Preparing to Create an ImageCenter
Image File
1. Run a disk utility program to identify and repair any errors on your hard disk.
2. Run a disk defragmenting utility to further optimize your hard drive.
3. In the BIOS, disable virus detection.
4. In the PreOS environment, verify the availability of the destination drive where you want to save the image.
Creating an ImageCenter Image
1 Boot to the ImageCenter PreOS environment from a DeployCenter boot package you have created, and at the ImageCenter main screen, click Create Image.
If you have more than one hard drive in your computer, the Select Source Drive screen is displayed.
2 Select the disk you want to create an image of.
3 Browse to the image file you want to restore and click Next.
You must save your image file to a partition that you are not including in your image file. You can click Browse to find the directory where you want to save the image file. Click Browse to select a CD-R or CD-RW drive because you cannot just type the CD-R drive letter to save an image to CD. CD drives are displayed in the list as \\.\pqcdx\name of drive, where x is the number of the CD drive.
If you are planning to restore the image by running ImageCenter from the rescue diskettes, you must save the image to a FAT, FAT32, or NTFS partition. To save an image to a hidden FAT partition or to an NTFS or FAT32 partition that has not been assigned a drive letter, click Browse to display the New Image File dialog box. From the New Image File dialog box, select the image. A hidden FAT partition or an NTFS or FAT32 partition is displayed in the Drives list as \\.\Diskn.Partm, where n is the number of the disk and m
is the number of the partition on that disk. For example, if an NTFS partition is the third partition on the first disk, the partition is displayed as
\\.\Disk1.Part3. To further identify the partition, the volume label, if
Creating an Image Using the
ImageCenter PreOS GUI
Specify source to image. 2
Enter desired path and image filename. 3
Specify imaging options. 4
Boot to ImageCenter PreOS environment. 1
Create image. 5
6 Important Notes:
– If you include spaces or extended characters in the filename, you may not be able to access the image file from ImageCenter, the DOS PreOS environment, or ImageExplorer.
– If you are creating an image on CD-RW media, the media must be empty but not formatted. You cannot save more than one image file to a single CD or create images on CDs that already contain other data.
You cannot save images to local Linux partitions.
Ensure that there is no existing file with the same name, unless you want the existing file to be overwritten. ImageCenter uses .PQI as the default image
filename extension.
If an image is split because it exceeds 2 GB in size or to span media, the first segment of the image file has the name you specify. Subsequent segments have the extensions .002, .003, and so on.
4 Specify imaging options.
a Select the desired compression level and click Next.
Be aware that if you create an image file that is larger than 2 GB, the file is automatically split into multiple files (segments).
› No Compression is usually the fastest method for creating an image file and is useful if storage space is not an issue. However, if you are saving your image file to a busy network drive or to a relatively slow
removable media device, high compression may be faster than no compression because there is less data to write to the file. ImageCenter selects No Compression by default.
› Low compression offers a 40 percent average compression ratio. › High compression offers a 50 percent average compression ratio. You cannot read compressed ImageCenter images with Symantec Drive Image or Drive Image Pro.
b (Optional) To split an image file into multiple files (for removable media), disable file system error-checking or SmartSector copying, password protect your image file, verify the integrity of the image file after it is created, or verify disk writes, click Advanced Options.
5 To create the image file, click Finish.
If you entered a name of a current file, ImageCenter displays a message that
path and filename already exists. You can replace the existing file or
choose a new filename. If you click Replace, the existing image file is immediately deleted.
If ImageCenter detects that you are saving your image file to a floppy drive or removable media, it enables a media-spanning feature that spreads the image file over a series of disks. You must have at least 128K of available space on each disk in the series. If you use the media-spanning feature, ensure that you number the disks in order because you must insert them in the correct sequence when restoring the image file.
Upon completion, the following message is displayed:
Image was copied successfully to file: image filename
If you created the image on CD media, the CD is bootable. If you experience a system crash that renders your computer unbootable, you can boot from the image CD and restore the image file to fix your system.
IMPORTANT: Because operating system conflicts can result from different
hardware configurations, you should not restore your image to a system that has different hardware.
6
Restoring an Image Using the Ghost PreOS GUI
To restore a disk from a Ghost image:
1 From a Ghost boot package you have created, boot to the Ghost PreOS environment.
2 Select the image you want to restore.
a On the Ghost main menu, select Local—>Disk—>From Image.
b Browse to and click the image file you want to restore.
The image file may reside on a local drive or on a locally mapped network file server. When using a peer-to-peer connection, the image file is located on the slave computer.
3 Specify the location to which you want to restore the image.
a In the Destination Drive dialog box, select the destination disk and then click OK.
Choose carefully because this is the disk that will be overwritten. The Destination Drive dialog box shows the details of every drive that Ghost finds on the local computer.
b In the Destination Drive Details dialog box, confirm or change the destination disk partition layout and click OK.
The Destination Drive Details dialog box shows a suggested partition layout for the destination disk. By default, Ghost tries to maintain the same size ratio between new disk partitions.
You can change the size of any target FAT, NTFS, or Linux Ext2/3 partition by entering the new size in megabytes.