Norton Ghost 14.0 Reviews

• It works if you are willing to put up with bugs and errors

  
  By ANJHE0S3PY6D1 on 2008-03-02
  Symantec Ghost 14 seems to be a merge of features between Symantec's older Ghost product line with Symantec's disastrous "save and restore" product, which for some strange reason is still offered in version 2.0.
  You can see my reviews for Save and restore here on amazon to see why my copy ended up in the garbage can.
  I have been using ghost in its various incarnations for several years, when it used to run off a floppy drive, so i am very familiar with its capabilities. Symantec Ghost 14 can backup files or your entire computer's drives if so desired to another computer on a network or to a USB drive. It can do this on a schedule.
  The features of Ghost 14 on paper are impressive, so i decided to give it a test by installing the product on my laptop and creating a complete backup to a network drive on another computer. The entire backup was completed in less than 15 minutes. Then i decided to create an updated recovery disc for my laptop to do a full recovery, Ghost automatically recognized the fact that my original Recovery Disk had been burned to a rewriteable disc, and proceeded to erase and burn a new updated version on the same disc.. very impressive.
  Unfortunately, as soon as rebooted my laptop with the Recovery Disc and i put an ip address on the interface (i am not running DHCP on my network) i wasn't able to connect to the computer containing the backup, due to some kind of authentication error.. so no matter what i did, i wasn't able to get past this hurdle.. so i am left with a complete computer backup i am not able to access..
  Imagine, how would you feel if you computer died and you weren't be able to restore, thanks to Symantec buggy software, despite having an entire backup of it???
  
  What is the point of all the countless fancy features if this product fails at its most useful feature.. which is to restore your computer's hardrive in case of failure?
  
  For all intents and purposes, Norton Ghost 14 is another piece of semi-functional software.. with partially working features, pretty much like every product Symantec makes...
  I don't recommend purchasing this product, unless you are somewhat computer literate and are able to get through the bugs that are present in this product.
  
  UPDATE 1: When i booted my laptop using the recovery disc, every time i tried to map the recovery point share on a computer on the network, i keep on getting the following error message: A specified logon session does not exist.
  After doing some online research, i was able to figure out how to fix this error by entering the name of the computer followed by the login name in the following format compname\username when prompted for a user / password to map the drive. I will post another update to see if recovery works as advertised.
  
  UPDATE 2: When i booted my laptop using the updated recovery CD, and i mounted the recovery point using the compname\username trick to authenticate, i was able to dump the entire laptop's drive image and do a full recovery. The catch is that i work on the field, and I was able to find out the solution on my own, but less savvy users will probably have to resort to having to call Symantec, etc etc, so when you purchase this product expect to spend some time making it work and make sure you TEST the recovery process if you can.. because the last thing you want to find out is that your recovery process doesn't work when you really need it.
  
  UPDATE 3: I tried to create a backup of my Windows 2000 Dell laptop.. but Norton Ghost 14 doesn't support Windows 2000.. so beware.
  
  UPDATE 4: Unlike Norton's disastrous Save and Restore, Ghost doesn't go on the internet and check the serial number every time you install it on a computer, I know this after i installed my copy of Save and Restore one too many times to one of my 4 computers and the serial number became "blacklisted" and the product ended up in the garbage can.
  
  This good news means that if you want want to make backups of multiple computers, you can just purchase ONE copy of Norton Ghost.
  
  

• backup = passed, but restore = failed!

  
  By A2F1P10GGZ7K2T on 2008-04-15
  Vista Home Basic and Home Premium users were unfortunately ripped off when the product didn't come with a standard backup feature built into the operating system. Thus, solutions like the legendary Norton Ghost.
  
  - First good news is it installed within minutes on Vista x32 and x64
  - Second good news is backing up to my external Maxtor One Touch was flawless. It backed up nearly 200GB in a little over an hour.
  - Third piece of good news is when making the Symantec Recovery Disc, you can tell it exactly where to find your driver files and load those onto the disc.
  
  But. . .
  
  - First "bad" news is the UI stinks to high heaven. Trying to go the simplified look with high feature rich innovation like of Apple didn't work here. Symantec failed miserably. I had to search online or in the Help more than once to figure out how to use many of the features.
  - Second bad news, is its failure to restore, which is an essential feature in a "backup & restore" solution. So many bad reviews on Amazon, but so few of the reviews anyone actually trying to do a OS restore. So you backup your pictures and docs to a USB drive, big deal. A manual copy & paste does that. But restoring a crashed OS is a key feature that should be tested. Suffice it to say, the restore process failed for me like it did for the few others who posted reviews where this was attempted
  - Third bad news is the online support for actual error messages stinks. If you get lucky and find an obscure message board with a fix, then count your blessings because the online knowledgebase from Symantec needs help for the Ghost v14 product. I'm a support manager by trade and every business report will tell you the #1 deflector of calls in to Support is to get online resources. . .Guess Symantec isn't partaking in standard business practices
  
  OVERALL:
  If you need something that will backup your data automatically, this works. But for the price you might try searching Sourceforge first to find a free solution.
  
  The worst part, every review that tried to do an OS restore, including myself, was unsuccessful. A key reason NOT to get this product.
  
  

• Good in theory if you don't trust the built-in back up and restore of Vista.

  
  By A2HXE29CU1I24Y on 2008-04-02
  Here's the problem I see in marketing products like these. Norton has more than three products that I know of that provides data back up and protection - Norton Save & Restore 2.0, Norton Ghost 14.0 and Norton 360 Version 2.0. They have overlapping features and non-overlapping features at a price point within reach from each other. With this kind of confusion, I would be looking elsewhere for a company whose product distinction is clearly labeled as home, business or enterprise.
  
  However, if I were a simple home user looking to back up my data then I would just rely on the built-in back up and restore features of Windows XP and more importantly, Windows Vista Ultimate version. In fact the simple, elegant interface of Vista makes it easy and pleasant to use. And if we're talking about avoiding a buggy OS, then installing third-party software won't stop your computer from acting up in the first place.
  
  If I were an enterprise user, I would have a real solid plan of RAID protection as well as off-site back-up.
  
  So I honestly don't know who this product will target except if I don't trust Microsoft's back up features which doesn't make sense if I trust to run their operating system in the first place. if this were the case I wouldn't be running Microsoft software at all and just turn to other OS including Apple's Mac OS X and activate the built-in Time Machine.
  
  If you still choose to use this product and trust Norton for security and back up then the good news is that it installs without any hitch and in less than five minutes. Simple usual button clicks, a user agreement and a restart.
  
  What is a turn-off for me is the GUI of the product. If you've seen the product packaging which looks like a product of the 1980s, then you have an idea of what creativity they have in store for their GUI. I've never seen a product that looks so unattractive and uninspiring to use. It makes me go thru the whole menu of features in the quickest way possible so I can get it out of the way from my sight fast.
  
  The truth is looks may not matter, but if they didn't pour this much effort in making the user experience as pleasant then I don't trust the effort they built into creating the program as well. Windows Vista and Mac OS X both look sexy and visually pleasing to use. Underneath those GUI is a bunch of features worthy of their price. With Norton Ghost, it may as well be a ghost and disappear from sight.
  
  The great thing about this product though is that it virtually backs up to anything - attached internal or external hard drives, CD or DVD media as well as off-site and NAS.
  
  There is, I have mentioned, a calendar to schedule and show back up as well as activity on the progress of your back up. You can do a full-system back up or a specific folder or file. Norton includes an integrated Google Desktop to make file searching and indexing easier and faster than ever. While you can save space by custom compressing your back up.
  
  Like any back-up to hard drive, please use another physical and dedicated disk. A Gig of media is cheap these days. Backing up to a virtual disk via partition is the same as keeping your valuables in the trunk of your car. Should the car get stolen...
  
  In all honesty, I would save my money and place the it toward purchasing a bigger hard drive for use as a dedicated back up drive and use instead the built-in back and restore of the OS. If I trust to run Windows OS in the first place, then I might as well trust to run the included features. But that's just me.
  
  

• It works if you are willing to put up with errors and bugs

  
  By ANJHE0S3PY6D1 on 2008-03-02
  Symantec Ghost 14 seems to be a merge of features between Symantec's older Ghost product line with Symantec's disastrous "save and restore" product, which for some strange reason is still offered in version 2.0.
  You can see my reviews for Save and restore here on amazon to see why my copy ended up in the garbage can.
  I have been using ghost in its various incarnations for several years, when it used to run off a floppy drive, so i am very familiar with its capabilities. Symantec Ghost 14 can backup files or your entire computer's drives if so desired to another computer on a network or to a USB drive. It can do this on a schedule.
  The features of Ghost 14 on paper are impressive, so i decided to give it a test by installing the product on my laptop and creating a complete backup to a network drive on another computer. The entire backup was completed in less than 15 minutes. Then i decided to create an updated recovery disc for my laptop to do a full recovery, Ghost automatically recognized the fact that my original Recovery Disk had been burned to a rewriteable disc, and proceeded to erase and burn a new updated version on the same disc.. very impressive.
  Unfortunately, as soon as rebooted my laptop with the Recovery Disc and i put an ip address on the interface (i am not running DHCP on my network) i wasn't able to connect to the computer containing the backup, due to some kind of authentication error.. so no matter what i did, i wasn't able to get past this hurdle.. so i am left with a complete computer backup i am not able to access..
  Imagine, how would you feel if you computer died and you weren't be able to restore, thanks to Symantec buggy software, despite having an entire backup of it???
  
  What is the point of all the countless fancy features if this product fails at its most useful feature.. which is to restore your computer's hardrive in case of failure?
  
  For all intents and purposes, Norton Ghost 14 is another piece of semi-functional software.. with partially working features, pretty much like every product Symantec makes...
  I don't recommend purchasing this product, unless you are somewhat computer literate and are able to get through the bugs that are present in this product.
  
  UPDATE 1: When i booted my laptop using the recovery disc, every time i tried to map the recovery point share on a computer on the network, i keep on getting the following error message: A specified logon session does not exist.
  After doing some online research, i was able to figure out how to fix this error by entering the name of the computer followed by the login name in the following format compname\username when prompted for a user / password to map the drive. I will post another update to see if recovery works as advertised.
  
  UPDATE 2: When i booted my laptop using the updated recovery CD, and i mounted the recovery point using the compname\username trick to authenticate, i was able to dump the entire laptop's drive image and do a full recovery. The catch is that i work on the field, and I was able to find out the solution on my own, but less savvy users will probably have to resort to having to call Symantec, etc etc, so when you purchase this product expect to spend some time making it work and make sure you TEST the recovery process if you can.. because the last thing you want to find out is that your recovery process doesn't work when you really need it.
  
  UPDATE 3: I tried to create a backup of my Windows 2000 Dell laptop.. but Norton Ghost 14 doesn't support Windows 2000.. so beware.
  
  UPDATE 4: Unlike Norton's disastrous Save and Restore, Ghost doesn't go on the internet and check the serial number every time you install it on a computer, I know this after i installed my copy of Save and Restore one too many times to one of my 4 computers and the serial number became "blacklisted" and the product ended up in the garbage can.
  
  This good news means that if you want want to make backups of multiple computers, you can just purchase ONE copy of Norton Ghost.
  
  

• Great for Backing Up Files

  
  By A3V6Z4RCDGRC44 on 2008-07-13
  
  Norton Ghost is in essence backup software for those who did not get an operating system that already has backup software on it. That being said, even though I'm running Vista Ultimate, I decided to give Ghost a try to see what it offered.
  
  I actually like Ghost a great deal. I found the interface to be easy to set up, and the alerts that it is doing its duty each night is very reassuring. I haven't had any problems with getting the files back again.
  
  Now I do have to say that I would NOT ever try to restore an entire operating system from old backup files. My home PC is running a number of large, complex software packages. If I had some sort of catastrophic hard drive failure, I would start from scratch, install those software packages fresh, and just get my data files from the backup. I imagine some small home users might enjoy the idea of restoring an entire system but for me it's just not reasonable. I have hardware level protection, but if the system really does hose, I'm starting from scratch to ensure everything goes on fresh and clean.
  
  So if your aim is to have your entire computer including OS and programs backed up, I'd look more into hardware level (RAID etc) protection to give you the security you're seeking. I realize Ghost says it can do it - but there are so many variables and issues involved that it can't be fool-proof. I would really only use this (and any back up software) to back up data files that are changing. Organize your data files so that they are stored logically, then back them up nightly. You can always re-install Word - but you can't re-install your diary files and important correspondence.
  
  Now, that being said, why go with Ghost rather than say Vista Ultimate? I happen to love Vista Ultimate and haven't had any issues with it at all. I love its functionality, and it's run super smoothly with all my software. But if you're someone who wants to run an OS without a built in back up, I would definitely go with this to supplement. You want backups. Somehow computers know when you are NOT backing up, and that is when they choose to crash. Don't subject yourself to that pain. Whatever you go with, make sure you are backing up your data files.
  
  
  
• Worst Backup Program Ever
  By A1VUN4JU731CBH on 2008-03-31
  Norton Ghost 14.0 was the first time that I tried Ghost. Previously, I had used Backup MyPC, Genie, and NovaBackup (my most recent backup program). I have never ever run into as many problems with any of these programs as I have with Norton Ghost. Although quite happy with NovaBackup, I was seduced by the good-looking user interface and screen shots of Ghost so I decided to give it a try with my brand-new, week-old Dell xps M1330 notebook running Vista Home Premium.
  
  The trouble already started with attempting to create a customized Symantec Recovery Disk. It took me an hour and required a restart of my system in order to get this to work. The error messages that popped up just informed me that "no writeable media" were found in my DVD RW drive - although they were there. Symantec's website did not offer a single solution for this. Only a restart finally took care of it. Afterwards the disk was created without a problem. So far so good albeit exhausting and time-consuming...
  
  Next, I attempted to create my first backup. I had hooked up an external Western Digital 60 GB Passport drive for that purpose. The first screen told me that my backup would not fit on that drive without compression and that I could adjust the compression level in the next step. Fine by me. However, what was offered was only None (as in no compression), Standard, Medium, and High. Nowhere could I find which compression level would be sufficient in order to get this backup file on my drive.
  
  So I tried them all. Needless to say, that this took a long time but the result was always the same: All of a sudden I got another error message, stating "The Remote Procedure Call Failed". Not that this is a very user-friendly message in the first place, but at least this time I found a solution on the Symantec website. Meanwhile it was late afternoon and I had been busy with all of this since the morning.
  
  So I printed the solution and then went to work implementing it - this actually involved entering commands on the DOS level! But again I did not get very far because the command I was supposed to enter involved switching to Symantec folders which did not exist. Thus another DOS error message, stating that the folders entered could not be found.
  
  At which point I threw up my hands in the air, uninstalled Norton Ghost 14.0 and humbly went back to my faithful NovaBackup program.
  
  
  
  
  
• Useful But Not Stunningly So
  By A2Y739CRM15WDL on 2008-04-17
  I consider myself has having average computer skills. In the early 90's I used to regard an afternoon chasing an IRQ conflict as good fun. Half the fun of new peripheral was the weekend spent getting it to play nice with Windows 3.11. But there comes a point---
  
  I installed Norton Ghost 14 (I had in the past used Non-Symantic ghost
  to transfer a drive image and an earlier version-- much earlier
  version-- of Norton Ghost to back up a work computer-- I think I
  probably still have a 25 CD backup set somewhere although the computer
  is long gone. Recently however, I have been backing up the essential
  files on my computers to a partition on a 500 GB hard drive, scheduled
  to synchronize in the wee hours of the morning. However, I have always
  been a belt and suspenders sort of person when it comes to my data.
  
  When I first installed Ghost it let me know at once that I had a
  problem with my RAM. Instead of the 518 MB I had last week, it
  detected 448 MB. A quick check of my system shows that Ghost was
  correct although there apparently is a bug that can cause the RAM to
  show less. I think that probably having the minum RAM necessary is a
  bad idea. It allowed me to complete the install but warned me that
  certain resources may not work due to the RAM issue.
  
  I then ran the driver validation and discovered that two of my drivers
  were not available in the Symantic, one was a USB Linksys Wireless-G
  USB network adapter. The second was a Packet Scheduler Miniport.
  Neither essential to getting a computer up and running after a disaster
  so I save the log as text file to deal with later.
  
  I'm not going through all of the various parts of the program because
  there are a lot of features, but I would urge everyone who buys this to
  check the Read.me file for known bugs and conflicts.
  
  UPDATE: Had I only known then what I know now-- some weeks and one hard drive format later I have to say that I think I was too sanguine about this program. My computer began to act up with mysterious slow downs and restarts. I run pretty good antivirus, spyware and malware protection , in addition to using Firefox with No Script (Java, Active X, and Flash off). However, I began to worry that something might have got through and infected my machine, so I took it for a look-see. They couldn't figure it out-- or didn't want to spend much time figuring it out so I just had them reformat my harddrive-- just shoot me next time I let someone else work on my computer.
  
  Luckily I had my second back up so I was able to save most of my important files because Norton Ghost 14.0 sure didn't restore.
  
  
• Ok if you are an IT professional
  By AZRJH4JFB59VC on 2008-04-17
  As an IT professional I can make Norton Ghost perform the tasks I want it to do. I was able to backup my internal 100GB hard drive to my external 500GB drive without too much difficulty. I have never found a product that does a good job with backing up everything, including the OS, and restoring it good as new with little effort, so I wasn't too surprised to see that this product fails in that area too.
  
  Personally, I think people are better off using WinZip to backup critical data to an external medium than using something as hard to use as Norton Ghost. Just expect that when your HD dies, you'll need to get a new one, format it, load the OS and your apps from source media, then restore your files from the WinZip backup files. This approach is FAR more reliable than supposed one-step solutions like this one.
  
  
  
• Great for VMWare Users; So-So for Backup
  By A3MLKJ1HHA2SX0 on 2008-04-22
  In this digital age you would think that everyone would know the value of a good backup -- unfortunately, for most of us we don't realize what electronic assets we have on our hard drives and computers until they are gone. Backing up is one of the "chores" that many home users simply don't do. The problem isn't that people don't recognize the danger, they simply don't want to take the time and effort. People want something simple and easy -- Norton Ghost, unfortunately, doesn't quite fit into this category.
  
  Norton Ghost is an Enteprise-level product that has been brought to the consumer market. THe idea behind it is that you take ghost images of your hard drives and then can restore them anywhere -- even move them to a new computer. Unfortunately, while this gives you SOME protection, it is not an ideal way for you to be backing up your system on a daily basis. You'll only be able to restore to that point-in-time ghost image, which could be months out of date, should the need arise.
  
  On the other hand, the one area where Norton Ghost shines is in its ability to help move physical machines to virtual machines through its ability to convert the ghost images to VMWare disk images. For companies and individuals who are getting onto the virtualization bandwagon, they will find Norton Ghost a treat and much better than P2V provided by VMWare.
  
  In short, it's a so-so backup program and an A+ VMWare conversion program. I honestly think Symantec would sell more copies marketing for VMWare than for backups.
  
  
  
• almost ready for prime-time....
  By A1KEK09ZA6J9P8 on 2008-04-17
  Here is our review on the Norton Ghost 14. As I reap the benefits of not losing data and having a back-up system in place, but have no technical experience, I'm calling on my techie husband (he's a professional IT guy) to give you the technical run-down from a pro's view:
  
  Want the ability to preserve those treasured photos or the video of the baby's first steps? Need to recover the computer from a specific time and day when it was working correctly? Then you'll want to checkout Symantec's Norton Ghost 14.
  Norton installed without any problem. I set it to back up the entire Photo directory (30gb) which it completed without any problems. The user interface is clean and easy to manage backups by date and time. The scheduling feature is great for those unattended weekly backups. Ghosting the entire drive to another drive (160 gb to a 500 gb in about 1 hr, both SATA), the process completed, but the O/S kept trying to register itself with Microsoft as if it were installed for the first time (yes, even after the original primary drive was removed from the system). I didn't have this problem with the stand alone version of Ghost 2003 (requires boot disk). Recovery point(s) work like file folders, each backup becomes a recovery point with all the data from the backup stored in the folder. This is handy if changes were made to the system between backup and something went wrong. Just go to the last working restore point and you are back in business. This suite of backup and restore tools are great to have on hand for any system as they are easy to use, easy to install, and provide a easy to follow approach to managing system maintenance.
  
  
  
• Norton Ghost 14... downhill battle
  By A1U79HCVPEJN8N on 2008-09-10
  I had previously used Norton Ghost product in older versions (around Ghost 5 or so). Recently my parent's computer had a hard drive crash. After successfully diagnosing the problem and correcting it, I decided not to trust it in the future... and that I would ghost the old drive to a new, larger drive.
  
  I had a limited amount of time, and wanted to get the now running PC returned, so I went over to the Norton site and paid full price for a download version of the software.
  
  Ghost 14 is very different than the older versions. First, it installs several services on your system. Second it comes with an iso image for a "recovery cd." The "recovery cd" has no ability to copy a drive. The only way to do it is through the windows drive copy function. Well, I tried this several times and the imaged drive would not boot into windows, and it froze before reaching the welcome screen. After several attempts at re-imaging I gave up and made a few phone calls. One of my friends came over with a CD boot disc made from Acronis which worked flawlessly on the first try.
  
  It seems I've wasted $80 on some useless software. This might be okay if you are looking for a program to automatically backup files to a second or external drive... but there's freeware programs that do that just fine without the need for all the services. PASS on Ghost 14.
  
  
• Cumbersome to use and doesn't seem to do all it says
  By A11B61QBGHLQDN on 2008-03-24
  After a slow, cumbersome process, I backed up my computer to the D: drive, but I have not been able to produce a dvd/rw backup of even the my documents files. It will not back up to the dvd or cd drive, which I thought is one of the uses for this software. I don't think the software or the instructions are very user friendly. At this point, I cannot say how it works to restore data.
  
  
• Cumbersome but not Useless
  By A34VCCL1YO6D0I on 2008-03-28
  I have used Ghost for nearly 10 years now and in the enterprise environment it was always the quickest and easiest way to backup, restore, deploy, image, recover, you name it. Well this little version is a bit different. On the cover and according to the specs it is very powerful. The problem is it is cumbersome and not intuitive at all. I had a great deal of difficulty getting it to properly work off Windows PE or using any sort of non-standard configuration.
  
  It is still Ghost and it is still useful but I think they really need to get back to basics for the next version.
  
  
• Some good tools but not user friendly
  By A2SRVDDDOQ8QJL on 2008-04-02
  I can still remember how much I liked Norton Utilities years ago. Some of that still shows through here because when I boot my system from the CD I get access to some very nice tools (including an excellent partition editor, virus scan, internet access and all my drives are visible). The disk-to-disk copy tool is also very handy if you are migrating an entire hard drive to another hard drive (AKA disk imaging).
  
  The backup application is badly lacking. For starters it operates very slowly. Every operation, no matter how trivial, takes a long time to complete. Further, when I tried to create a Recovery Disk or LightsOut Restore I got an "Error EC950008" for which Symantec currently has no solution.
  
  Perhaps the most annoying thing of all is that you cannot easily select files within a folder. You can either select a whole folder or a single file but you can't go into a folder and just use checkboxes to select files. This is something EMC Retrospect has and I think it is absurd that a backup tool would lack that functionality. For purely backup purposes I'd recommend Retrospect Express over Norton Ghost.
  
  
• Excellent for Auto-back-ups
  By A3NM1MT3Q2FHXV on 2008-04-08
  Norton Ghost is ideal for people who can't trust themselves to regularly back-up their data as well as for those who want to create restore points for their systems. You can schedule daily back-ups and/or restore points. There is a great deal of flexibility regarding exactly what data is automatically backed up including backing up only your documents or your entire hard drive and I recommend anyone who purchases this software take the time to customize the settings to make sure that they are backing up everything they need. It'll save you from being disappointed later when it seems Ghost missed making a copy of something crucial.
  
  One point to keep in mind about Ghost is that it runs rather sluggishly on older machines. My PC is a single processor 1.8 Ghz consumer model with a decent amount of memory and it takes a very long time for the application to launch when I wanted to alter settings (such as the scheduled time for back-ups). For a back-up utility application, I think it's a bit on the piggish side and that's why I deducted one star from my rating. Also, if I attempted to do some other tasks while Ghost was backing up, my computer ran slowly so those that use it on older machines would be better off setting the back up time for some time when they are away from their computers.
  
  
• Kind of slow to load
  By ANOBZWKE25SBY on 2008-04-08
  I am pretty clueless when it comes to the inner-workings of my computer. Like my car, I just want to turn it on and have everything work without incident. I loaded Norton Ghost and though it was slow and aggravating (at one time, I thought I loaded it incorrectly and tried reloading geting errors). It finally worked, though I experienced a couple bugs and infamous user errors the first couple days. It's been a couple weeks and seems to be running fine now.
  
  
• Horrible Product
  By A17RBU1FUZEOBV on 2008-04-11
  This software has yet to work for me. It stops at around 55% complete back up. No easy technical support. Bad. Bad. Bad.
  
  
• *Sigh* Too many headaches
  By A28CCN6VYHRUKS on 2008-04-13
  Let me first say that I have used Norton's products for years. I currently have Norton's 360 on my PC.
  
  However, Norton Ghost is by far the worst Norton product I have ever tried. For starters it seem Norton isn't even sure what they want it to do. It doubles up on some of what 360 offers and makes for confusing choices in what to use when they overlap.
  
  Secondly, in what should be a straight forward program the interface is anything but. There are needless prompts and commands when a more simplistic design would have worked much better.
  
  start-up is a pain. It seems to take forever for the program to "turn on". Instalation is also a little bit of a hassle as is customer support. I needed to call CS once and I got nothing close to the help I needed. I finally became so frustrated at the 'help' that I hung up and went searching for answers. Finally I stumbled across an internet forum (not associated with Norton) and they helped me get it to work properly. Once I got it working it refused to back-up 100% stopping three times between 50% and 65%.
  
  I finally gave up, uninstalled it from my computer and put it under the desk. This program may work for some, but you will probably need an advanced computer degree and hours of free time. For me it was not worth the headache.
  
  
• New Look for an Old Friend
  By A2BZCHIDR5FTYA on 2008-04-13
  For those familiar with Ghost from versions past, you may experience a bit of early confusion with the interface. But that won't last long. Norton did a good job of taking a very powerful backup utility and making it user friendly.
  
  Ghost 14 includes many helpful features such as recovery point scheduling, multiple restore options, and of course full drive copying to/from local sources or network ones. It also includes support for Google Desktop which I do not have, so can't really comment on.
  
  This would have been a full 5 star product if not for the documentation which seems somewhat inadequate for the number of features the application has.
  
  Reviewed by Detra Fitch of Huntress Reviews
  
  
• One possible choice to manage hard drive backups
  By AEWYUPCNDV7HY on 2008-04-17
  I recently lost my entire hard drive after 362 days of use. Incredibly, I was able to bring it in to Best Buy (even though it was purchased at Sam's Club) and they fixed it for me under warranty. The downside of it was they asked if I had backed up my hard drive, and even offered to reinstall everything if I had the backup. Unfortunately, I did not. I was so sad to see hundreds of MP3's, photos, advertising, and marketing materials vanish in an instant.
  
  Now if I only had Norton Ghost this would not have been a problem. When I had the opportunity to try this product out I jumped on it, never wanting the above scenario to play out again. I immediately created a full backup of my entire hard drive and slept a little better that night.
  
  When I started up Norton Ghost again it asked me to create the full hard drive back up again! This was because I had run a "one time backup" rather than creating a backup that would include a recovery point. Okay, so 38 CD's times 2 later I now I have a full backup of my system and a full backup with a recovery point. Word of advice: buy an external hard drive to manage your backups. It will make your life so much easier.
  
  The software is slightly confusing to use, it certainly could have included a wizard to guide non-experts. I would have liked an interface that asked me questions and defined a backup plan for me based upon my answers.
  
  On the positive side, the software installed quickly and easily, and the backups run in the background with little overall system slowdown.
  
  
• Didn't work
  By A2OSF4TMF58197 on 2008-06-02
  All I can say is it plain didn't work. All I wanted to do was a simple system backup to a new hard drive and replace the old one with the new one. The system would not boot with thew new drive. Tried the same process with a free download of a different software and it worked with no problems at all.
  
  Norton/Symantec is allowing feature creep to destroy their products. Hey Norton!... users want products that are simple and effective.
  
  
• Norton 14.0 Recovery disk has no 64X drivers for Vista Business
  By A2H477UXRUS7UG on 2008-07-05
  When creating a system recovery disk, I received a message stating that the 32 bit drivers included in the system recovery disk would not be usable to reboot my system. This was good to know. I was then presented with the option to create a custom recovery disk and tell Norton where to find the drivers that I wanted to add to my recovery disk. I will let you know how that works, once I figure out where the drivers reside on my system. I am pretty sure they reside in c:\windows\sysWOW64\drivers but when I browsed that folder there were just a few files and I know there are many more drivers required to reboot my system to the point I can restore a backup.
  
  The reason I purchased Ghost was because I read so many bad reviews about the built in backup system for Windows operating systems. I am thinking it may be time to give the built in system for Vista Business 64X a try and not waste any more time trying to get Norton 14.0 to work. I was surprized to see how many other people are having diffculty using this product.
  
  
• norton
  By A1PCYAHFDDMGJZ on 2008-11-04
  WARNING to anyone thinking about buying this product! Please understand that you will not be buying this product only RENTING it. If you do not renew every year the product stops working....COMPLETELY! I'm not just talking about updates, etc. It actually tells you that it has stopped working and it won't work unless you renew. I have just wasted more than 2 hours with Norton's online tech support. This is the case with ALL Norton products and I am quoting the tech.
  
  
• Symantec is a winner
  By A2LL1JNON3D337 on 2008-03-08
  Given the amount of spamming, and garbage filled on the internet, it is very obvious that all the anti-virus, anti-spam, recovery, backup softwares have grown in their disk/memory foot print.
  Which software does not have bugs ? It cannot be found on this earth anyways.
  Any symantec product is always a best seller, if you look at the price it sells.
  If it was as crappy as many people say it is, symantec products would never have sold at the prices they sell at.
  I think Norton Ghost is one of the best you can find in today's markets.
  I always use Norton products, and this is my latest buy also.
  
  
  
• Not a Ghost of a chance
  By AMUP8DYE7EAN2 on 2008-04-01
  Until updates are distributed, this version of the software will not see the light of the laser on the DVD drive of my primary computer. I have a NVIDIA graphics card... I have Norton 360.2 security...I have a Western Digital HD... I have Vista Ultimate...I have paranoia. But not nearly so much that I will willingly and intentionally play hopscotch in a mine field. The readme file for this version includes 5 pages of known issues including a final page highlighting incorporated third party applications that do not include Vista manifests. Another page lists known issues with uninstallation. Generally, I like Norton 360 but there are a few compromises in the back-up capabilities of the product that I thought I could circumvent with Ghost 14. Not going to happen until LiveUpdate delivers some critical patches, and BTW, LiveUpdate is one of the requisite features of this installation that may complicate subsequent removal.
  
  Anyway, the installation procedure is reasonably benign excluding the infuriating consistency of Symantec products failing to recognize each other. LiveUpdate was already running in the background, resulting in a system freeze when this install attempted to initiate a second occurrence. After a re-boot, the display went to black and I had to power off/on again and startup took more than 10 minutes. Driver validation started automatically at the outset of the install and apparently was without incident since warning messages or prompts were not evident. I was testing on an 8 year old CPU without a writeable CD drive so I could not create a recovery disk locally and attempting to create one across the network on my other machine is another step I refuse to take.
  
  Backwards compatibility is not a utility that I think manufacturers should be obliged to warrant or necessarily include in new versions of software but if it is so represented the software should exceed marginal functionality. Ghost can be installed on an XP CPU with 256mb Ram but it is not much of an asset. Use of the Symantec recovery disk requires at least 512MB and LightsOut restore, 1GB. I was able to create image and incremental backups to a networked HD but it took nearly two hours for each one. If I remain fortunate, I will never know if any level recovery is possible, but I really don't know if my home insurer is bonafide either. ThreatCon is another new feature that triggers initiation of a back-up whenever a pre-specified threat level is detected while surfing the internet. So far as I can determine, this is Symantec's version of cybernet Homeland Security.
  
  On the plus side, at least there is a physical user's guide...
  
  
  
• No Longer the Cream of the Crop
  By A2E2PA6UNK1E05 on 2008-04-08
  As a longtime user of Ghost (going back to the DOS days), I realize old habits can die hard but there is a point we all have to take a good hard look. Most software works best when it focuses on a particular task and does it extremely well - a strategy that had served all the Norton family products well for years. Unfortunately, like Microsoft with Windows, Symantec has sought to make its software all things to all people and has become a jack of all trades that is master of none.
  
  With this edition of Ghost, Symantec is trying too hard to load it down with every bell and whistle and fold in less successful product lines to the extent that functions can seem redundant and you may not be sure you are doing what you think you are doing. There is a humorous component in becoming a perfect complement to the equally overblown Windows Vista, but the joke may be lost on someone trying to recover precious lost data.
  
  This is not to say it is an awful product. It worked on both machines I tested once I figured out the purpose of all the features but the classic Ghost software was the stuff of legend - easy to use, intuitive, and flawless in execution. Against such high standards this bloatware is disappointing but still functional once you get used to it.
  
  
• Backup Function Works
  By A1QVFHPY8418HC on 2008-04-12
  Let me preface this review by saying (1) I am wary of Norton products because I have found them to be a lot of bloatware (such as their anti virus and utilities programs which over the years became increasingly poor in quality) and (2) I was wary of trying Ghost because of the other reviews I read.
  
  So why did I try it? Because it came free with Amazon Vine and I needed a backup program.
  
  The program itself was easy enough to install on Windows XP. It was also simple to schedule a backup; you can choose to back up your entire drive, selected portions that are already listed (such as MyDocuments) or you can browse and select what you want to back up.
  
  The backup function seems to work fine. I have not tried to restore any backed up files yet, however. I am assuming they have been properly backed up on an external drive.
  
  As for the other features of this software, I did not use any of them because of the other reviews and my fear of something going awry. When I used to use Norton Utilities and Anti-Virus, they caused my computer to slow to a crawl because of all the unnecessary things they do automatically, trying to be overly helpful and fancy. That is what this version of Ghost seems to be, also - too fancy.
  
  All I wanted was a basic backup program that runs on a user-defined schedule and backs up user-defined files. This software fits the bit for those needs. It is not worth the steep price, however.
  
  
• Ghost Story
  By A2MW90O3P2GOO5 on 2008-04-15
  As I've noted elsewhere, I am not one of the world's great computer mavens. Therefore I can only offer a very "lay" opinion. But, in that context, Ghost 14.0, the follow-up to 12, apparently (and REALLY, are we still all such victims of triskadeckaphobia (sic)... REALLY?) seems to be evertything its creators claim. It installs easily; backs up what its supposed to (and some things you wouldn't even think of) and "feels" just about right in giving the user confidence in its capabilities. What more can one want?
  
  
• Works Well Except for the Conversion to Virtual Disk Format
  By A13700AF4X40YG on 2008-04-15
  Norton Ghost is a program that let's you back up your computer in the following ways:
  
  1. Drive based backup: Backups the complete disk drive. This is my choice... if the hard disk fails, I can put in a new drive and get the system back in less than an hour. I also use this type of back up to refresh my system every few months... I install a new copy of Windows and all of my basic software, run a backup and anytime my system gets junked up and running slow, I just restore it back.
  
  2. File and folder based backup: This backs up selected files and folders. Faster backing up but a lot longer to get a crashed system restored. You have to reinstall windows and all of your software before restoring the data.
  
  3. Drive copy: Very useful when you want to upgrade your hard disk to a larger one.
  
  Ghost also has some nice features:
  
  1. The ability to backup to another hard disk or a network drive.
  
  2. The option to create a recovery disk specific to your computer. This option creates a CD or DVD with the drivers from your computer that will boot it so that you can run Ghost to recover your hard disk. You can create a generic one, but the specific one is much safer.
  
  3. The option to back up another computer from yours (assuming your connected via a network).
  
  4.Conversion to a Virtual Disk format: This is not a backup but something you do to a backup. This converts a drive based backup to an image that can be run in VMware or Microsoft's Virtual Server. If you don't know what it is, you don't need it (and most people don't). This is the one function that didn't work for me. I tried to load a Vista image in VMware and after a load of messages about Vista configuring things, it crashed.
  
  Conclusion:
  
  As is typical with Symantec products, It works and works well (except for the Virtual Disk format using VIsta and VMware). The software is fairly easy to use, but if you're new to this type of software you will need to read the manual.
  
  
• Beware if you're looking for an easy solution.
  By A2JCJJNY43QQIV on 2008-04-16
  I truly wish I could say this was easy software to use, or that it worked. I got it to restore the operating system of a failed hard drive in a Dell laptop...needless to say, the laptop is still conked out.
  
  But if I was looking to be aggravated, this software worked like a charm. It's got tons of bells and whistles, but none that actually worked in restoring the hard drive.
  
  Listen to the posters here and pass on this if you're looking for operating system help. There are better and easier solutions, and you'll avoid the migraine that is part of the package.
  
  

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