature does not need any driver or software to go! Especially the support for CD/DVD burners, now the burner and blank CD/DVD are all very cheap, so this way is very suitable to many purposes of important data’s backup for individuals and enterprises.

AppNee provides you with the Ghost’s most classic 4 versions in multiple editions (including the lite editions) extracted from the Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 1.1 (Ghost 8.3), Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.0 (Ghost 11.0), Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 2.5 (Ghost 11.5) and Symantec Ghost Solution Suite 3.0 (Ghost 12.0), supporting tools (Ghost Explorer, GDisk, etc.), all of which can be used in Windows, PE and DOS environments to perform OS/data backup/restore operations.

// Best Practice //

Below, we only take Windows for example:

1. In your newly installed Windows, install all devices’ driver along with your most frequently used software (you’d better install them on volume D, or you C:/ will be too fat), and make sure they are working well together.
2. Then remove all kinds of junk files, system components you don’t need and a variety of personalized settings, optimization using some tools or manually.
3. Finally, you can use Ghost to make a full image to your system partition (usually the volume C) and store the .GHO format of file for later restore use.

From now on, at any time, as long as your Windows is out of any problems, such as running slower and slower, infected with virus/trojan, damaged with losing system files, etc., then you can use the .GHO image file in your hand to quickly restore your Windows to its most original state – the day you installed it, which is almost perfect. In this case, we can avoid wasting time and energy in installing, cleaning and optimizing the whole system and a lot of software over and over.

For the case when you are in an office environment with many PCs having the same/similar hardware configuration, then this single .GHO OS image can be used anywhere and anytime – ‘One-To-More’ OS cloning.

// Supporting Tools //

File	Description
Ghost.exe	Used in DOS environment
Ghost_11.exe	Older version for DOS, runs fast
Ghost32.exe	Used in Win32 environment
Ghost64.exe	Used in Win64 environment
Ghostexp.exe	Ghost Explorer used in Win32 environment
GhostExp64.exe	Ghost Explorer used in Win64 environment
Ghostsrv.exe	Server tool used to multi-client cloning in the LAN environment
Gdisk.exe	Partition and format tool used in DOS environment
Gdisk32.exe	Partition and format tool used in Win32 environment
Gdisk64.exe	Partition and format tool used in Win64 environment

// Full Edition Files List //

Linux x86	Windows x86	Windows x64
gdisk ghconfig ghost ghregedit	DeployAnywhere.exe deploying_images.pdf DriverDBMgr.exe DriverManager.exe gdisk32.exe Getting_Started.pdf GhConfig32.exe ghost32.exe Ghostexp.chm Ghostexp.exe GhostImageFile.dll Ghost_imp_guide.pdf GhRegEdit32.exe V2iDiskLib.dll	DeployAnywhere64.exe DriverDBMgr64.exe DriverManager64.exe Gdisk64.exe GhConfig64.exe Ghost64.exe Ghostexp.chm GhostExp64.exe GhostImageFile64.dll GhRegEdit64.exe V2iDiskLib.dll

// Edition Statement //

• Above all, from AppNee you can get Symantec Ghost’s all editions (for DOS/PE/WIN) and versions (v8.3, v11.0, v11.5, v12.0.0.xxxx) for Windows 32-bit and 64-bit.
• Ghost v8.2 and lower versions do not support GHO files larger than 2 GB
• The biggest advantage of GHOST v8.3 is: it full supports NTFS (including recognition ability of NTFS partition and read/write the GHO file inside) since GHOST v5.1 first supported FAT32, which is another significant contribution with a landmark meaning
• The most prominent advantage of GHOST v11.0.2 (AKA: GHOST v11.2) is good compatibility (upward compatible with v11.5’s image, and downward compatible with v8.3’s image)
• The speed of GHOST v8.3 is really fast, so if you are not using the Windows Vista+ (just the classic Windows XP/2000/2003), then we suggest you to use v8.3, rather than other higher versions.
• Both GHOST v11.0 and GHOST v8.3 support NTFS.
• Since version 9, GHOST can only run under Windows, providing regular data backup & automatic restore and OS’s backup/restore features
• Ghost’s DOS and Windows editions have the uniform UI and can achieve the same function. But the Ghost for Windows can not restore partition there Windows is installed. So in this case, we have to use the DOS edition instead or enter Windows PE to do the same thing
• Although GHOST’s DOS edition does support restoring GHO image from NFTS partition, but do not run Ghost in a NTFS partition, or it can not run under DOS.
• Finally and anyhow, AppNee has an end with this Symantec’s Ghost!

// Prompts //

• For hard disk or partition with too large size, the generated .gho file will be split into multiple ones within 2 gb of size!
• When backup system, it’s better to make (use the compression option) the size of a single backup file is smaller than 2GB .
• Before backup a system partition, it’s always a good practice to delete as many junk/useless files as possible, so as to reduce the Ghost file size obviously. In general, the junk/useless files including (but not all): Windows’ 2 Temp folders, IE Temp folder, Windows’ Visual Memory/Pagefile, etc.
• Before backup, defrag the source and target disks, in order to speed up the backup progress.
• Before backup and restore, you’d better check to make sure there are not errors (or repair them) on both source and target disks.
• Before restore, do make sure there are not any important files on the target disk/partition – once you have overwritten it, all data will be lost, too late to regret it!
• When choose a compression ratio, we suggest you not to use the highest one, because it is time-consuming, and the important is, most often the compression rate has no obvious improvement at all.
• After installing new software or hardware, you’d better remake the the system image, or it’s probably some puzzling mistakes come out after recovery.
• When exit Ghost on Windows, use the ‘Quit’ command in program, not the ‘X’ on the top right corner of window. Or you Ghost will generate a big error log file.

// Related Links //

• OneKey Ghost – Easiest, fastest way to backup/restore Windows

// Download URLs //

License	Version	Contained Tools List	Download	Size
DOS/PE
Corporate Edition	v8.3.0	ghost.exe ghost32.exe	reserved	2.02 MB
DOS/PE/WIN
Corporate Edition	v11.0.2.1573	gdisk.exe gdisk32.exe Ghost.exe Ghost32.exe GhostExp.exe GhostSrv.exe	(Windows x86)	4.79 MB
	v11.5.1.2269	for Linux (x86): gdisk ghost for Windows (x86): gdisk.exe gdisk32.exe ghost.exe ghost32.exe Ghostexp.exe GhostSrv.exe ghstwalk.exe GhWalk32.exe for Windows (x64): Gdisk64.exe ghost64.exe	(Linux x86, Windows x86 & x64)	13.1 MB
	v12.0.0.4112	for Linux (x86): ghregedit gdisk ghconfig ghost for Windows (x86): deploying_images.pdf DriverDBMgr.exe DriverManager.exe gdisk32.exe Getting_Started.pdf GhConfig32.exe Ghost_imp_guide.pdf ghost32.exe Ghostexp.chm Ghostexp.exe GhostImageFile.dll GhRegEdit32.exe V2iDiskLib.dll DeployAnywhere.exe for Windows (x64): Ghostexp.chm GhostExp64.exe GhostImageFile64.dll GhRegEdit64.exe V2iDiskLib.dll DeployAnywhere64.exe DriverDBMgr64.exe DriverManager64.exe Gdisk64.exe GhConfig64.exe Ghost64.exe	reserved (Linux x86) reserved (Windows x86) reserved (Windows x64)	6.77 MB 12.6 MB 12.1 MB
	v12.0.0.8019	Ghost_11.exe ghost32.exe Ghost64.exe Gdisk.exe gdisk32.exe Gdisk64.exe Ghost.exe	reserved (Windows x86 & x64)	10.0 MB
	v12.0.0.8023	Ghost32.exe Ghost64.exe Ghost32+64.exe	reserved (Windows x86 & x64)	3.79 MB
	v12.0.0.8051	Ghost.exe Ghost_11.exe ghost32.exe Ghost64.exe Gdisk.exe gdisk32.exe Gdisk64.exe	(Windows x86 & x64)	10.3 MB
	v12.0.0.8065	ghost32.exe ghost32+64.exe Ghost64.exe	reserved (Windows x86 & x64)	5.75 MB
	v12.0.0.10517	ghost32.exe ghost32+64.exe Ghost64.exe	reserved (Windows x86 & x64)	3.95 MB
	v12.0.0.10520	Ghost32.exe Ghost64.exe Ghost32+64.exe	missing (Windows x86 & x64)	5.75 MB
	v12.0.0.11611	DeployAnywhere64.exe DriverDBMgr64.exe DriverManager64.exe Gdisk64.exe Ghost64.exe GhostExp64.exe GhRegEdit64.exe OmniFs64.exe ….	Windows 64-bit	21.7 MB
Boot CD
Corporate Edition	v11.5.1.2269	ISO	reserved	39.8 MB
	v12.0.0.11573		Windows 10 32-bit	296 MB
	v12.0.0.11611		Windows 10 64-bit Windows 11 64-bit	361 MB 415 MB

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