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Symantec Norton Ghost 2003

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9 User Reviews

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• Reviewed by: Anthony008

  Updated: 07-11-07

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

  Strengths: Clear, step-by-step instruction. Back up entire hard disk or individual partitions. Works with Win 98, Win 2000, Win XP. CD and DVD containing the backup is automatically made bootable.

  Weaknesses: Doesn't work with Windows Vista. But that isn't really a weakness as this software was written in 2003.

  Overall Evaluation: I didn't try the backup to a hard disk. I only tried the backup to a CD/DVD writer both connected internally and externally. The internal method (connected to a IDE controller) works so smoothly. The external method (connected to a USB port using a SATA/IDE to USB converter), even though meant to be more convenient in some situations, requires some care. Here's the tricky part: when Ghost restarts the computer in DOS, the DVD burner cable can not be plugged into the USB port, because it causes the computer to hang up. So before Ghost restarts in DOS, unplug the DVD burner cable from the USB port, and then plug it back in when you see the message "Starting PC DOS..." on the black-n-white screen. From that point on, it will work without any problems. The external method doesn't work on older machines with CPU speed of 500mhz, though. In my own opinion, Ghost is better than Acronis in professionalism, quality, thinking, and language expression. It's the solid product to own. If you have some DOS knowledge, you should have no problem using Ghost. If so many people can do it, you simply can not be an exception.

• Reviewed by: lenras

  Updated: 02-19-05

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:3 Years

  Strengths: Disk Cloning and backup capabilities

  Weaknesses: None

  Overall Evaluation: Have used Norton Ghost 2002 and 2003 for the last several years for disk cloning and backup on CD's and DVD's. Never had a problem, always ran flawlessly. It has been GREAT!!

• Reviewed by: Nobesnickr

  Updated: 07-27-04

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:2 Weeks

  Strengths: Great options that you cantu use

  Weaknesses: Crashes everytime i try and run. Support was useless and wasted time.

  Overall Evaluation: Generel Exception Error 36000!!! Brand new system with brand new backup equipment and software cannot make it work. VERY disappointed in Symantec, as their other products are highly praised. Get you **** together, please!

• Reviewed by: AlexanderAkulick

  Updated: 07-25-04

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:12 Months

  Strengths: It has a number of backup options and all work perfectly.

  Weaknesses: None, other than you must read the provided documentation to use it.

  Overall Evaluation: Oddly, Ghost 2003 comes packaged with System Works Professional 2004. This is quite possibly because, the product does work so well, improvement was not needed. I use it with all my networked XP system computers and it works flawlessly from my 4-1/2 year old Pentium III (800 MHz.)with its 30 and 80 Gb. hard drives (768 Mb. of memory) to my AMD 3000+ running at 2.249 GHz. with its four 80 Gb. hard drives and 1.5 Gb. of memory. It is also running excellent on an AMD 1800+ overclocked from stock to 2.0 GHz. with its 10 and 160 Gb. system drives and 256 Mb. of memory. For those that do not comprehend instruction well, Ghost will be a problem but so will any other program that provides like functions. This is not a click and save program in all applications as it requires the user to interact during the system save or copy and again during its use during a system repair using it. But then no one ever said just because you have some computer time its use would be a left or right mouse click away. Norton provides full documentation in the software which does fully explain its operation and all options. Don't buy this if you have problems with System Restore and commands in Windows - your just not ready for it. When you are, it works great! I use both the stand alone Ghost and the System Works Professional utility version, and both install easily performing as they should. Back up to a DVD or CDs RW/R and restoring from whichever is really simple if done correctly. Cloning drives and using Peer to Peer backup/restore are just two more of its functions. UPDATE 11/26/04: Ghost itself remains unchanged yet again for 2005, but the 2005 version includes new added features that are unavailable on the 2003 and 2004 versions.

• Reviewed by: tsmith35

  Updated: 07-24-04

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:6 Years

  Strengths: Easy to use, supports external drives (even firewire!), extremely powerful.

  Weaknesses: Not for folks who have trouble getting around on a PC. Does require knowledge of hard drives, partitioning, logical disks.

  Overall Evaluation: We've used Ghost for years and years now. It's used by many companys' IT groups to quickly and easily duplicate a pre-configured PC's setup and software to multiple PCs throughout the company.Fantastic for moving from an old PC to a new PC without having to go through and set everything up from scratch. Works great for full disk or full partition backups, even to external or removable drives.

• Reviewed by: a155mm

  Updated: 06-01-04

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:12 Days

  Strengths: It can be returned

  Weaknesses: There isn't enough space

  Overall Evaluation: I am an advanced user (EE) and RTFM a number of times. It is just poorly designed software from the start. After crashing my home system it also crashed every other system it was installed on. Who ever said it was the user's fault works for Symantec.

• Reviewed by: arstrube

  Updated: 08-22-03

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:1 Days

  Strengths: Can't comment, as it didn't work at all

  Weaknesses: Crashes.

  Overall Evaluation: Under Windows 2000 on a Dell Inspiron 4000, it installs fine and the Interface comes up, but that's it. After this, every one of its functions crashes with a unspecified error, if you look into the log file, it's a division by zero. I didn't bother with trying to find the cause. I downloaded the latest update with LiveUpdate. Same result. Uninstalled and returned the software. I used Ghost 2001 and will probably continue to use it, it works well, only thing is that it will not close CD-RWs on my drive. So I'll have to continue wasting CDs.... The trouble is, there doesn't seem to be a single disaster recovery tool with four or five star reviews (e.g. that works) I used

• Reviewed by: Glenn2PB

  Updated: 08-13-03

  Overall Rating: 5 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:3 Years

  Strengths: Fastest most compatiable BACKUP and RESTORE! About 10 minutes per GB.

  Weaknesses: DOS interface is a little awkward, but it's DOS.

  Overall Evaluation: I have never had a problem with Ghost. I have Ghosted with all version of Ghost since ~98. On Win98,ME,2k,XP using FAT16,FAT32,NTFS >To> HDD, CDR, P2P and Mapped Networked, Virtual Image. Never had a problem except my human error. Usually the only failure is to Read The Fine Manual. RTFM I recommend partition backups over full HDD for compatibility restores. (To the newer bigger drive.)

• Reviewed by: jeffscottleen

  Updated: 09-28-02

  Overall Rating: 1 Star Review

  Duration of ownership:2 Days

  Strengths: One of the only software packages that will clone a complete hard disk

  Weaknesses: It doesn't work... and phone support costs $29.99 per call, almost as much as the software itself! Online help is useless despite their list of awards.

  Overall Evaluation: I am an advanced intermediate user and downloaded Ghost 2003 from Symantec 2 days ago. It installed fine under WinXP. However, when I try to clone my hard disk, whether to another internal IDE hard drive, CD-RW drive, or external USB 2.0 hard drive, it crashes. I was told the error message (general exception 36000) is "machine specific" and could be due to practically any cause. Big, big help. Fifty bucks blown. Now, I'll take it up with my credit card. *UPDATE: Symantec honored 60 day moneyback guarantee and cancelled charge.

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